You know, it really surprises me just how that even though I used to stay less than three kilometers away from Heng Long Teochew Porridge at Kovan, I'd never once had a meal here.
I don't know why.
Maybe because The Parents considered themselves (both) to be of another dialect or something.
Whatever it might have been, we hardly came here, and as a Family, we certainly didn't eat here.
It's a little bit of a pity.
Because not only is the food pretty good, better yet, there's the atmosphere.
I might not know how it was like having a meal here in the 80s or 90s, but eating a bowl of porridge here now,, on this particular evening brings me back almost immediately to those days when Wing Tai meant the factory along this side of Tampines Road, and Lim Ah Pin Post Office was still on Lim Ah Pin Road.
The building's still there- I know, because I used to go buy stamps every year during Christmas time- but it's now become an art studio- and the village-style post office has long been gone.
That's not the only change that has taken place in this area.
The chicken rice/ duck rice stall that used to stand at the corner coffee shop near the petrol station has also long gone.
As the Wing Tai factory that has since been torn down to make way for a high rise condominium.
I won't be surprised if more and more changes happen within this space.
Which is why a meal like this is a very good thing.
It's not just nostalgia.
It's tradition and familiarity wrapped within dishes of warm food that feed a hungry stomach, an over-stimulated soul, and a slightly tired mind.
Many tell me that a bowl of steaming hot porridge (moi) works wonders.
But it wasn't just the porridge that calmed me and made me feel satisfied.
There were also the very well-prepared dishes, out of which there were all-time favorites of mine.
It's not that I don't eat steamed pork.
I do.
It's something I have grown up with.
But I think I am used to mine with buried salted egg more than buried salted fish and this one had small little strongly-flavored slices of salted fish carefully hidden inside.
In the same way it's not that I don't like or don't eat sesame chicken.
I do.
My grandmother used to make it as a dinner dish.
But these days I'm partial to them- because I'm scared of the tiny little bones that somehow always pop up in my mouth whenever I'm happily chatting away.
But I love a good sweet and sour pork
Especially when they're huge chonks like these, are crispy, and which are sweet but not over-cloyingly so.
Amongst my favorites was the steamed egg.
Bouncy boing boing with a lot of eggy egg taste, it reminded me of the steamed egg dish in tiffin that my grandparents used to make from time to time whenever they prepared dinner.
Then there was the brinjal.
Which, interestingly, I didn't use to like, but in recent years I have come to appreciate, and enjoy.
Coming here to Upper Serangoon Road for Teochew porridge brought back a host of memories which I thought I'd forgotten but I clearly haven't had.
Maybe I'm not very familiar with the eateries and the shops that line this stretch, or the well known confectionary selling old-school cream cakes and pastries or even Yong's Teochew Kueh (which has another outlet on East Coast Road)
But I remember Simon Road Market.
I remember stopping by one of the shops- nearer to the Kovan side- to order boxes of breakfast foods and cakes for fellow youth at a Christian group camp.
And I remember the chicken rice/duck rice stall, because I happened to be on that very feeder bus where the bus driver made a quick pit stop to dabao before dashing back up to continue the journey past the junior college towards the swimming pool.