Same name…

When I was a little boy, my grandfather had a shop by this same name…

– a textile-haberdasher shop, if I remember correctly, occupying half of No. 8, Old Street, now Jalan Chew Geok Lin while my father was in the other half selling his outboard engines, lawn mowers and air conditioners.

This coffee shop is not located anywhere near there though – it is at the corner shop along this lane…

…in the same row as the hotel in Unicity…

…directly opposite the Mr DIY outlet there. I did see a coffee shop named “Old Street” there too but no, I did not go and check it out – perhaps I shall do that another day.

The kopi-o-peng (RM1.80)…

…was so-so and there was a kampua mee stall, another one selling dim sum that looked like the one here or here and a fried kway teow stall that did not seem to enjoy much business while the people at the Muslim stall, right beside the kampua mee stall…

…seemed very busy so I decided to give it a try. I could tell from the language they were speaking that they were Melanaus – in fact, there seems to be quite a lot of them here in Sibu operating these halal food stalls all over town.

I asked for the nasi lemak special (RM6.00)…

…and paid an extra ringgit, RM7.00 altogether for that one half of a salted egg. Yes, the last time I bought some salted eggs, they were already around RM1.30 each, uncooked.

The sambal was great…

…though not spicy at all and they did give one salted fish alongside the few peanuts and two slices of cucumber and the egg…

…though a little overdone, was fried the way I would like it and the chicken wing…

…was like chicken wing, nothing exceptional about it.

Sadly, the green-tinted rice was not lemak at all, none of the rich santan (coconut milk) taste and despite the colour, I could not detect any pandan fragrance in it either. I guess it is pretty obvious that should I happen to drop by here anytime in the near future, I would not be ordering this again.

Perhaps the next time around, I could try the pork chop or one of the items on the menu at this western food stall…

…right next to it. I did hear from a friend I met there that morning that the lor mee at the stall directly opposite wasn’t great and I did not see anything there that would tickle my fancy but more likely than not, I would go for this egg drop soup with liver and kidney added…

…from the stall at the back. We would usually cook this soup with a nui pao (egg purse/poached egg) and lots of ginger and the traditional Foochow red wine and eat with mee sua but more often than not, minus the innards. The old lady at the stall said that this is the comfort food of ladies in confinement. LOL!!!

HOCK KEE CORNER is located at Lorong Wawasan 9C in the vicinity of Unicity (2.342337, 111.831781) off Jalan Wawasan, on your left if you are coming from Bulatan Teng Chin Hua in the vicinity of the University College of Technology, Sarawak, Kolej Laila Taib and Woodlands International School, heading towards the Batang Igan Bridge.