Queue on a Tengkera kerb for putu piring
Molten palm sugar, two bites each
A roadside stall at 252 Jalan Tengkera, steaming rice-flour cakes in stacked brass moulds and turning them out onto banana leaf with grated coconut. Evenings only, and there is a queue.
Why it's unique
Putu piring is a steamed rice-flour cake with a molten palm sugar centre, cooked over cloth in a stack of brass moulds and turned out onto banana leaf with grated coconut. The stall on Jalan Tengkera has been doing it for over thirty years and is a roadside queue rather than a shop.
The cake is made in Johor, Singapore and Penang too, so this is a state-level claim rather than a global one. What carries it is that this stall is the local institution and the sugar in the middle is gula Melaka, the palm sugar named after this state, which is the ingredient the whole thing is judged on.
Before you go
It opens at 6pm and shuts by 10pm, and it is closed on Sundays. Expect fifteen minutes to half an hour in the queue at weekends.
They cost a little over a ringgit each and you should buy at least six, because they are two bites and the palm sugar liquefies as you carry them. Eat them standing there: cold putu piring is a different and much worse thing. Cash, and it is halal.