Enjoyed a leisurely breakfast at Chin Mee Chin with a book. I was looking forward to eating their custard puffs and was disappointed that they didn’t have any. 🙁 I don’t think their coffee, kaya toast and pastries are fantastic. Old-fashionedly good, yes, but you can get better elsewhere.
CMC is one of those places that I enjoy going to not just for the coffee and toast but for its old-world, traditional ambience (ie people shouting at the top of their voices in Hainanese…!) and because it holds memories of my growing up years visiting this Hainanese coffeeshop. At Nam Kee Chicken Rice along Thomson Road and Yet Con at Purvis Street, one will experience the same atmosphere and decor as CMC. Erm, standard of service too….which is rather spotty, bordering on rude most times.
All these new-fangled places such as Ah Mei, Toast Box, Coffee and Toast would never be able to reproduce that sort of charm, and skill of course, that comes along with having thin and grumpy Hainanese pek-dehs (old uncles) make the coffee and toast and shrivelled-looking ah-nians (old aunties) man the counter and run the place.
In Hainanese, we call coffee (or kopi) ‘go-bi’ which is a very much stronger and bitter version when compared to the usual local kopi.
Like my grandfather used to say, no-one can surpass the Hainanese in making go-bi and toast. It is in our blood. Who am I to argue, given that my great-grandfather came to Singapore from China and ran his own coffeeshop. Unfortunately, he also ran it into the ground with his gambling addiction. My mother grew up in the coffeeshop and learnt how to make a cuppa since she was a kiddo.
After go-bi and toast, I drove down to a bakeware shop at Newton Circus called B-I-Y to look for a 28cm square cake pan and white chocolate. Both are needed for my baking session with K this weekend. Not fruitful. It’s a pretty shop with many lovely baking things but I figured that I could have a higher chance of getting what I want at good old Phoon Huat.
Feeling parched and somewhat hungry, I decided to drive to the Cambridge Food Centre to eat Wah Kee’s prawn noodles and have a tall refreshing glass of kedongdong juice. I love drinking the lardy-prawn broth after stirring in piles of sambal chilli. Don’t really care for the noodles and prawns. But having said that, the prawns served by this stall are very fresh and delicious.
Filled the tummy. Quenched my thirst. Found the much-needed baking trays and white chocolate. It would have been a great day if not for the evening downpour thwarting my jogging plans.
