The king of fruits

It took us 6 weeks but we finally did it – on our last day in Malaysia we tried durian! Durian is big all over in Malaysia, but in Melaka it's everywhere. Piled up in fruit stalls, durian pastry shops, durian cendol, durian ice cream, durian shakes, you get the idea.

Our Malaysian cooking school teacher Ana warned us that you can criticize the government, say the transport sucks or that there's too much bureaucracy, but you better not say anything bad about "our durian".

In all our time spent in Asia, we've never tried durian. And anyone who's smelt it will know why. It's known for it's bad smell (we experienced the full force of this when we had to sleep next to a big box of them on our overnight train to Melaka) and so it's banned from a lot of hotels and public places. But Malaysians are obsessed with it, so we knew we'd have to try it.

The verdict

First of all we tried the fruit. The best way I can describe it is a kind of rich onion-flavoured custard. If this doesn't sound appealing, it's because it wasn't really (sorry Ana!). Actually, the fruit itself tasted much better than I was expecting and I probably would have had it again, if it wasn't for what happened next.

Next up we tried a 'one bite durian puff'. This seems to be something of a speciality in Melaka, we didn't see them anywhere else.

Fortunately there is no evidence of the face I pulled after eating this puff. The cream inside had a very strong durian flavour and there was just so much of it.

And with that I am officially done with durian!

Check out some much tastier Malaysian food experiences in my Melaka must eats and George Town street food guides.