How can it be…

I don’t know for sure but I think if you want to register your business and somebody has taken the name of your choice, then you would have to pick something else. If that is the case, then how can it be that there are so many Wonderful this and Wonderful that all over town and there was this place named Delicious and this one here…

…too? Maybe that one was a “food stall” and this one’s a “café” so it is perfectly all right? Or perhaps that one is under the municipal council while this one is under the rural district council? Ah well!!! In the words of William Shakespeare, “A rose by another other name will smell as sweet.“

This one is in Jalan Ulu Sg Merah here (2.330641, 111.855959), right next door to this place. I was feeling kind of full from a somewhat heavy breakfast so I did not feel like having any dim sum and besides, I have been to their original shop many times and I did not think they would have anything that would be different and new. That was why we decided to check out the shop next door to see if they had anything good to offer or not…

They seemed to be selling a whole lot of sushi in all colours and shapes but we were not into those – my girl might want to give those a try but it was a weekday and there she was at her school in the jungle, no sushi, nothing.

I can’t say I was attracted to their Sarawak laksa…

…though – the prawns look good in the picture but minced meat balls? Unheard of! And just as it has to be hard-boiled egg for a standard plate of nasi lemak, it must be thinly-sliced omelette for Sarawak laksa. It seems that these days, anything and everything goes – whichever way they want.

The guy kept asking us to try their deep fries [SIC] taro dumpling (RM2.30)…

…and in the end, we did order one to see if it was any good.

It was kind of small but it was very nicely done, the fibrous yam on the outside and the char siew filling was very nice too…

If only it had been bigger and less pricey, I would have wanted to buy a few home for afternoon tea.

My missus had their wanton soup (RM2.70)…

…aka pian sip soup and she thought it was all right. The kampua mee here is also selling at that same price, RM2.70.

I decided to go for their kolo mee with meatball soup…

…even though I knew only too well that it would not be anything like the kolo mee in Kuching.  That will be the day!

The kolo mee…

…was nice, nothing like kolo mee, as expected, and thankfully, it was not like kampua noodles either. I actually liked the taste of the minced meat mixed with the noodles but I could not help feeling that those three slices of char siew wannabe (boiled meat coloured red) looked kind of miserable.

I liked the meatballs…

They were more than just minced meat rolled into balls and boiled in the soup. If I am not wrong, they beat the meat till firm or springy, something like the texture of fish balls but not to that extent. I wish I could say the same about the soup though. It lacked the much coveted meat or bone stock flavour, and it was the same too with what my missus had, nowhere near what we had here and the fact that they added vinegar to it put me off even more. I wouldn’t mind as much if it had been our traditional Foochow red wine instead.

All in all, for RM6.90, I would say that the kolo mee and meatball soup set…

…was, at best, all right but with that kind of money, I think I would go for something else that would give me a lot more satisfaction – there would be a lot of other nicer options even within that area of shops alone like, for instance, what we had at this place or this one just a few doors away.