A walk down Katong

It was a bit of a piggy morning.

By which, I meant we pigged-out more than intended, as we strolled down East Coast Road along the Katong stretch.

Not hard to see why, since it full of good food!

We had intended to go to Penny University, but when we alighted from the bus right outside Beach Road Prawn Noodle, we knew that resistance was futile.

Like sailors to sirens, we walked zombie-like towards the prawn noodle stock. The eatery wasn’t as jam-packed as usual, this being a weekday morning, but most folks there were having the full works. Medium sized portions of prawn mee ($8.80 a pop!) plus ngor hiang to share. We contented ourselves with just a bowl of noodles each. And the soup was SO GOOD.

Then we wandered towards the pastry shop that holds many precious childhood memories, to the hubs and his siblings. Along the way, we passed by various Peranakan tiles, which I’ve always found so very attractive.

emerald

Before we quite walked off the noodles, we arrived at Dan Tat heaven! The pastry is slightly harder than what they serve at Dim Sum restaurants, but that’s what they have been serving for decades. As if to say, who wants those fluffy, floosy ones when you can have pastry with a kick.

A scene that could have come out of the 1970s.

In this day and age, where our landscape and skyline changes at the speed of fast-forward time-lapse photography, places like this that have stood their ground against the pressure to renovate/modernise, become so dear. There are so few vestiges of the past to cling to, that even a simple, unassuming, little bakery becomes like a national treasure.

Toast is to die for, says the hubs. But I suspect that has more to do with sentiment than with taste.

I did enjoy the Dan Tat though.

Chin Mee Chin, long may you live, untouched by the winds of change, that sweep so unrelentlessly through our city.