Anything…

When my friend, Nick, was in town in 2017, he chuckled as we drove past here…

Obviously, he was amused by the name of this coffee shop.

Looking at the image by the side, I guess literally, it means green vegetables but in Hokkien, when somebody asks you what you would like to eat, most likely, the reply would be ching cai, meaning anything or when someone asks you where you want to go, you will reply ching cai or anywhere. I can imagine you asking someone what he or she wants to eat and the reply is ching cai and you take him or her here. That would be hilarious!

Anyway, a friend of mine has been sharing photographs on his Facebook page of the kolo mee…

…he has been going for here, singing its praises to the skies. At one time, business did not look so good here – there were not that many people usually. We did drop by to see what they had for their chap fan (mixed rice) and everything looked good but we had something else in mind so we did not give it a try.

I placed my order at the stall…

…and went to sit at a vacant table and waited. The kopi-o-peng (iced black coffee) was decent (RM1.70)…

…and when I was given the dip – the usual with kolo mee, the pickled chili slices in vinegar – I could not help thinking that they could have been a bit more generous with the chili. There were only two bits and when the lady brought another one, thinking that I had not got it yet, there were also two only in it and I asked her to give those to me so in the end, I had four altogether.

As for the noodles, I would say that it (RM3.50)…

…was good. I forgot to tell the lady I would like it white so it was served red from the char siew sauce added. I could detect the fragrance of the fried garlic in it and with dashes of the vinegar added, I rather enjoyed it…and yes, I was impressed by the fact that they added real char siew, not the boiled meat coloured red that you will find in most of our Sibu kampua mee.

They were out of prawns that day so I could not have the special. Perhaps I will go back again one of these days for that.

CHING CAI CAFÉ (2.292201, 111.835254) is the corner coffee shop located along Lorong Chew Siik Hiong 1 facing Jalan Mahsuri in the area of shops behind the Rejang Medical Centre.