Better without you…

Somebody commented once that it seemed some cafés here liked to serve their dishes, western joints inclusive, with keropok (prawn crackers) by the side…

…and she asked me why. Frankly, I don’t know! For one thing, they do not even taste nice. They’re bland, no taste of fish or prawn in them and in some, just lots of msg and there are worse ones, those very white ones with various colours, red, blue or green along the rim and more often than not, they have all gone limp and are hardly edible, not that I would want to eat them. Maybe there are people who enjoy eating those or perhaps, it is just for the colour and if it is the latter, then, they might as well not bother and just do without them. It would not make any difference and I, for one, would usually leave them untouched and that is such a waste as I guess they will all get thrown away eventually.

Of course it is a different story altogether if the keropok is part and parcel of a dish like nasi kerabu…

…the same way that nasi bryani would always have a piece of papadum…

…to go with it.

Indeed, I do not think I have seen keropok served with western fare anywhere else and not that I can remember, in any of the food blogs that I frequent.

Another one of my pet peeves would be the use of fake or plastic flowers…

If they cannot have fresh, natural flowers, not even those common ones that we get to see all the time…

…then it would be better to do without and not have any at all. Throw in one of those gaudily colourful plastic tablecloth and they will look like one of those gaily-decorated coffee shops around town.

One thing that I cannot stand as well is how some people like to play loud music at their joints like it is a club or pub or something and everyone would have to shout to be heard making the place no better than a market place or a coffee shop. I don’t mind a little light music…

…in the background, something that will complement the ambiance of a place like the keroncong they play here and once, they had some lovely Italian songs here but of late, I have not heard them playing them again and I wonder why. I am no fan of jazz – they do play that at a number of places here but if it is not too loud, then it is  perfectly all right by me…and I do not mind the played-to-death Kenny G either, softly, of course! Especially when everyone is talking and nobody is listening, I’m sure it would be better to do without it – I sure wouldn’t mind a little peace and quiet around such places and incidentally, if I am not wrong, they have to pay some kind of royalty to play music and songs at their premises. I wonder how many of them actually do that.

But of course, at the end of the day, the bottom line is the food must be really good and value for money, the ambiance great and the service excellent. With all these, one would hardly notice all the rest and even if one does, I guess all would be forgiven.

All gone…

I received a lot of those Khadijah’s Kitchen instant pastes from my cousins in Kuching and I have tried most, if not all of them. I remember we enjoyed the chicken kapitan and the rendang tok was nice too though it was more like curry and nothing like rendang as I know it. We did not think the pajeri nenas was good though and there was a box of satay peanut paste but I can’t remember who I gave it to…and I do not seem to remember if/when I cooked another one of the lot, the asam pedas. There was just this one…

…left in the pantry – the sambal tumis.

I do recall that there was this one time when I was torn between using this one or one of another brand that we had, a product of Malaysia made for sale in Singapore, and I chose the latter only to regret it as it was not nice at all and the other morning, finally, I decided to give it a try.

It said on the box that I should add one big onion – that would be a Bombay onion, I guess so I took one, peeled it and sliced it very thinly…

…and I decided to go a step further and added a few stalks of my skinny serai (lemon grass) and a sprig of curry leaves from my garden and I just could not resist throwing in two cili padi for that extra kick!

Hmmm…it certainly looks like Ms Khadijah needs a good editor to check the language use in what she has on the boxes…

…of her products. I am sure they mean sliced onion, not slices onion…and bawang hiris, not hilis…and mix should go with with and not to…and other than those slips, I do think it should be mixture and not mixtures and KITHCEN is kitchen wrongly spelt, obviously. Oh dear! Forgive me, for I digressed a bit there but I guess that is an occupational hazard and as they say, old habits die hard. LOL!!!

I did not measure the water but I just poured a bit into the wok and added the paste in a sachet inside the box after pouring away the oil. Gee!!! Some of these things can be really oily. Then I threw in the other extra ingredients and the prawns and boiled the lot till the prawns were cooked. After letting it simmer for a while, I dished everything out…

Oh dear! That sure looked watery! Perhaps I should let it simmer longer to let the sauce thicken a little bit but I did not want to do so as I was sure the sauce would go absolutely well with rice…and I was right!

