Red House
After the not-so-fulfilling Satay Lok Lok‘s adventure, we decided to visit to the famous Red Building to continue our food hunting. We called our driver and he came over to pick us up in a jiffy! That’s the advantage and convenience of paying extra to have a dedicated driver for a small group.
The Red Building or Red Square (also known as Stadhuys in Dutch) is probably the oldest historical structure in Malacca and was built in 1650. Visitors come here in droves to take photos of this iconic building as it makes a good backdrop for nice photos. There are a row of souvenir stalls line outside the Red Building but I think they are mostly tourist traps.
There are many colourful trishaws plying their trade here. When the night falls, the trishaws will be all lighted up in flashing LED colours that surely catch the tourists’ attention! If the weather is too humid or you don’t feel like walking, the best thing to do is to hop onto a trishaw and let the friendly trishaw uncle brings you around Malacca.
Jonker Street Night Market
After the short stop at the Red Building, it’s about 7pm and we proceeded to the famous Jonker Street (also known as Jalan Hang Jebat) where the Jonker Walk Night Market opens for business. During day time, Jonker Street is a stretch of shop houses selling antiques, crafts, food and local produce. At night, the makeshift stalls will take over and line on each side of the street hawking all sorts of stuff you typically see in a night market.
Our driver dropped us at the start of Jonker Street where the Hard Rock Cafe is located. The building that stands out is a two-storey red shop house and it’s teeming with people. This shop house is called San Shu Gong (三叔公) and it sells all sorts of local delicacies – tidbits, biscuits, coffee powder, sauces, crackers, etc. We spent about 30 minutes there going through all the stuff and my wife bought 5 bottles of their shrimp paste chili for a friend who swears it’s the best she has ever tasted. I bought many 2-in-1 white coffee after sampled theirs and found the coffee to be very aromatic. Be careful that you may unwittingly load up your basket with all the goodies till you get a shock at the cashier. One good thing is the shop has a toilet on the second floor and it’s free to use. My advice is go to the toilet there before you start walking down Jonker Street as there isn’t any public toilets along the way.
The atmosphere in Jonker Walk Night Market is similar to the famous Taiwan Shilin Night Market. It’s crowded with locals and tourists. Noisy, stuffy, lots of food smells wafting around, interesting sights and we even spotted a martial art exponent showing off his Kungfu! It would have been perfect if the weather in Malacca was like Taiwan’s winter time – cooling and breezily. Thanks for the hot and humid weather, I was sweating profusely while walking along the Jonker Street.
Finally after 2 hours of walking, food sampling & souvenir shopping, we reached the end of Jonker Street. We didn’t buy much stuff except picking up some tidbits along the way. I bought a small packet of charcoal-grilled squid for RM$8 and it was tasty – literally can taste the freshness of the squid! The local arts and crafts, unfortunately, do not appeal to us. We called our driver and he picked us up after 30 minutes wait due to the heavy traffic. We all headed back to our hotel and ended our first day of the 2D1N Malacca weekend trip.
Jonker Street Night Market’s Opening Hours
Address: Jalan Hang Jebat, 75200 Malacca, Malaysia
Opening Hours: 6pm – 12am on Fridays to Sundays & Public Holidays.
Read on… Hoe Kee Chicken Rice Balls for lunch before returning Singapore
