Come again…

There is this coffee shop in the block of shophouses next to the medical centre where my mum was admitted into last week. If I remember correctly, the name is Hao Ke Lai or something like that and if I’m not mistaken, it means, “Good, come again!”  I would drive past frequently as this is one of the main routes to town and I often noticed that the place would be quite crowded most of the time. I  think a few years ago, I had the chap fan (economical mixed rice) once but did not like it very much so I never went back there again.

Well, the other day, since I was just next door, I dropped by again and had the kueh chap at one of the stalls there and it was quite good. I wouldn’t say it was the best in town but it was quite worth having, should you happen to be in that part of town, this much I would say. The following day, I ordered the pork noodles expecting it to be some sort of kway teow th’ng or what I had here but this was what I got…

Instead of whatever noodles that they normally use, I asked for what they would use for their kueh chap…and that was served with two chunks of very tender stewed pork, half a hard-boiled egg and some tauhu pok…

…but the soup was a bit too gingery and had too much Foochow ang chiew (red wine), so much so that it tasted something like what we would get when we have our traditional Foochow mee sua (longevity string/thread noodles). Don’t get me wrong though. It was good and people like Annie-Q would probably love it a lot, just that it did not turn out to be what I had expected.

Well, one thing I found out was that the chap fan stall also sells plain porridge and you can pick the condiments of the array of dishes that they have there – I think there must be at least 50 or more to choose from! Don’t be surprised to hear that I’ve gone back there one of these days just for that…