He said she said…

A friend of mine, the same one who told me about the out-of-this-world Thai food at the café that would be closing down today or tomorrow or sometime soon, if it has not closed down yet, said that I should drop by this place…

…as they have some pretty nice stuff there. Well, that certainly is not a problem as it is, in fact, just round the corner from my house in the vicinity of the Delta Mall here, right behind the Sugar Bun outlet, back to back.

Early that morning…

…I had to send Melissa to her colleague’s house as they would be making their way to their school for some holiday duty assigned to them for just a couple of days. My missus opted to tag along so after I had dropped the two of them off, I stopped by the coffee shop on my way  home…on my own.

My friend said the pan mien was nice so I ordered that. I did not specify whether I wanted the soupy version or the dry one as my friend did not say exactly which one he thought was nice. In the end, I got the dry version (RM4.00)…

…and in a way, I was glad as I tend to feel that pan mien in clear soup is somewhat mild and all that I have had so far did not manage to get me jumping up and down with delight and rushing back for more.

When it was served, I was wondering why there wasn’t any ikan bilis (dried anchovies) but it seemed that there was a bit of that, crushed so one may not know that was it but when I mixed everything together…

…along with the dried chili powder that came with it, the taste did come across quite clearly…and I liked it very much. I would say, with no reservations whatsoever, that it was very nice and I certainly would be back for that again as and when the opportunity arises.

Now, while I was there that morning, I met a friend who works at the bank in the same block as the Sugar Bun outlet and she had the fish bihun soup and she said it was very good too and one thing about it was that they used fresh fish fillet, bay ka or tenggiri (mackerel) no less and not the not-very-popular imported Dory. I asked her about the mee sua that my friend recommended too and she seconded the motion.

That was why I was back at the shop the very next day for lunch and no prize for guessing what I had (RM5.00)…

It certainly was VERY red and that seems to be the in-thing these days around here. Of course, I am no longer excited by that, not since I heard that one could get that same shade of colour by using the cheaper version of the wine that had not been totally filtered so there would be some of the residue of the ang chao (红槽) left. Thus, to me, the colour is secondary and what is more important is the taste and how strong the flavour of the wine is.

Well, I would say that on the whole, it was very good – I could taste the traditional Foochow red wine but unfortunately, what I had that day was a little bit sour. I’ve heard that it is not easy to make the wine and there are a whole lot of taboos surrounding the wine-making process and should you fail to observe all of them, the wine would turn out to be sour. I don’t know how true that is but what I do know is that the top quality ones would be very fragrant, very nice and not sour.

Other than that, there was only one piece of chicken in it – I am quite sure they used to give two but considering that the prices of everything have been shooting up like nobody’s business, this is only to be expected. For one thing, they used the thinner version of the mee sua…

…which is supposed to be better and what the old die-hard mee sua connoisseurs would prefer. They would always tell me about the mee sua thow (the head) or the mee sua boi ( the tail) and how one is nicer as it is finer but I can never for the dear life of me remember which is which. To me, mee sua is mee sua and big or small, I like them all. Hey! That rhymes! Hehehehehehe!!!!

For one thing, we do cook our own mee sua at home so what we dish out would be just as nice as the good ones around and in view of that, I probably would not go out of my way to eat this again unless I feel like having that and I am too lazy to cook my own. I’d probably come back for the pan mien instead or perhaps, I would try something else to see what other things may be nice here. We’ll see…