When in Malacca, at the slightest opportunity, I'd buy bakcang or Zongzi 粽子, the Chinese rice dumpling made of glutinous rice stuffed with different fillings and wrapped in bamboo leaves, the one of the species Indocalamus tessellatus. One can find Chinese dumplings all over Malaysia but in Malacca, the birthplace of the Peranakan culture, the Baba and Nyonya make them with a difference. Back in Taiping, the dumplings are almost always brown in colour or yellow if they are kee chang, but in Malacca, they can be partly blue or totally blue. Of course, they use bunga telang to give the dumplings their distinctive blue colour.
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