There's one dish my dining companion always goes for whenever he comes for a meal at Chin Chin Eating House near the junction of Purvis Street and Beach Road.
You might think he'd order from the many selections of zichar dishes served up here in the eating house.
Or the Hainanese chicken rice that Chin Chin is (also known for).
But no, it's always the Hainanese Pork Chop with the chicken-rice style of rice.
And it's always the same.
I don't mind.
I get to share the potatoes that come with the pork chop, and I love dipping whatever I've ordered into the bowl of tomato sauce anyway.
My choice of meal here at Chin Chin is a little more varied.
Sometimes I like to go for the dry beef hor fun.
Other times I like to go for the sam lor hor fun.
There have been times when I've ordered a plate of fried mee sua, which I fell in love with the very first time I tried.
It's not just the zichar noodle and rice dishes that I go for.
In recent days I've found myself increasingly drawn to their soups and their soupy dishes too.
Like this mee sua soup that I ordered not too long ago, and which, I'm glad to say, turned out to be a great choice where I got one gigantic serving of mee sua noodles swimming about in a deliciously warm, comforting broth with pieces of meat (chicken or pork) and green leafy vegetables floating happily about inside.
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Same, I'm pretty sure, can be said for their other soups as well, even though I've been quite faithful to my regular favorites and have yet to try their fish maw soup, their salted vegetable soup, and their seafood soup.
It's never an easy choice to make.
Particularly since the fish maw soup sounds interesting, I don't mind having a prawn or two from the seafood soup, and who doesn't mind slurping up salted vegetables that are great in stimulating the palate?
It's perhaps for this reason that I've found myself gravitating to their sliced fish soup more and more in recent days.
Do I regret it?
Absolutely not.
They've got five to six slices of thick very, very fresh fish in the bowl.
They've got a heap of chopped lettuces and cabbages which I love to swirl around with my chopsticks.
And unexpectedly they've thrown in a a variety of prettily sliced carrots, wedges of tomatoes, and other vegetables along with thick chonks of ginger inside.
I like to have my lettuces last.
I like to dunk my fish into the tomato sauce.
And I like to have my sliced fish soup with a spoonful or two of chicken-rice style chicken rice.
It's comforting, it's incredibly light on the stomach and I don't have to worry about my level of appetite, or if there be none.