My friend asked me if I had come before.
I said I couldn't remember.
I might have come once, or twice, in the last few years.
I might not have.
Maybe I came a very, very long time ago.
But that was was a long, long time ago.
It wasn't the same for my friend the East-sider, however, who not only had great memories of the times he'd come here for late-night supper with Family, he had also fond memories of the food they'd had here.
Noob that I was had no idea what was best here, so off my friend went, and very soon, came back bearing a plate of flour crackers and ngoh hiang from the ngoh hiang stall he and his family used to buy.
The taste, he said, was still the same- little rolls containing minced meat and chopped water chestnuts, and big crunchy crackers that (I mistakenly thought) were supposed to come with a prawn head tucked inside.
There was no prawn, of course.
But this one was incredibly fun to eat.
Super deep fried, it crumbled easily into pieces at the very first bite- and made for perfect nibbling all through dinner.
Here's the funny thing: I Don't know the name of this cracker.
Neither does my friend.
I guess we'll just keep calling it flour crackers.
Along with the nibbles from the ngoh hiang stall were the BBQ chicken wings.
Don't underestimate these little bites- they might be a familiar sight at outdoor barbecues- but there's something about the way they're done here that make you want to order more.
I suppose it's the way they marinate them.
Or it might be the way that they're constantly turned 360 degrees over the heat such that each piece comes out perfectly barbecued- with very crispy (and oily) chicken skin, and tender, flavorful, juicy meat.
My friend ate his using his hands.
I had mine with the aid of a tissue grasped in my hand.
BBQ chicken wings are a staple of Fengshan, by the way.
Never miss out on them when you're there.
It would feel a bit of a waste otherwise.
I should know; I've been back there a couple of times since the time of these pictures- and not on all of those occasions I've been able to have the wings.
That's fine however; I went there (specially) for the porridge, and this century egg pork porridge is really, really, really good too.
I'm not exaggerating.
We had it on this first time that I was there.
And it's got me going back there twice since then.
My bowl had pork balls, pork slices, century eggs, plus spring onions, fried shallots, and a generous portion of crispy youtiao.
One thing I love about this porridge is the memories that it brings me.
I've grown up eating porridge of the thick, thick kind, and even though I've been to places where the quality is Cantonese, not many of them come close to the homecooked style that speaks to me.
This one does.
It makes me think of the slow-cooker porridges we used to make for Saturday dinners at home.
It makes me think of how I liked scraping the sticky leftover bits from the sides of the cooker pot.
And it makes me think of Saturday mornings at the market downstairs where we'd go to get fresh ingredients.
The Family's gone towards the cold platter route with our century eggs these days, so, yes, I'm glad- I'm really, really glad- that I've found a porridge stall (in a hawker center!) that's worth traveling over an hour for all the way from the other side of town.