As much as I want to cook everyday to save money, there were times we decided to not cook but to go out and buy food from local small vendors. During lockdown, there were so many food businesses badly affected and many had closed down too, including my husband's food truck business. Knowing the challenges faced by food owners, we aimed to support them occasionally. This in long run will help the economy too. And I will be very sad if there are no restaurants or Kopitiam around.
This one I am going to blog about is a small Kopitiam located nearby where I stay. This is a lower cost Kopitiam whereby there is no air-conditioning, merely open door concept with fans. And in it, there are many stalls selling dimsum, noodles, rice with dishes, wok-hey fry, and varieties of beverages.
I always come here to buy lunch, 3-4 times a week. I packed food from three local food vendors — chee cheong fun, Sarawak Noodle and cakoi.
1) Aunty Chee Cheong Fun
This Aunty has been around. Whenever I see elderly selling food, I will automatically support them. I mean, they should retire and rest but they are here to sell food. Most of them need to wake up early for food and stall preparation.
Chee cheong fun is rice noodle roll, it can be either roll into round noodle or flat noodle. And she sells it together with yong tao foo dishes too so that we can choose the yong tao foo as sides to eat with our chee cheong fun.
She sells two types of chee cheong fun, the flat one and the round cylinder type. Sorry for the blur photos. The chee cheong fun was placed inside the stall.
Yong tau foo is a Hakka Chinese dish of tofu filled with ground meat mixture or fish paste.
And her varieties of yong tao foo ranges from stuffed tofu to stuffed brinjal and stuffed chilli and stuffed ladies finger, dumplings, fish cakes, Chinese sausage, with fried beancurd and pork layer fat, fishballs and meatballs and fuchuk, etc.
For sauces, she has two types, the typical sweet chee cheong fun sauce and curry sauce. We chose the best the curry sauce.
How it looked like after packing and unpacking at home.
I packed this for myself and eldest son. We had our own choice of yong tao foo. Very yummy plate of chee cheong fun and yong tao foo loaded in curry sauce. Yummyyy!
2) Sarawak Noodle
Sarawak Noodle or we call it as kolok mee is a Malaysian dish of dry egg noodle tossed in fragrant pork lard oil and flavorful shallots mixture oil, loaded with 'char siu' aka BBQ pork belly with sweet sauce and soy sauce minced pork.
This lady is from Sarawak so I was keen to try.
What she sells
I chose the red sauce one which is noodle tossed in char siu sauce for my youngest son. I tried too. It was acceptable and I think the red sauce could be tastier.
3) Cakoi or Youtiao
This one was a new stall, selling all kinds of fried Chinese dough or fritters. It was owned by these two young people. They looked like a couple to me but I didn't ask to verify. They made the dough fresh daily and fried it on the spot. I know this may not be healthy but once awhile. I saw alot or cakoi or we call it 'yao char kuey' or Chinese dough fritters.
This was our snack and it was so so delicious. Crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside. I regretted I did not buy more. Next round, I would buy more for sure. I love to eat this dipping into my coffee. Haha.
That's about it for my supporting local businesses blog. On one hand, we were supporting them, on another hand, it could ease me from cooking and to go slower at home instead of busy at the kitchen. I think it is a win-win situation.
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All images are mine unless stated otherwise, photos are taken using my phone Hua Wei P20.
Hello there, I am the lady behind this little space of my blog in this awesome vast Hive blockchain. Often, when I blog, read, curate and get to know new people, I feel that I am no longer stucked inside the four-wall of my apartment, but rather, I am travelling all across the world, just like a little heaven-on-earth experience. Hope you enjoy reading this snippet of my life as I enjoy exploring yours. Thank you for swinging by.
