Things are different now…

I did mention in my reply to a comment the other day (or maybe I made a comment in a friend’s blog) that on Chinese New Year’s Eve, I dropped by the coffee shop in my neighbourhood to buy some noodles as we would not be having lunch because my missus would be busy in the kitchen preparing and cooking the dishes for our reunion dinner that evening. Unfortunately, the guy said he had too many orders waiting in line so I could not possibly wait for him to cook mine. In the end, I had no choice but to go home empty-handed.

On the 2nd Day of the New Year, I drove past and much to my surprise, the coffee shop was open but I saw that there were a lot of customers there that morning so I did not bother to buy anything that day.

The next morning, I went over real early, as soon as the sun was up and yes, the coffee shop was open and yes, there were quite a lot of people there already. It did not matter as I always go through the backdoor and talk to the guy directly from there (no need to go in and walk through the coffee shop). I noticed that one of the shops was open – in the past, they would close for at least one week. According to the guy at the coffee shop, the other mini-supermarket there would open in a day or two. Things sure are different now!

I bought the char pek koi (fried white rice cake)…

– my girl’s favourite here and she specifically asked for it…

I wanted the tomato kway teow (flat rice noodles)…

…the one here is one of my favourites in town, but the guy said that the people making the kway teow had not resumed business yet so he only had bihun (rice vermicelli) but no, that did not tickle my fancy.

In the end, I asked for the Foochow fried noodles, the moon version…

…for both my missus and I. She loves this…

…that I know!

What I bought that day came up to RM15.00 altogether, RM5.00 each. I remember paying RM5.00 not too long ago for the pek koi and obviously, the prices for the other fried noodles dishes around here have gone up too. I do not mind, actually, as long as they maintain the quality – if you go and eat at some classy café, a plate of fried noodles (some here have mee mamak on their menu) will set you back by at least RM12.00 and you may even give the waiter/waitress a generous tip and will never complain.

I hurried home quickly and all of us sat down to enjoy what I had bought for breakfast that morning while everything was still nice and hot.

AH KAU CAFE (2.316346, 111.839861) is located along Jalan Ruby, off Jalan Lim Han Swee, in the same block as Kim Tak Mini Supermarket, to the extreme left.