THE ROAD THROUGH

There was an alarm sounding very far off. Must be something happening at the police post. 'Naarp, naarp, naarp'. And a five or six second pause. Then, 'naarp, naarp, naarp' again. It went on for ten minutes, while Mr. Kie distracted us with more cheung fan. Mmm, shrimp! Great with sweet chili sauce! Unspoken: don't take that road, there is always something there. Well, yes. But if we want to get to the city we'll have to, and keep our fingers crossed. As we got back into the pickup I wondered why I had to sit under the tarp in the open cargo bed, and I gradually woke up.

Some yuppie's car is getting broken into further up the hill. And with too much covering me, including the down comforter, it feels tropical. There is light outside.


I remembered the silkiness of the cheung fan at that new place in Chinatown. Steamed pork sheet noodle with cilantro (豬肉腸粉, 同芫茜). It had been creamy in the mouth with a drizzle of soy sauce and dribbles of hot sauce. Rather a pity they don't do HK milk tea.

Still, I will be going there again. I'm tempted to do so next week.

I'll have to find somewhere else for the beverage.

It's on Stockton Street, where Little Paris used to be. Which closed slightly over a month ago. Quite the end of an era. We're now down to four Viet places. We have also lost a few of the chachanteng, and one of the remaining ones is still using paper plates and cups and plastic cutlery, which they started doing during the pandemic. But there are now more opportunities for lovely steamed dumplings, and there is also a place for Hong Kong beef brisket noodle soup (牛腩麵湯 'ngau naam min tong').

Things change. I suppose its time to revisit Sai's and see how they're doing in their new location. It's slightly closer to C'town, two blocks from where they used to be. They probably have bún thịt nướng chả giò (燒豬肉春捲米粉 'siu chyu yiuk chun kuen mai fan'; barbecued pork and spring rolls vermicelli). Which I haven't had in a while. Great for a lazy afternoon with a glass of chilled coffee.

By the way, beef noodle soup in any of its forms is not strictly speaking proper food as Northerners understand it. Southerners, brigands, former soldiers, ethnics, and rebels.
Le goût des gens scandaleux.



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