From far away…

When I first blogged about the chee cheong fun here, my friend, Claire said: “The chee cheong fun looks like the ones sold here in Ipoh… it is called Hongkong CCF…. melts in the mouth,” but I did not get to speak to the guy that first time around.

Well, we were in the vicinity again that day as I wanted to take my daughter to the shop opposite, selling all the organic products…and to her delight, there are many gluten-free stuff available – flour, pasta, biscuits, everything! They do not come cheap though but never mind, at least we know where we can get our supplies should and when the need arises.

That was around lunchtime already that day so we just came over to have something to eat. I managed to speak to the guy…

…and he said he came from Ipoh and he still has a chee cheong fun shop there – he told me the name but I did not catch what he said. He was very busy so I did not want to disturb him – for some reason, I did not see any of his migrant workers and he had to do everything himself, pouring the batter thinly onto those broad flat trays and adding the ingredients depending on the order and pushing it in on one side of that huge conveyor belt-steamer…

When it came out the other side, this young guy, probably his son – not in school on Saturdays (Oh!!! I forgot! It’s the school holidays right now!), would take it…

…and roll it…

…and cut and garnish and serve…

This is the one with prawns…

…and as you can see, I have asked the guy to leave out the soy sauce but he did insist on giving me the sauce separately.

I thought the one with chives and dry shrimps…

…was very much nicer, so much so that I could enjoy it on its own. As for the one with prawns, for want of a bit of taste, I had to resort to dipping it in the soy sauce. Without the soy sauce (that contains wheat/gluten), my girl was able to enjoy this as well and yes, she thought the latter…

…was nicer too.

It being a Saturday, I was hoping I could get to enjoy the popiah, available only on Saturdays and Sundays, but they were sold out. In the end, I ordered the century egg meat porridge…

…from them and there was an egg…

…in it too. It was all right, not bad though I would not say it was the best I had had in town.

My missus had the nasi lemak special…

…that I had the last time we were here but somehow, it did not look as nice this time around.

My girl had the hung ngang or the big bihun in the traditional Foochow red wine chicken soup…

– no more mee sua for her anymore, that’s wheat! Thankfully, there are so many alternatives that she can eat so it does not mean she would have to starve herself the whole time – she just has to be more aware of what she can or cannot eat and avoid what she should not be eating, thank God for small mercies.