Saturday, 17 April 2010
We deviated from our Saturday morning routine. Instead of going to the 10 o’clock novena service we went to the 9 am one. May wanted to run an errand for her mother before the eye clinic at Camden Medical Centre closed. So I suggested we go earlier and have brunch at a coffee shop recommended by her favourite boutique owner.
When we arrived at about 11.20 am, the coffee shop at 53 Upper East Coast Road was already crowded. Luckily we managed to get a table. We had came to this shop twice before. The first time it was so overcrowded we went away. It is really that popular. The second time we went in the afternoon, past 3.30 pm and it was closed. Now we know that opening time is between 7 am and 3.330 pm. You may wonder why we bothered so much about this mee pok (132 Mee Pok Kueh Teow Mee). Well, we do really like our noodle, especially spaghetti, bak chor mee, mee pok/mee kia and wonton mee, not to mention mee siam mee rebus, mee goreng and char kuay teow. And the one at Upper East Coast Road has been well recommended. So die die must try.
We ordered the $4 bowl of mee pok ta and waited and waited. We waited for more than half an hour before our mee came. That many customers ahead of us. My bowl came with 3 fish balls, 2 halves of prawn, a few small slices of lean pork and some minced pork. May had one fish ball less but one half of a prawn more. One fish ball equals half a prawn? The mee came with one small bowl of soup each. To begin eating we proceed to mix in the sauce which was at the bottom of the bowl. May mixed up everything in the bowl. I transferred the fish balls to bowl of soup, a thing I usually do. Don’t ask me why.
The first slurp of mee brought a sting to our mouths. Boy, was the sauce chilli hot. At the second slurp the unique taste of the sauce caught on. The sauce is different from those used in other mee poks, a unique taste we couldn’t identify. The overall effect was a delicious though fiery bowl of mee pok. Yum, yum. I had wondered to May whether the mee would be worth the wait. Definitely, and perhaps a second visit.
Back at Suntec City I decided to have a light lunch. So I bought a Vietnamese roll (not fried) and a dripped Vietnamese ice coffee. The roll was refreshing with the taste coming mainly from the sauce. It was a sweetish brown concoction (which I couldn’t identify) with some crush peanut thrown in. The coffee was strong, packing a good coffee wallop despite the ice. Not insipid like Starbuck.
