The Wordsmith

“See you at Chong and Low!” said my friend, Angel.

“What’s that, a law firm?” It turns out that Chong and Low Cafe has some pretty fantastic stuff on their menu, legalistic name notwithstanding.

The kueh tiaw (flat rice noodles) is deelish. The barbequed meat is the real thing and not a watered down version with the fluorescent red colouring. It comes in a plate instead of a bowl, which is always a psychological brain-teaser for me. Just because it’s a plate, it’s not really kolo kueh tiaw. There is a mee (egg noodle) version of this of course; plus, the noodles are handmade and extra yummy. What can I say? this is old fashioned goodness from my childhood. How can anyone resist tastes and smells from halcyon days?

The piece de resistance that Angel had been eyeing for was the Hokkien mee. It is absolutely essential to eat it with the belacan and lime that comes with it. I’m not much of a Hokkien mee person. I tend to be the uppity connoisseur of kolo mees – the noodles are just the wrong width, the texture is too soft, there’s a funny smell, there’s too much sauce, it’s too wet, yadda yadda yadda… BUT, with the belacan and lime, I concede that the Hokkien noodles at Messrs. Chong and Low are not bad. Not bad at all. The combination of spicy, tangy and savoury packed a very nice zing in the mouth.

There’s other stuff at the establishment. The nasi lemak looked pretty tempting to me. There’s also laksa, and claypotty things that I’ll try the next time I go.

Chong and Low Cafe. Corner shop at BDC, next row from Hiang Mun Low. Definitely worth trying, and as far as the prices of food are going these days, pretty reasonable.