I waited…

I had to go and see my doctor last Friday, a routine follow-up visit to make sure everything was going o.k. and what not so I went very early – at 8 something and it was not till past 11.00 a.m. that it was done. As far as I was concerned, that was perfectly all right as I had put aside the whole morning just for this so I just sat there and waited and waited and waited.

My girl had a meeting after school at 11.45 a.m. so the timing was just right. I was there past 12 and I waited and waited and waited. It was almost 1.00 p.m. when she came out, not a very good time as we had agreed to go some place for lunch before heading home and most places would close at 2.00 p.m. so if you show up so late, they may not be too happy to extend their opening hours just for you.

We stopped by here for the Sarawak laksa but it was packed and there were people queuing up, waiting for a table. We adjourned here for the yong tofu but they had already called it a day and yes, it was the same with most of the food stalls here. Many would close around noon and they would reopen at 5 or 6 in the evening to cater for the nighttime crowd.

It was our no-meat Friday so of course, that narrowed down our choices to just a few. Most would be struck off our list automatically, never mind whether they were still open or not. In the end, we decided to try our luck at this stall here for the char kway teow (fried flat rice noodles).

Sorry, they were cleaning up the place already but we spotted another stall in that coffee shop selling chao chai hung ngang (preserved vegetables with big bihun)…

…and much to our delight, there were a whole lot of options given.

I asked for the one with fish fillet (RM8.00)…

…while the ladies wanted the one with their own-made fish balls and we left specific instructions with the ladies at the stall…

…to leave out the meat.

The chao chai soup was really very nice, bursting with flavours, not too sour, absolutely perfect but the fish fillet in my bowl was so bland, so very tasteless. I should have followed the ladies and gone for the fish balls too and what was worse, I spotted in MY bowl…MEAT BALLS!!! I was furious and luckily, the ladies at the stall were mono-lingual and could speak only Mandarin. All I could say was, “I already said I did not want any meat! What is so difficult to understand?” In the end, I decided to just go ahead and eat it and continue with my abstinence from meat on another day.

While waiting for our orders to be served, I went to the adjoining section of the coffee shop to see what they had. The stalls there were closed too except for the chu char (cook & fry) place at the back. I ordered their wat tan hor (RM5.50)…

…and yes, I insisted that no meat should be added. I saw a photograph of a dish with a whole lot of prawns so I asked for those to be added to my order but the lady said that was for that dish only, their mala fried noodles. Honestly, I cannot understand why they could not take the prawns and use them in their wat tan hor as well.

Anyway, with or without the prawns, minus the meat, it would have been very nice…

…with its strong wok hei taste and fragrance but sadly, it seemed that the cook had forgotten to add the salt and msg so it was so very bland…except for the soy sauce that was used to fry the kway teow in the initial stage. I also loved how they were very generous with the green vegetables.

Despite the fact that I thought both dishes were pretty good, I could barely finish half of each as I was not in the mood at that point in time. I don’t know whether I shall be coming back here again for these or any of the other dishes there as the place is always very crowded and I am not that fond of going there, not at all. Perhaps I can try going after 1.00 p.m. like that day – there were only a few customers around at the time.

六月饮食坊 JUNE CAFE (2.292649, 111.834878) is located at No. 16, Lorong 3541, Lorong Chew Siik Hiong 7, directly opposite/right across the road from Kopitiam Fantasy.