The other end…

I think I’ve said this before – how I hate people telling others about something nice that they’ve eaten and they do not give the specific details or information so that they can go and try and enjoy too. Often, I would see people sharing a photograph of something that looks rather nice on Facebook and when somebody asks where they have eaten that, they would just give the name of the road or worse, the area. I just cannot understand why they bother sharing the photograph in the first place.

This was exactly what happened when I went looking for one and ended up at the wrong place. Somebody told somebody about what she ate somewhere that was very nice and that somebody told me about it and all the related information regarding the people and what not…but when it came to the coffee shop concerned, she just said she was told that it was in the block of shops at the other side of the Sibu Bus Terminal…

Yes, I do know that block of shops but there are at least 8 coffee shops altogether, or 7, as there is one that occupies two shoplots and I really do not see any difficulty at all in remembering and telling people the name of the shop…

– Ak Kia or duckling, in Hokkien but don’t ask me why it is thus named as I really do not know.

This time around, I did not have a problem as the nice guy at the wrong shop that I went to told me specifically which one it was – the one at the other end…

…just around 100 metres from this hotel…

– the very first shop in the block, if you are coming from that direction.

Yes, the person in question did say that the coffee was very nice and yes, indeed it was, the kopi-o-peng (iced black coffee) that I had…

There is a kampua mee stall in the front portion of the shop…

…but we did not order anything from there as we went there for the sole purpose of trying what the person was praising to the skies, the KL Hokkien mee (RM5.50)…

For the uninitiated, there is a difference between KL Hokkien mee and Singapore Hokkien fried mee and the Penang one which is actually the Penang prawn noodles or har mee like the one here that I particularly enjoy.

Like most, if not all, coffee shops in our town, they give you the spoons and chopsticks dipped in hot boiling water, the one here in a stainless steel canister, but unlike elsewhere, here, they gave us the sliced fresh chili and a bottle of the dark soy sauce for us to add ourselves…

The mee was the big, firmer one that one would find in KL Hokkien mee over in the peninsula , not the regular not-so-yellow noodles that we have here and yes, there were the crusts from the melted pork fat…or pork rind…

…and there were some tiny shrimps in it too…

…other than the meat and the cabbage.

So what did I think of it? Well, I must say it…

…was nicer than what I had here (cooked by some guy from Penang) or here though I did think it could do with a little stronger wok hei fragrance and maybe a little bit more garlic…and perhaps they could simmer it a little bit more to reduce the amount of gravy/sauce and make it thicker.

I would agree with my missus when she said that it was very nice but at the end of the day, she would still enjoy our own Foochow fried noodles a lot more…which, incidentally, is comparatively cheaper.