Definitive Under The Tree Dining

A couple of weeks back I had the occasion to travel the old Sungei Udang – Masjid Tanah road in Melaka as I was visiting a customer in the vicinity. I had noticed this quaint shop located within remnants of a palm oil plantation by the roadside before but since they were usually at the other side of the road when I sped pass them; I usually do not take the extra effort to make a U-turn to give it a try. Nonetheless this time since we were early finishing and was making our own sweet time back to KL, I asked the driver to make the U-turn so that we can give it a try. First off you will notice the name of the establishment, Sawit Corner (Palm Oil Corner) which is literally true as it is located at a corner and you can easily miss it when speeding by. Secondly is that the place is no ordinary under the tree set up, with a kitchen building, cooking station stalls, wakaf or attap covered dining huts and a large zinc roof dining hall with large screen TV to boot in addition to tables scattered under the palm trees. They even have a koi fish pond in the middle of the set up to give it a Balinese feel. This is the best under the tree set up I have ever seen to date.

What I can see from the food stations are that they serve Portuguese style ikan bakar at night and Melaka style otak-otak in addition to a special large curry puffs called karipap Jeen, which I guess is a regular egg curry puff that can be usually had at the Ramadan bazaars. The regular menu meanwhile features nasi lemak with various accompaniments like organic village chicken, assam pedas rice set, fish head curry, malay noodles like mee rebus including mee rebus and fried dishes like nasi goring and such. As we were there just for a simple lunch, two of us opted for the nasi lemak with fried chicken while I ordered the mee rebus tulang (beef ribs) with side orders of fried vegetables and fried egg. For drinks we had cendol and I myself had the special durian cendol. I also ordered one set of otak-otak to be eaten as the appetiser that I ended up tapauing home an additional twenty pieces for the home as it was mildly spiced but delicious which the kids at home gave the thumbs up to. As for the mee rebus, it was a typical malay style mee rebus, the thin gravy belies its sweetness that comes more from the beef stock rather than sweet potato that is the norm for the mamak version. The beef ribs meanwhile was falling off the bone when you bite into it demonstrating that it has been slowly simmered for the stock for quite a while. My only complaint is that one portion is not enough for me, and at only RM4.50 per portion I will ask for seconds the next time I am there. As for the nasi lemak, they said it was delicious with a rather sweetish sambal but the chicken was fresh and not oily, yielding a nice bite. I guess I have to stop now as that was all we managed to have this time since I originally had no intention to review the place, but I am sure this will be a favourite spot for lunch whenever we are next in the area.