Yes, it was very nice…

…but no, it wasn’t anything like the sambal that we would get with our nasi lemak. That one would be on the sweet side but this was slightly sourish, like asam prawns or fish and it was extra spicy, so very very hot – the cili padi must be behind that as on the box, the level of spiciness was indicated as medium only.

I would say we enjoyed it very much, the last of the lot that I had at hand – they’re all gone now and please, if anyone is thinking of getting me some more, no, thank you very much. For one thing, I do know that they are not all that cheap and for another, I still have a lot of other stuff at hand that I have yet to try.

You’ll never know…

…unless you try!

That was why we decided to drop by this place (2.32652,111.840234)…

…opposite a fairly big supermarket (Mega Store) in the Sungai Merah area here to see what they had in store. It has been around for a long long time just that I never bothered to stop by to check it out but the other day, when I went to the supermarket to get the ice cream (RM4.00 each, compared to RM4.50 elsewhere…and over RM6.00 at the Sibu airport), I noticed that there were quite a lot of people eating there so my guess was that the food here shouldn’t be too bad.

There is a kampua noodle stall…

…on one side of the coffee shop and a chicken rice one right beside it but we did not order anything from either of them.

My missus had the Foochow-style fried noodles…

…from the chu-char (cook and fry) place at the back and I noticed that they do serve chap fan (mixed rice) there too. I did not take note of how much that cost, probably the usual RM3.80 or to the most, RM4.00, but my missus was not very impressed. She thought it was a little too starchy for her liking and she did not manage to finish all of that.

A long time ago, there was a man running a coffee shop in the area of shops opposite the school where I was teaching before I retired. He took great pride in his rojak and he even claimed that there were people from other towns buying the rojak sauce from him and taking it home with them. What I knew then was that his wife was running a stall at the Taman Jubilee Bukit Aup  (Aup Hill Jubilee Park) but for some reason or other, the guy moved here and then here…and his wife was nowhere to be seen the number of times we dropped by the park. There is  a stall at this coffee shop selling stuffed kompia, sotong kangkong and what the sign claims, the Taman Jubilee Aup rojak (RM5.00)…

…which turned out to be as good as it looked, hardly any taste of the most essential ingredient, the prawn paste. The lady running the stall was not familiar at all and no, she sure wasn’t the man’s wife. At best, I would say it was all right but it sure was not something I would want to order again.

The Malay stall…

…seemed to be the one enjoying the most business – everyone was having their nasi lemak and I also ordered that to see if it was any good, their special.

I loved the golden fringe in their fried egg…

…but usually, when I am cooking one myself, I would splash a bit of the hot oil over the yolk to cook it a bit so it would not look that raw.

The fried chicken wing…

…was very small and tasted…like fried chicken wing coated with some rather usual batter, nothing sensational.

The rice was good though, more lemak than many other places around town…

…and I would not mind going for it again should I happen to be around there again but for RM5.50, I think if I were to make my way some place for nasi lemak, I would much sooner go for the one here (RM6.00, chicken wing) and there, I could always fork out a little bit more for the added curry or masak hitam beef and enjoy everything (RM7.00) a whole lot more.

Incidentally, if you are around that part of town and happen to be looking for something to eat, perhaps you may consider dropping by here instead for the chicken rice. They are having a promotion right now, RM4.90 for a plate of chicken, steamed or roasted, the rice and complimentary soup. If I am not wrong, the set would cost RM6.50 normally and who knows, you may prefer this to the nasi lemak…and enjoy eating in air-conditioned comfort.

The one that you love…

When my girl was home last weekend, she said that she felt like having waffles so after the sunset service in church that Saturday evening, we stopped by here (2.31672,111.837572)…

…for the ones that she loves (RM3.50)…

…the most in town. She liked the one with strawberry syrup…

…that we tried the last time we had that so I ordered that again for her. I also ordered the honey (RM3.50)…

…to try and personally, I preferred the latter to the former but my girl stuck steadfastly to the strawberry.

Gee! This place sure is doing well. Be it in the morning or even this late at night, past 8.00 p.m., one would see a lot of people there enjoying all the nice stuff that the guy dishes out. I did notice a few familiar faces from the church so I guess they were in the same boat, stopping here for a late dinner or supper on their way home after the service.

I also ordered their baked honey chicken wings (RM8.50)…

…that we had before as well and we thought they were pretty good and that night, I was thinking that they would be great for a light supper to go with the waffles.

