So I went back to the shop for lunch the day after the previous entry. First thing I did before entering the shop was to take a picture of the signboard:

If I’d only paid attention previously, I would’ve read the English name of the shop. Well, my excuse is I’ve only seen the shop while driving past on my way home in the evenings. And walking into the shop the first time last Sunday, my mind was on food so I didn’t pay attention to the signboard.

Today, I ordered the dark soy sauce version. And when the bowl of noodles was served, I realised what I’d so quickly forgotten – in addition to the sauce and minced meat, the noodles are also served with char siew (barbecued pork) and meat balls. How could I have forgotten, it’s only been a week since I last ate at “Face to Face” ? The answer is simple – the main ingredients overshadowed the secondary ones.

Last week, I’d ordered a bowl of wantan soup to go with the noodles but they had sold out of those, so I settled for suikau (larger variation of wantan). Today, I tried for the wantans again and they were available. For the same price, it’s 10 wantans or 5 suikaus. Even tho content wise, they are about the same – 1 suikau = 2 wantans – I found the 5 suikaus just nice, whereas the 10 wantans were enough for two people.

I like “Face to Face” . I’ll be back to try the other noodle dishes on the menu.

If you’re in Malaysia, and live in the PJ area, particularly around the booming Tesco – IKEA/Ikano – Curve area, “Face to Face” is just a little further up the road, in Damansara Perdana, same row as 7-Eleven.

Now you may be wondering what “face” has to do with “noodle” .

Well, nothing in the English language. But in spoken Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin dialects), the two words sound alike – “mien” . In written Chinese, they look alike, too.

Face	–
Noodle	–

The Chinese character for “face” is what may be called a single character, whereas “noodle” is made up of two Chinese characters – “mak” (Cantonese) on the left, meaning “wheat”, and “mien” (Cantonese and Mandarin) on the right, meaning “face” .

So the owners of this noodle shop in my neighbourhood came up with the novel idea of calling the shop “Face to Face” . And the character used is the one for “face” , not the one for “noodle” .

Why?

I have no answer to that, unless I go by and ask them one of these days. But I would hazard a guess and say it might be because “face” is a simpler character to write than “noodle” . No, seriously, it’s probably because it just makes a good conversation starter. Plus, it probably gets people curious to go in and try the menu.

Which was what I did. I was curious about the shop’s name and went in to see what they had to offer. In fact, I didn’t relate the name to noodles, and thought it was the usual cafe offering a variety of dishes. I was wrong. The shop sells nothing but noodles. After I had a look at the menu, the meaning of the shop’s name became clear to me.

“Face to Face” noodle shop sells a variety of noodles, but its Chef’s Recommendation is Sarawak noodles – a dry noodle topped with soy sauce and minced meat. In addition, there are two variations – black soy sauce and chilli sauce.

I tried the original and it was good. And the serving large. Yummy …

In fact, writing about it now is making me hungry. Maybe I go there for lunch afterwards. And take some pictures, too.