Two years it has been since I last ate breakfast here at a McDonalds outlet, and can I tell you just how strange it was that I didn't realize how much I actually missed having a morning meal at this fast food place until the moment I sat at a table looking at my plate of hotcakes in front of me?
It's so strange; McDonalds can have a lot of different foods and a lot of different options, including new ones that I would also like to try- like the bagels, or something- but somehow the heart keeps going back to the cozy and the familiar.
I've always had a soft spot for hotcakes.
Well, actually, Big Breakfasts also, not so much for any reason, other than I had this thing for scrambled eggs and English muffins when I was young, and up till now, I fancy a thickly buttered English muffin with little drizzles of jam between the crevices.
Between one and the other though, I missed the hotcakes more.
Which is a little surprising, really.
I had not thought I missed these simple little round flat cakes of flour so much but apparently, I do.
Perhaps I think of these hotcakes of McDonalds as happy food.
And perhaps I actually like eating them with my hands instead of fork and knife, although now as grown-up adults we are technically required to have them the proper way.
There's something genuinely fun about eating this little round cake of flour that I cannot define, but I like it, and I hope to keep it that way.
Today we had brought our own butter down.
Next time we'll bring more.
This little cup of French butter ended up not being enough for two waffles and three hotcakes.
Good thing then McDonalds provided the syrup, which, cornstarch, sugar, everything and all, I usually try not to take, but I hadn't had this for two years, so it obviously didn't matter.
Anyway only when we came to the third hotcake did I start dipping (drowning) it in.
All at once it brought back familiar flavors of childhood- of McDonalds at Bras Basah, of McDonalds at East Coast Park, of McDonalds, even, at elsewhere.
But not just that, there was that sense of quiet joy knowing that these three little flat cakes was what I really wanted- not what others wanted- this was what I really liked- not what others liked- and most important of all, I didn't have to share.
I could choose to have it all to myself.
But, of course, I didn't.
We split our meals.
I took a bit of my friend's scrambled eggs and half of sausage.
He took one and a half of my hotcakes.