Before it started…

This was the day before Chinese New Year’s Eve, the day of my nephew’s tea ceremony and the wedding dinner.

We were out that morning and I decided to stop by here for breakfast. The place was gaily decorated for the festive season…

…and despite the fact that we were quite early and it was raining, it was quite busy at the time but then again, since the old lady moved from her old place and set up her stall here, they have been enjoying quite a bit of business.

I saw people sharing photographs of her meatball soup on Facebook and I heard that it is one of her main attractions so of course, I ordered a bowl…

…to share and yes, it was really very good, very rich bone stock soup and she uses fresh meatballs, not those smelly frozen ones elsewhere that I really do not fancy at all.

I also ordered a plate of her very nice kampua noodles…

…ranking among the top of all the favourites in town. It was RM8.00 for the two so my guess was RM5.00 for that big bowl of soup and RM3.00 for the noodles. I remember it used to be RM2.70 and I do not know if she had hiked up the price for the festive season or whether this would be a permanent increase.

Long ago, all shops would be closed during the first few days of Chinese New Year and then a few of them opened even on the first day and charged double or even triple the regular prices and their coffee shops were packed  to the brim! Eventually, I heard everyone followed suit and did the same but this year, a cousin of mine home from KK, Sabah went around town but none were open so they ended up having their breakfast at a Malay coffee shop. Yes, it did seem a little quiet this year – probably times are hard and everyone is feeling the pinch or because of the astronomical airfares, over RM1K from KL or anywhere to Sibu, many have opted not to come back.

Back to what we had that morning, my girl and the mum had the Foochow fried noodles (RM3.50)…

…from the chu-char place at the back of the coffee shop and yes, it was very good. I would say this may be considered as one of the nicer places in town to go for this.

While we were there, I noticed that they even have free wifi…

…at the coffee shop. Gee!!! The sign of the times.

So after we had had our fill, we went home to change into something more appropriate and proceeded to my in-laws’ house for the tea ceremony.