Mobile Food Sellers of Yesteryear

[kingrant]

Heard it has resurfaced in Far east Sq.

The Wanton Noodle at the National Library Coffee shop was good, Now that area...is devoid of LIFE..

 

[elephanto]

Ate at Armenian Street coffe shop, where the Char Kway Teow man & the Ngoh Hiang Man was...Now that area...is devoid of LIFE..

ha ha lol, old fogeys jogging each others' memory ....

thks for helping me recall the fantastic char kway teow & ngoh hiang stall at the corner coffee shop ... used to eat at table next to the mamak store-in-wall next to the kopitiam, looking at the US Embassy.....
The fried prawn fritter of the ngoh hiang man my favorite ...

I think the fantastic food stalls of the past are a dying breed ...

Now go foodcourt, dunno eat what, all the stalls are chain-stores, kway teow mee soup like plain water, fish soup like plain water, everything franchise no more quality left ..... again, one-two-three .... BLAME PAP FUCK PAP FUCK URA :oIo:

 

[elephanto]

Kim Pong Rd - where King's Theatre was- is actually on the fringes of TB, and since yr stay was only 2 years, you cld have missed out plenty that happened in the core where I stayed for the best 12 years of my boyhood -

Yo Kingrant, if you live near King's Theatre, then you must know about those monochrome printed flyers in blue/ red/ green - flyers of upcoming movies distributed to cinema patrons ..... got photos of movie scenes, plot synopsis ....
I would love to get my hands on these A4 size leaflets again for old times sake .... then watching the WangYu shows & the WangSa/YeFong Country Bumpkin Goes to Town / Goes to Jail series .... all I watch at King's what we hokkiens called 'Hsuan Kiong' .... while munching kachang putih...

 

[kingrant]

Wow! Those we will never forget! Pity how much our kids and the younger g miss.

After skinning the snake, he will just hang it up and the snake will just keep on curling and moving. Opposite Fook Hai Building.

 

[halsey02]

ha ha lol, old fogeys jogging each others' memory ....

thks for helping me recall the fantastic char kway teow & ngoh hiang stall at the corner coffee shop ... used to eat at table next to the mamak store-in-wall next to the kopitiam, looking at the US Embassy.....
The fried prawn fritter of the ngoh hiang man my favorite ...

I think the fantastic food stalls of the past are a dying breed ...

Now go foodcourt, dunno eat what, all the stalls are chain-stores, kway teow mee soup like plain water, fish soup like plain water, everything franchise no more quality left ..... again, one-two-three .... BLAME PAP FUCK PAP FUCK URA :oIo:

The Char Kway Teow old man & his son, knows me by sight....I get mine ahead of yours...if you had already ordered

The Ngor Hiang old man makes his stuff by hand...and that's what makes it so special..his niece took over..got her stuffs ready made...and over time.she closed down...

Looking across to The US Embassy from that direction was the USIS Library, if one remembers, I use to be a member and boorowed their multimedia stuffs..read the books , magazines, get very well printed handouts...and that was years before September 11....the embassy was an easy access... sure miss those times..

Really wonder, had progress killed what was realy UNIQUELY SINGAPORE?, something in which a tourist would want to see?, not another Universal World, not another Casino..not another ultra modern glass, steel, building, not another PUB..or another whatever they maybe out in this wolrd REPLICATED..

Something unique, which we SINgaporeans can say its is YOUR SINGAPORE!!

 

[kingrant]

Those days too, they actually had artists to paint in oil all those trailers in the ads on big billboards. If they were too big, like the facade of Capitol cinema, they erected scaffolds using bakau poles and rattan strips dipped in water to fasten better. Nowadays, these ads are printed from photographs/cineshots on room size paper strips using commercial printers and pasted on site.

Yo Kingrant, if you live near King's Theatre, then you must know about those monochrome printed flyers in blue/ red/ green - flyers of upcoming movies distributed to cinema patrons ..... got photos of movie scenes, plot synopsis ....
I would love to get my hands on these A4 size leaflets again for old times sake .... then watching the WangYu shows & the WangSa/YeFong Country Bumpkin Goes to Town / Goes to Jail series .... all I watch at King's what we hokkiens called 'Hsuan Kiong' .... while munching kachang putih...