My girl saw that they had fish and chips on their evening menu and she wanted that (RM9.50)…

…and that sure was one very big slice of fish, I must say, though the chips were kind of thin and did not look all that enticing but for that kind of price, I really see no cause for complaint. My girl liked the fish but I was not all that fond of it, being one of those frozen fish fillet, dory, that most, if not all, use around here even at those classier and very expensive cafes and restaurants. I would need a whole lot of tomato ketchup to go with it if I were to have that.

That sure was a delightful supper for the three of us, nothing fancy…just nice!

Slow…

They call themselves poslaju and laju in Malay means fast. Yes, I would say that usually, it is faster than sending anything by regular air mail or what many people refer to today as snail mail as that can be really very slow. Something sent from one place here in the country may reach the recipient after a week or more…and at times, it is be even faster to send something overseas!

As for the so-called national courier service, I would say that I am quite happy with our office here. The people are very nice and friendly and very helpful and there had been times when somebody sent something from the peninsula and it got to me around noon the very next day. Of course, when I was not at home, I would have to go to the office, which is very near to my house – just around the corner, to collect later that evening or the next day. If I went right away, the delivery van would still be out somewhere on its rounds and they did not seem to have any way of getting in touch with it.

However, it is a different story at the other side of the country probably because there are a lot more people there and a lot more mail for them to handle. I did blog about that time when I sent something to Seremban in Negeri Sembilan and it took almost a week before the parcel was received. Others that I had sent elsewhere went smoothly without any hitches along the way even though sometimes, the parcels might not arrive the very next day but they would show up the following day for sure.

Well, the other day, I sent something to a friend and when I went to their website to track and trace, this was what I got…

“21st October, 2015 6.23 p.m. Unsuccessful delivery.” This one was handled by their office in Kuala Selangor, it seemed so I texted my friend saying, “Wah!!! Terrible haze and still you went out?” She was puzzled and promptly replied that she was home and nobody came. Under normal circumstances, they would leave a note telling you that they had been to your house but you were not home so you would have to go to their office to collect yourself…but my friend said there was none.

Thankfully, they showed up the very next day and the parcel was delivered safe and sound. However, it seemed that they did not show up at all the day before and just simply declared that the delivery was unsuccessful. Whatever happened to their Dijamin sampai hari esok slogan – guaranteed to arrive tomorrow?

At that same time, I also sent another parcel to another friend. The postal charges altogether, inclusive of GST, came up to RM23.20, so it was roughly RM10.00 each. No, it certainly is not cheap at all to use this courier service but I still would resort to it as it would be faster and I could track and trace so I reckoned it would be very much safer.

Now, what happened in this case was that the recipient was indeed not at home. They got to her house at 11.48 a.m. the next day. Hmmmm…impressive! I messaged her and she confirmed that she was not in and said that her hubby would go to their office to collect the next day. However, the following evening, she sent word that her hubby was busy so he was not able to go and collect. What??? I had just gone to track and trace and this was what I got…

I guess Self-collection at counter means that one would have to go and collect himself or herself and not that it has been collected. My bone to pick was that it was timed at 7.53 a.m. and the whole day, I did not see anything and that only appeared when I logged in to check around 9.00 p.m. that night.

The problem did not end there. I got word from my friend the next day (Friday) saying that her hubby could not find the office and he would have to try again on Monday, after the weekend. Good grief!!! I sure am thankful that Sibu is such a small town and their office is just a stone’s throw away. I remember my friend in JB was not home as well when the delivery was made and he had to drive all the way to Pasir Gudang to collect and he was not too happy about it. If only one could call them and they could come round the next day or when one is at home to deliver the consignment…instead of having to go and collect ourselves. After all, they would be going round and round every day and stopping by again would not be that much of a problem – I don’t think that would take them out of their way since each one of them and each van are assigned to a certain designated area.

Still, one cannot deny that in this case, with the people at the office at Shah Alam, it would have arrived the next day had my friend been home…unlike the one at Kuala Selangor. However, unlike when I had something sent to me via the USPS (United States Postal Service), one would need to go through the chore of logging into their website, type the consignment number and click TRACK & TRACE each time one wants to do that. I would think this facility is for tracking where or how far what one sends has gone…but should it go astray or cannot be tracked, I doubt we can ever trace it this way, no way. I cannot seem to find their e-mail contact link on their website anymore either…nor their Facebook page where I would go to before whenever I had a reason to blast them to kingdom come. Whatever it is, obviously, it would be best not to send expensive stuff or anything that may be perishable (and they do state that quite clearly under their terms and conditions)…and when one has sent something, just be patient and be prepared for the worse. As they always say, Malaysia boleh – anything can happen!

