Better now…

It was good but it is even better now.

I first stumbled upon it way back in 2009 and ever since then, I have always considered it to be my favourite in town – I’ve tried others but none pleased me as much and if there is any that is nicer than this here, I’m afraid I don’t know of it.

My girl tried it more recently and yes, she loved it too and the other morning, after the early service in church, she said she would like to have that here, all the way in Sungai Merah…and of course, what she wants, she gets (RM4.00)…

…and yes, as always, it was very good or even better this time around and there seemed to be a lot more meat and liver…

…but there wasn’t any egg nor intestines – they did have those before. My girl does not touch liver so I had to eat that for her to get it out of the way so she could literally lick the bowl clean. Yes,she did enjoy it that much.

The mum ordered the Foochow fried noodles (RM4.00)…

…from the chu char place at the back. I don’t know why she keeps going back there as I do recall that on our previous visits, she did not think much of what she had from there. Well, this time around is no exception – she complained that the noodles lacked the much coveted wok hei fragrance but generally, she said it was all right.

We enjoyed the fried kway teow from the Melanau/Muslim stall right next to the kampua mee stall in the coffee shop so I went and ordered the special (RM5.50)…

…and for that, I got one fried egg and one chicken wing. Other than the fact that both of them seemed rather small, the egg wasn’t exactly fried the way I would like it but on the whole, it…

…was all right.

I did not have any small change so I gave the lady RM6.00. She saw some coins on the table and asked for those – I told her that it was not enough, only 40 sen but she said, “Tak apa!” (Never mind!) She took the coins and RM5.00 from me happily and went back to her stall.

Now, that, of course, is a far cry from places where they would expect you to dig out that 10 sen coin like squeezing blood out of stone even though you tell them you do not have any. The old folks in the past would describe those as bay hiao cho seng lee (don’t know how to do business) – when people are so nice and there is this seller-customer goodwill, rest assured that people will always want to come back for more.

CHOON SENG COFFEE SHOP /春陞茶室 (2.324218, 111.838197) is located along Lorong Wong Ting Hock 1, off Jalan Wong Ting Hock, off Jalan Tun Abg Hj Openg at the Sungai Merah Bazaar here.