Chicken Rice and nostalgia

when i first moved from Tampines to my current house, Simei was still a really small housing estate with very few facilities. No Eastpoint, only a row of shops next to the MRT station. there was a small "supermarket" and a collection of little shops (stationery, photocopy, barber) next to the first coffee shop, a cake shop, a fruit stall, a butcher and a fish monger, some vegetable stalls, a hairdresser and two other coffee shops. as the years went by, some of the shops changed, especially so when Eastpoint was built (bye bye beloved stationery shop, hello corporate Popular Bookshop). Most of the shops have changed hands and are no longer as nice as they used to be.

other than the fruit and meat stalls, the other 2 long-standing shops are Mirana Cake Shop and Snack Shop. Snack Shop is actually a little family-run coffee shop selling mainly chicken rice and cai perng (mixed vegetable/meat rice). over the years they have diversified, adding various noodle dishes to their menu. but no doubt, their chicken rice is still their best-seller.i remember there always being long queues starting from 11.30am all the way to 2pm and they'd never fail to close the shop at 8pm, afterwhich they'd wash the floors and clean the shop.

one of the first days when my dad was checking up on our new house (and i had tagged along), my grandmother and grandfather took me to explore the shops to find some place for lunch. that was when i first discovered the chicken rice at Snack Shop. and i guess that was when Snack Shop started being part of my life.

when i was a child, i'd always go to my grandparents' house for dinner on Saturday nights. they'd cook the same food (a traditional Cantonese soup, steamed waxed duck and lap cheong, and a few others) as well as buy roast duck, char siew, steamed chicken and roast pork from the nearby coffee shop. that lunch was probably one of the few meals i had with both my grandparents where a) we didnt eat the exact same food we had every Saturday night and b) i saw them sit in a coffee shop together. i wasnt happy about moving because i had lived in my Tampines flat since i was born and didnt like to think that i'd be leaving the place where i had all my wonderful childhood memories in. AND i had taken a really cold shower in the new house (because the heater had not been installed) and i was feeling miserable, but somehow the chicken rice made me feel better.

as i grew up, the chicken rice started being a bit of a staple. on days when i didnt feel like eating lunch in school, i'd come back to Simei and buy a packet of chicken rice to eat at home in front of the TV. of course i never bought JUST chicken rice - add a bit of tau pok here, some braised egg on occasions, some roast pork most of the time and voilà! a lip-smacking meal. when bubble tea came in vogue, i always paired a cup with my chicken rice. what makes the chicken rice so good is the fact that the rice is fragrant and the meats are deliciously flavourful. and the chilli sauce is spicy but has enough lime and garlic to give it a kick.another perenial favourite is Mirana's red bean paste waffle - crispy on the outside and generous with red bean filling. they used to only start making waffles after 4.30pm and there'd always be quite a long wait, especially after office hours when people make a detour on the way home for a waffle. after a while they started selling them at 1pm so i used to pick one up to accompany my chicken rice as "dessert". call me strange but everytime i get my waffle, i'd take a whiff of it and enjoy the lovely pandan aroma befor biting into the piping hot waffle. and if you didnt finish your waffle by the time you walked home, the dog would be asking for some.

even today, i still feel that Snack Shop's chicken rice tastes as good as it did many years ago. and Mirana has the best red bean paste waffle. perhaps my tastebuds are tainted by nostalgia. but i dont really care.