Now, if anyone is wondering what I sent her, well, there was this box of the spicy bake mix…

*Archive photo*

…for her mum and also a pack of the instant kampua mee pok…

*Friend’s photo on Facebook, the one who got the parcel safe and sound – and it seemed that the family of two adults and one kid cooked and finished the whole pack of 5 packets in ONE sitting!!! Yes, it is THAT good!*

…from The Kitchen, our very own made-in-Sibu product…

*Archive photo*

…for the kids.

At the time of writing, my friend has yet to receive what I sent her. I hope she has got them by now…

No, thank you…

My brother-in-law and his missus went over to KL and Singapore for over a week to visit their son and daughter there respectively and when they came back, they brought along a whole lot of things including this bottle of durian kaya…

…from my niece over in the island republic.

This is a Singapore product…

…and of course, I could not wait to give it a try.

It so happened that we had some bread in the house so the very next morning, I went and prepared for myself some kaya toast…

…for breakfast.

I also boiled two eggs as I wanted the whole works but unfortunately, I did not time it right so the eggs ended up hard-boiled…

…when they should be only half-boiled. Ah well! It did not really matter as I would love eggs – in whatever form and I did not want to go through the trouble of boiling another two more.

So what did I think of the durian kaya? Well, it was very nice but if anyone is craving for durian, this will not solve the problem as it does not taste anything like the fruit, fresh. At best, I would say it is more like a cross between durian dodol and kaya and though it tastes pretty good, given a choice, I would much sooner go for the traditional nyonya kaya or the pandan version, Glory Brand, that is also made in Singapore.

Together with the eggs and my kopi-o (coffee, black), the durian kaya toasts were good enough for a decent breakfast…

…and a welcome change from my usual kampung fried rice or noodles. However, if you ask me whether I would go out and buy another bottle, perhaps others would enjoy it enough to do that but on my part, the answer is – no, thank you.

Incidentally, for dinner, last Saturday evening, I went and cooked the other slab of pork belly/sar chan bak (three-layer meat) that I bought the other day but I just roasted one of the two. I did not have the time so I did not let it sit in the fridge this time around, not even for 30 minutes. After boiling, I poked the skin, rubbed some vinegar on it, marinated it with the spicy bake mix, scored it with a knife, wrapped the whole thing up with aluminium foil, exposing just the skin, and put it in the oven to bake.

Thankfully, there was no splutter, no horrible mess in the oven unlike previously and the meat turned out really good…

…not overdone – very succulent and tasty, but the skin was hard…

…so I just sliced it off, along with the bit of fat right below it, and threw it away.

Well, my girl enjoyed the meat very much and said that it was nicer than her mum’s roast chicken thighs using the same spicy bake mix. Hehehehehe!!!!!

Doing it…

I sure enjoyed the roast meat from Eric’s mum a lot and my missus also roasted some chicken thighs, marinated with the “spicy bake mix”…

…and it was so very nice too and yes, I did say I would try doing it myself so I went and bought a slab of pork belly or what we call sar chan bak (three-layer pork). This cost a little over RM10.00, 12 or 14, I cannot remember exactly now so I guess price-wise, it was all right…

I rolled it up and placed it skin-side down in a saucepan, filled it with a little water and boiled it for a while…

I did not want to submerge the whole thing in water as I would not want to lose the sweetness and juices in the meat but the boiling, if I am not wrong, is needed to soften the skin to make it easier to poke holes in it…

I did that once without the boiling using a fork (perhaps it was one of those cheap ones) and despite all that force until the fork ended up bent, I did not manage to get the desired effect on the skin.

After the poking, I rubbed the skin with a bit of vinegar, followed by the mix…

…and I marinated the meat with it too. I did not use a lot, just half of the packet and having done that, I left it in the fridge for around half an hour.

Then I put it in the oven to bake and after one side looked a little done, I turned the slab onto the other side. When both sides were done, I took it out…

…wrapped the meat part in foil, leaving the skin exposed…

…and put it back into the oven.

