Middle of the morning…

“You’d better go early,” they told me, “as by the middle of the morning, everything would be sold out and they would be closing for the day.” That was why I made it a point to go very early, past 7.00 a.m., last Sunday morning…

…and besides, should I go later, I probably would have to park my car far away as parking spaces are quite limited around that block of shops and chances are there will be none vacant.

I’ve seen a friend of mine sharing photographs on Instagram/Facebook of the noodles he had here…

…but it was only until I heard my brother-in-law telling us about it that I decided to drop by and try. He said something about the added ingredients – I remember he did mention that they used very fresh fish, bay kar/ikan tenggiri (mackerel) no less and while he was there, he saw people delivering. Well, it is all right for him as he has to send my sister-in-law that early every morning and he uses a motorcycle so he will not have any problem parking his vehicle to come here.

There was just one stall…

…in that coffee shop run by a not-very-young couple. I can’t remember if there was a menu displayed but I was very sure that there was no mention of fish nor fish balls anywhere.

In the end, I just ordered a plate of Foochow fried noodles and I did see some liver and stuff in the cabinet so I said I would like those innards. In response, the lady said somewhat curtly, “THAT, you call kay liao (literally meaning, add ingredients)!” I guess that is the Chinese/Hokkien equivalent to a special, Foochow fried noodles special, that is.

I sat down at a table and waited and pretty soon, I was served…

It was nice but I would say that there are others around that are just as nice or even more so. The intestines were a little bitter which probably was an indication that they had not been cleaned well and I wouldn’t mind a little less kidney – I think that was what it was and more liver perhaps.

It did not come cheap, I must say – RM8.50…

…for this and I was quite put off by the fact that the plate was chipped (I had covered that offensive part with the chopsticks for the photo shoot and I also had to clean up the mess all around the plate for that). This “Foochow fried noodles special” here with all the “spare parts” added was only RM7.00 unless they too have jacked up the price by now and personally, I do feel that that one can easily beat the one here hands down plus the people there are a lot more pleasant and friendlier.

To sum up, yes, it was good but at that price, I could feel the pinch and no, I would not go through all that trouble to go so very early in the morning for it.

WAN-CAFE (2.289995, 111.829822) is located below Mandarin Hotel, across the road from the Sarawak House (where King’s Trioplex & Premier Hotel are) at the corner of the Jalan Kpg Nyabor and Tiong Hua Road junction, right beside the traffic lights turning into Central Road.