Each and every day…

When I was teaching at the school right across the road, before I retired, I used to drop by here…

…each and every day or almost, at least. For one thing, it was the nearest and I did not have to go too far and for another, there was a stall selling nice kampua noodles and Sarawak laksa and another stall with a lady whose fried stuff I enjoyed a lot. They are no longer there, of course – that was a long time ago but this lady…

…was around then and is still there. I never tried anything from her though as at the time she was selling kompia and fritters. It looked like she has taken over the frying so if you are into things like our Foochow-style fried noodles, you can order that from her.

The guy running the coffee shop was nowhere to be seen – a young boy was in charge, probably the son and the coffee…

…was pretty good. If I am not wrong, I think I heard that it was only RM1.40 here, cheaper than all the rest elsewhere.

For some reason or other, they have these bubu (fish traps)…

…hanging from the ceiling. Perhaps that is good feng shui and would attract more customers to the shop.

What brought me there that morning as I was walking past was the fragrance of something nice from this stall…

I went in and asked and was told that the guy was frying kampua mee…

…so of course, I ordered a plate and sat down to wait.

Everything looked rather faded so I reckoned these people must have been around for quite a while. Hey! I’ve retired for 10 years now though it seemed like just yesterday when I called it a day. Time sure flies!!!

Then I spotted this…

Wait a minute!!! This must be the stall that they were talking about on Facebook, with one of the cheapest  kampua mee in town!

I did confirm with the guy running the car air conditioner repair shop, an ex-student of mine from another school, a stone’s throw away and yes, he said it was RM2.00 all right…with meat! He would buy to eat sometimes but he added that he would get more if he asked for the RM3.00 one. I guess I would have to go back there again and order that to see for myself but that morning, there were a lot of people eating that and the portion seemed quite a lot – maybe that was the RM3.00 one, I wouldn’t know.

The fried kampua mee (RM3.00)…

…was very nice but obviously the word “presentation” does not exist in the guys’s vocabulary. He just fried everything and dished it out onto a plate and served. I had to dig out the meat from underneath all the noodles and “borrowed” the spring onions from the soup that I was having just to add a bit of colour and make it look a little nicer.

Yes, I also ordered their gu tor th’ng, the beef tripe soup (RM3.00)…

…to try. The gu tor was very nice, very nicely done, very soft and not at all rubbery or chewy like some that I have had elsewhere but I did not like the vinegar in it. It would have been perfect if they had just used the clear bone-stock soup on its own like how these stalls would serve their pian sip (meat dumplings/wantons), soup. I sure would ask them to hold the vinegar should I happen to drop by and order this again.

There was quite a crowd that morning – it was quite obvious that these people here are doing very well and that is good.