Malaysia Food Review: Nancy’s Kitchen Nyonya Restaurant, Malacca

When I was in Melaka last year (we went twice because we liked it so much), I was very determined to eat as much laksa as I could. What do you know? One could eat laksa for breakfast, lunch and dinner after all! I did.

Let me blurb on a bit about the laksa that we got in Melaka. It is either the laksa lemak which is basically a noodle dish with curry soup with various ingredients such as fish balls, tofu puff, boiled eggs, fish, cucumber and laksa leaves (which are a kind of basil – I believe they are the same as what is known as Vietnamese mint here in Australia but I could be so wrong) or the assam laksa – with tamarind and fish soup base. Laksa are quite different depending where you go – in different states of Malaysia and Singapore, they are all slightly different. In Australia, laksa is always the laksa lemak. I personally don’t really like the assam laksa at all. I find it funny and fishy.

Anyway, suffice to say I had a lot of laksa and they were all fantastic. Of all the laksa I have had, I have to say Melaka is definitely the place for it. The laksa at Nancy’s Kitchen was relatively spicy with a good blend of crunch cucumber.

Josh ordered the house fried rice, which really was spicy. It had liberally amount of fresh chillis with the usual sambal balacan and the crunchy ikan billis (the small fish you deep fry and eat whole, excellent source of calcium). He picked out most of the chilli and still found it spicy though. I rather liked it but then I wasn’t such a pussy

We also ordered the top hat or kuih pai tee: which was basically a little crunchy cup (not dissimiliar to the won ton skin) filled with braised seng kuang (known in Australia as yam bean), eggs, chilli sauce, fried shallots and fresh coriander leaves. I first saw the dish in Melaka and have since seen it in Singapore as well. Never tried the Singapore version though. Nancy’s Kitchen’s version is pretty good.

And then there was its sister, the popiah or fresh spring rolls, which is spring roll skin wrapped with the same seng kuang mixture, some lettuce and chilli sauce. I’m sure there were other things in it but I don’t really know. For some reason, even thought it was made with almost the same ingredients as the top hats, I found the top hats to be much tastier. I have also had this popiah (there is also a Thai version of it which is quite different) in Singapore and I quite liked the Singapore version a bit more.

A shot from the shop front:

Nancy’s Kitchen Nyonya Restaurant, Jalan Hang Lekir (Off Jonker St.), Melaka, Malaysia.