Those Were The Good Old Days

After church today, Mum and Dad decided to take me to Hock Chu Leu Restaurant for lunch. Hock Chu Leu (HCL) is one of the oldest restaurants in Sibu so it has a very vintagey (read: old and run down) feel to it. HCL is situated on Blacksmith Road which is where Mum grew up. HCL is also the restaurant where Mum and Dad had their engagement dinner thirty odd years ago.

Check out the vintagey wooden sign:
Interior of the restaurant:

Best noodles I've had in Sibu up to today. It's got that smokey taste that reminds me of certain parts of my (gluttonny) childhood:

One of HCL's specialties. Sea cucumber soup = the soup tastes similar to shark fin soup. Check out the chubby sea cucumber:

Another specialty - braised mushroom, scallops, chicken and chinese cabbage. Sounds and looks a bit plain and uninteresting but it was DELISH and healthy. Yum, i loved this.

Last but not least, we always get these giant steamed dumplings when we come here. Mels favourite:

I dedicate this photo to Mel:

Afterwards we wandered down the street and Mum and Dad reminiscenced about the good old days. Grandma was a hairdresser and her shop was on Blacksmith Road. Mum lived above the shop with Grandma. Mum was a spoilt brat and used to wait until there were clients around and then she would ask Grandma for money in front of these clients so that Grandma had to give her money to shut her up. Heheh

Blacksmith Road:

People still live upstairs these days:

This shop was already here when Mum was growing up. Grandma's shop was behind this. It's a jewellery shop.

Dad likes to joke that Mum used to sit at the shop front to look out for him. But that's a total lie because Dad was a kampung (village) boy while Mum was a city gal. He grew up in the village across the river. He told us that he used to have to take the ferry to school everyday and it costed 30 cents. So everyday he would go to school with 30 cents in his pockets, just enough for the ferry trip. Funnily enough, he never lost the 30 cents.