About Food
Was it Saturday evening I asked VaLz to ask Ethan (he was busy watching football on tv) if he knew of a shop called Sunrise in SEA Park that is famous for its duck rice?
Anyway, she replied that he didn’t know the name of the shop but was it next to such-and-such a shop; I said no. Well, then is it on a slope; I said yes. She then said Ethan said he’s surprised I know of the shop as I’m not from SEA Park.
The next evening, I asked my sister if she knew of Sunrise the duck rice shop. Yes, she did, and was surprised I didn’t.
Well, Ethan is from SEA Park and he knows the shop but not its name. My sister, like me, is not from SEA Park, yet she knows both the shop and its name.
Go figure …
I only got to know about the shop on Saturday afternoon when cousin Robert said he wanted to eat duck rice and his nephew and wife took us there.
Chicken rice shops, I’ve heard of, but Sunrise is the first duck rice shop I’ve heard of and been to. Unlike other eating shops that offer a variety of food stalls, Sunrise sells only one “lunch set” – duck rice and pickled vegetable soup.
Here’s how good the food at Sunrise is – the shop opens at 11:00 a.m. and by 2:00 p.m., is all sold-out and ready to close shop for the day.
Plus, anything after 12:30 p.m., all the tables are taken, and latecomers will be standing around, watching to take over the next about-to-finish table.
We weren’t that early but we got a just-vacant table. And because there’s only one lunch set on the menu, we didn’t have to wait too long before we were digging into the duck, rice and soup.
The duck was excellent, especially the skin.
The rice was … well, rice.
The soup was … hmm, the first thought that came to mind was the honey lime drink available at most eating shops. Except this was greasy and savoury, and many-many times more sour. Ooo …
That same evening, after our shopping spree, cousin Robert stayed for dinner. I suggested a new bah kut teh shop I’d seen next to where I send my car for service in SS2. Father didn’t know there was such a shop, but the car shop served as the landmark.
During dinner, cousin Robert reminisced about the bah kut teh of his childhood which was served as individual portions in individual bowls to each customer. I remember that, too. We looked at the bah kut teh in the communal claypot before us, and realised it was both a far cry from what we remembered, and even further from real bah kut teh. I mean what we were eating did not even have bah kut (translated – meat bones, i.e., spare ribs) – just lots of pork, both lean and fat, and even a chicken claw – while the teh (translated – tea, meaning soup or gravy) tasted quite strongly of a certain vegerable extract beginning with the letter “M”.
*sigh*
Well, two new eating places for me last Saturday. One I will go back to again and the other, NOT!
Guess which is which.
