The Juke Joint

In keeping with my current tendency towards posts about food, here’s one about today’s lunch.

I went to eat wanton mee at Stirling Road with the same foodie friend as mentioned before. The stall is located in a small, non-descript coffeeshop tucked away in a little corner round a downhill bend. Most of the customers are there for the wanton mee, and the 2 of us were another pair of faces in that crowd.

It wasn’t exactly very crowded, but the husband and wife team running the stall had their hands full churning out bowl after bowl of noodles. He did the noodles and wanton, tossing them into the boiling water to soften and then transferring then to boiling soup, a simple process but timed to perfection for the right taste and texture. She handled the rest, adding the char siew, vegetables, chilli and then serving and collecting the money.

The man wore a stern expression throughout, a firm indicator that nothing should come between him and his noodles. Occasionally he would bark some orders, but generally kept his attention to his boiling pot. There was a sense of purpose in the way the duo operated, but everything went smoothly like a well-oiled machine. Still, the noodles took a while to come due to the overwhelming demand, but if you know you’re going to get good stuff, the wait adds pleasure to the eating process.

While we were waiting for our noodles, we noticed a few tables munching on curry puffs. The typical Singaporean in me immediately hypothesized that they must be pretty good, or else there won’t be so many people eating them. I went to investigate and found another small stall tucked away in the corner of the coffeeshop, manned by 3 elderly ladies who made the curry puffs. They were still in the process of making a new batch, so I decided to come back after eating the noodles.

When I did go back, they were still at it, so my friend and I waited around the stall. The stall counter humbly indicated “Muslim Food Stall”, and it was located just next to a partition, behind which was the public toilet. Perhaps that’s somehow related to the “C” hygiene rating which was displayed in the counter, but that never puts off dedicated delicacy-hunters like me.

The running joke, of course, is that “D” stands for Delicious, “C” for Can Eat, “B” for Better Not and “A” for Avoid.

Anyway, the stalls white-tiled interior looked rather worn but it was comparatively spacious and everything was neatly arranged. The 3 ladies split the work among themselves. One sat on a stool in front of the stall, peeling off wads of kneaded dough, patting them into a disc and putting them through a small, hand-operated roller. Another one took these flattened pieces of dough and spooned the filling into them, then folding the skin and deftly pressing the edges with her fingers to produce the characteristic ridges which serve dual functions as a seal and for aesthetic value. The final step was to lightly fry them in oil till golden brown, and this was handled by the 3rd lady. Once in a while, one of them would switch to preparing other ingredients like dough or boiled eggs.

All of them worked at an oddly relaxed pace, given the rate at which orders were coming in. The peaceful nonchalance with which they went about their manually-intensive work was a huge contrast from the wanton mee stall. Throughout the whole process they engaged in light banter, sometimes stopping whatever they were doing to make a point. I couldn’t understand what they were talking about, but it was probably quite humorous, judging from their smiles and occasional giggles.

One customer walked up to the stall and made her order, adding, “Must wait how long ah?”

To which one of them replied, “Long long”, drawing chortles all round, myself included.

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Watching them brought to mind the way some of us live our lives. Fresh graduates are expected to be young and dynamic, devoting all our energy to our careers so that we can earn lots of money, buy nice things and live the good life. But how good is good? When is good, good enough? Plunging all your energy into work, combined with the Asian concept of putting in face-time at the office, can be a deadly combination that’s lethal to the soul and mental health. It’s no surprise that the idea of “quarter-life” crisis has evolved. Even now in university, I see some of my peers getting so stressed-up and burnt-out, sometimes stuck in a course at odds with their passions. As a consequence, it’s easy to forget about slowing down, taking time out to indulge your hobbies and finding pleasure in your work and life.

Not that I advocate slacking off when you shouldn’t, but I always believe that a clear, relaxed mind does a better job. The extra time that you put in at the office or library could have been used for something relaxing, putting you in a better state of mind for doing higher-quality work later. I’ve never been one to be overly-stressed out (perhaps to a fault), case in point would be writing this entry when I should be working on my term papers. Maybe, if I’d been more hard-working and studious I would have made more of myself, but I’m not too sure I’d be the same person I am now.

There’s always something to be learnt from those around you, and these 3 ladies making curry puffs reminded me of how life should be lived.

We walked off with 2 curry puffs each, fresh out of the frying pan. As I bit into the curry puff, the crispy crust crumbled gently in my mouth and the filling of piping hot curried potatoes flowed out. The light spiciness added some oomph to the savoury spuds with just a hint of sweetness and onions. After the first bite, wisps of steam emanated from the exposed filling, a tantalizing come-hither invitation for a second bite.




Ahhh….that’s what I call, good.