There! Finally, it was done…

The wrapping did not seem to help a lot as the meat was a little hard in its crusty layer on the outside but it was good on the inside…

However, probably I overcooked it so the skin was quite hard – crusty in parts, crispy at times and there were a few bits that were too hard so I had to spit them out – not much but there were a couple of occasions when I had to do that. I wonder if anybody knows why. Is the skin of varying thickness and hence, the differences…or did I do something wrong? It tasted like those crisp croutons of pork lard found in Penang char kway teow or KL Hokkien mee so I would not say that I was all that excited about it…but yes, the meat was very nice.

Another thing that put me off was there was so much splutter going on in the oven whatever the cause was. Maybe I did not dry the meat enough? Gosh!!! It wasn’t just the oil that dripped onto the baking tray that I had covered with aluminium foil – it made a whole lot of noise and went shooting in all directions, north, south, east and west! That made such a mess in my oven that it required some massive cleaning the next day (when it was no longer so hot). That alone would put me off roasting my own, ever – I think I’d just go out and buy, should I feel like eating it, never mind that it is not as nice and more expensive. For one thing, I would not buy so much so at the end of the day, I would not be eating all that much and that actually would be good for me, right? Hehehehe!!!!

In the meantime, I guess after this, we’d just stick to roasting chicken thighs – they’re very nice too! LOL!!!

It’s not so hard…

I am not really a fan of those sui jiao or gyozas or whatever names they give to those meat dumplings but my girl loves them so we do order those whenever we see any place selling them outside. Her favourites in town would be the ones here or here…and I quite like what I had here though it did not go down to well with everybody that day and they all felt it was more like our Sibu Foochow-style sio bee.

When she was in New Zealand, my girl would buy those frozen ones and fry them to enjoy but I could not imagine myself doing that. You would need a bit of oil to start off, right? Then you need to add a bit of water. Good grief!!! I was pretty sure there would be a whole lot of splutter and I would end up with a horrible mess all over my cooker top. However, it so happened that I spotted this…

…at a bakery in town and I quickly grabbed a pack for my girl to try.

Now that stayed in the freezer for a week…and nothing happened and the following weekend, I decided to take things into my own hands and have a go with it. There were quite a few inside…

…but they were all very small, maybe half of the usual size.

These sachets…

…came with it, one with black vinegar and another with chili sauce. I think the third one was shallot oil, lard that had been used to fry some shallots for the added fragrance – what one would usually use to toss kampua noodles. I decided to use that to grease the pan and once it was hot enough, I put in the dumplings to fry till the bottom was nice and golden. Then, I poured in a bit of water…

…and covered that with a saucepan lid that could fit.

After sometime, I fished them out…

…and yes, they were very nicely done and no, to my delight, there wasn’t much splutter…and we did enjoy them with the sauces…

…provided.

Hmmmm…it certainly was not so hard, after all and I sure would not mind doing it again…

Looking at the instructions at the back, I saw that I could cook it this way or steam it or cook and serve it as a soup dish but seeing that my girl prefers it this way, then it has to be done thus and no other will do.

My friend, Annie‘s brother was making some nice ones once – I don’t know if he is still doing it. Perhaps I can get some of his…and now that I know how to go about pan-frying them, I sure would want to give his a try and cook them like this.

Have what I had…

Sometimes I would share a photograph on Facebook for a glimpse of what I had and as some sort of a preview of what I would be blogging about in the not-too-distant future. My girl, in her school on weekdays, would get to see it and sometimes, when she comes home for the weekend, she would want to have what I had (RM9.00)…

…so that was why we went back to the coffee shop…

…in my previous post again last weekend, just so she could have her yong tau foo. She loves yong tau foo and whenever we went over to KL or Penang, we would have that and unlike me, she does not mind the soup or the dry version. I prefer the former. This is the only place where we can find this here and thankfully, it is very nice. We opted for the RM9.00 set as it had everything inside, around 15 pieces altogether, so obviously, it would be cheaper than picking the items one by one even though the ones here actually cost a little less than in the peninsula.

I went back to the chicken rice stall and ordered the roast meat plus one stewed egg (RM5.00, inclusive of rice and soup)…

…and yes, I told the guy not to pour the thick and sweet black sauce all over everything…

…but I think I would want the sauce over the egg…

…to enhance the taste, just not the meat. By the way, that is pickled cucumber that you see by the side and yes, it is very nice and a cut above the fresh cucumber slices that you will get elsewhere here.

