You know, this is one of the foods that I don't mind writing about, yet at the same time, I am not sure if I want to write about it at all.
It isn't because of the food itself but more so of the circumstances that surround the meal and the reason I'm eating it at this place at this time on this day.
See, for the longest time the only Fong Sheng Hao I preferred to eat at was the one at PLQ's basement. Sometimes I rode a bike there. Sometimes I walked there. All through the years from Ceylon to Kembangan, it was the PLQ place that I preferred having a meal there.
But we haven't been back to PLQ in a while.
And whilst I don't mind eating at the NEX outlet, I wish, in a way, I felt less tired, less drained, and less achy whenever I ate there.
Coming here this evening was no different from the week before.
It was one of those situations where I couldn't find myself really enjoying the food as much as I wished to, no less because all I wanted to do was go home, take a bath, cleanse off the work from chores, and sleep.
But it wouldn't do justice to what is a very good bowl of Lu Rou Fan, or Braised Pork Belly Rice, so here we are.
Fong Sheng Hao serves up their rice bowl in the typical Taiwanese HSR bento box style. The Taiwanese boxes are always packed to the brim- you can detect the fragrance of them braised meats a mile away- and although I can't be sure if they're the same size as the one here in Fong Sheng Hao, the ingredients, I'm guessing, will be more or less the same.
Fong Sheng Hao does their bowl with rice (of course), braised pork belly (of course), plus an addition of a whole hard boiled egg, and pickled cucumbers.
I like the pickled cucumbers.
At one time I used to keep them to the end of the meal but ever since I restarted eating here, I've been going for them first. They refresh the palate, whet the appetite and give me a gentle crunch that I have in recent days begun to appreciate.
Better yet, I've now realized that the cucumber actually does go very well with the braised pork belly where the tart, sourish, pickled taste of the cucumber balances out the savory rich of the braised sauce. Each bite now becomes a combination of sour and savory and fresh and earthy all at the same time.
The egg, however, I still eat on its own, except for the white, which I have slightly mushed up with the rice.
Coming here we like to order more than one dish.
At one time we would have had the toast sandwich or the crepe pancake, but we've since found we like their popcorn chicken better and so that be what we order. It isn't really huge, the portion, but each piece is quite substantial.
What's more, they do marinate it enough- a bit of pepper spice going on there- it is well fried enough (crisp outside, soft inside) and I like how the gentle crunch of the chicken goes down well whether eaten on its own or with a spoonful of rice.