For the complimentary soup, it was not corn this time around but salted vegetable…

…instead and yes, it was very nice as well unlike the ones one would get elsewhere that I would just leave untouched. Believe you me, I finished this down to the very last drop!

My missus ordered the hot plate noodles (RM5.00)…

…from the chu-char (cook & fry) place at the back and it sure was sizzling and bubbling away…

…when it was served. I did not get to try it but my missus said it was very nice. My girl loved it and promptly declared that this would be a good stop for a bite to eat as they did seem to have some pretty nice stuff here.

When my girl was home for the weekend, she made these Sibu Foochow style sio bee (meat dumplings)…

…and they turned out really good…

– as good as what I had here and here or here, perhaps even a little nicer…plus of course, there is that special ingredient that one would not get anywhere else – love!

On my part, I didn’t cook anything special but I did fry some leftover rice again…

…this time with belacan and some fresh prawns as well and I finished off all that petai (stink beans) that had been sitting in the fridge for a while now.

Well, the weekend’s here again – I don’t know what we will be up to but whatever it is, with one’s loved ones around, it sure is going to be good. Happy weekend, everybody!!!

Do without…

I heard that the people responsible for this place have also opened a chicken rice shop somewhere opposite their supermarket so the other day, I drove over to have a look. It turned out to be something like just another coffee shop with the chicken rice stall on one side and a kampua noodle stall on the other but that place sure was so very congested and since I could not find a parking space close by, I decided to go elsewhere.

There is this coffee shop round the corner that I have been to a number of times before and I remember they had a very nice stall selling all those roast meat and stuff and I had had their noodles before – the big KL Hokkien mee kind tossed in what I felt was like the konlou mee in Sabah. However, when we got there, it appeared that the stall had been replaced by this one…

…and they did not have noodles on their menu. Ah well, I thought, since we were already there, we might as well give it a try to see if it was any good.

I ordered this bowl of yong tau foo (RM9.00)…

…from the stall behind it for the soup mainly as usually at those chicken rice stalls, they will give you some very bland, quite tasteless, very diluted salted vegetable soup with the chicken claws inside and I am never fond of that.

I would say it is cheaper to order by the sets as one would get at least half a dozen fish balls, two lady’s fingers, two brinjal, two bitter gourd, one chili and one fried bean curd all stuffed with the very nice fish paste plus the tang hoon (glass noodles), seaweed and green vegetables. It certainly would cost a lot more to order the RM5.00 set, just the fish balls, tang hoon and seaweed and then, pick what you want from what is available…

However, as a matter of fact, we could have done jolly well without it as the complimentary soup…

…that came from the aforementioned stall was very very nice, their corn soup with a bit of it on the cob and pieces of white radish/daikon.

The steamed chicken…

…was very nice and the siew yoke (roast pork)…

…as well. I liked it a lot and I would say it could have an edge over what had so far been my favourite in town and was definitely way better than the one here. I do not read Mandarin so perhaps somebody can check the prices on the menu in front of the stall (in the first photograph) and tell me how much they are selling this per kilo here?

I did not quite enjoy the char siew (barbecued meat)…

…especially with that dark, thick and very sweet sauce all over it. It did not seem so bad with the chicken nor with the stewed eggs…

…that I also ordered but the next time I come here, I would definitely ask them not to pour it over everything. They can serve it in a saucer or a little bowl if they want and I can dip the stuff in it as and when I choose. I could jolly well do without any dips and sauces usually unless something does not taste nice and doing that would help make it a little bit more palatable.

The chicken rice served with all the above was very good too, nicer than many other places though not as nice as what I had here (and the same goes for the steamed chicken too) but this was very much cheaper – RM14.00 only for everything for two persons, inclusive of two plates of rice.

Well, if anyone is interested in checking this place out, it is at Sing Long Cafe (2.292604,111.836029) in the area of shops behind the Rejang Medical Centre, located directly opposite the nursing college (Kolej ITA). For some reason or other, the coffee shop people have seen it fitting to remove the shop signs outside so you would not see the name if you are driving past – there is a small sign above the entrance to the shop but I do not think it is visible from the road.