 

[kingrant]

The son has now taken over. But the air is no longer the same.

I dont think the ngor hiang stall is there anymore, is it?

The Char Kway Teow old man & his son, knows me by sight....I get mine ahead of yours...if you had already ordered

The Ngor Hiang old man makes his stuff by hand...and that's what makes it so special..his niece took over..got her stuffs ready made...and over time.she closed down...

 

[halsey02]

Wow! Those we will never forget! Pity how much our kids and the younger g miss.

I thought the stall was at "mew Kai"?, where the family skin snakes, bats, pangolins, kill turtles & other assorted animals, if you want to make some tonic. It was also snake bile with a peg of hennesy... or tiger's..or bear's...or Civet Cats...or...

or fruit bat..good for ashtma..something like that...turtle for soup...or I heard there was once MONKEY BRAIN..never say that..

but the snake on a rake & the lady skinning it...I did see...

That was before...Animal Conservation .... this would make all the animal conservationists skirm....but this was business and tonic for the body..it was suppose to make one virel, strong & healthy...

 

[halsey02]

Those days too, they actually had artists to paint in oil all those trailers in the ads on big billboards. If they were too big, like the facade of Capitol cinema, they erected scaffolds using bakau poles and rattan strips dipped in water to fasten better. Nowadays, these ads are printed from photographs/cineshots on room size paper strips using commercial printers and pasted on site.

Those printed handouts in blue coloured ink or red or B&W in B5 size...are now collectors items...i use to have them around..I lost my box of memories in moving house...

I use to admire those PAINTERS....commercial painters that replicate the scenes from the movies & transfer them to bigger than Life size Canvas...

beats all the graphic designers...with their ADOBE PNOTOSHOP etc..

 

[kingrant]

Yea, Mew Kai is Temple Street, just a couple of streets away.

I thought the stall was at "mew Kai"?,

 

[kingrant]

For younger people who missed out on old Singapore, they can take a trip up to HK. Places like Mongkok and Wanchai in Kowloon still can give a pretty good live account and images of what Singapore was. Those days, the immigrant tenants hung their bamboo poles of wet laundry outside their windows over pedestrians' heads in Chinatown. Include the New Territories too for such images.

 

[johnny333]

Now that area...is devoid of LIFE..

That place has been going down hill for a long time.

It started when the gov't relocated the schools. One business after another started to close, some replaced by museums nobody wanted to visit. Even the hotel above the coffee shop, Mayfair Hotel closed.

Since they replaced the National Library with a tunnel there's even fewer people going there.

It's just another casualty of gov't planning

 

[halsey02]

Yea, Mew Kai is Temple Street, just a couple of streets away.

Then you would know the Hokkien Prawn Noodles soup stall at Upper Hokkien Street now at Hong Lim Street Complex..

The originator of the Chilli Powder...and the Curry Chicken Noodle...

Where Hong Lim Complex was before there was a street there with many road side stalls with food & a wet market...

It was use to called " Tau Fu Kai"...never knew why they called it by that name? until I was an adult & I ask the elderly genteleman that area, why it was called "tau fu kai"...where there was no soya bean sellers there?, he said " men go there and "mo tau fu"...is you know what it mean...heh he literal translataion "shave to fu"...ha ha ha

Then I reserached the area around there...there were whores along that street & opposite Upper Hokkien Street, where there was once an in-house playhouse for private performances of wayangs etc.. it was a place where the merchants of Chinatown & siew bor to come and have a good time with the ladies of the night...

Of course, there were good food there too..I remember an uniquely Teochew confectionery shop that sell Teo Chew Confectioneries & Teo Chew MOON CAKES during season & a shop hat make Popiah skins...until URA took over...

 

[johnny333]

... used to eat at table next to the mamak store-in-wall next to the kopitiam, looking at the US Embassy.....

Had a classmate who's dad was one of those that ran that mamak stall . The classmate & I attended the neighbourhood school at Canning Rise

 

[kingrant]

' course! Who can forget the prawn mee!

I think Tau Foo Kai is Upper Cross St and Hoy Sun Kai is Upper Chin Chew St.

Further up, you have the wakehouses and the older heavy wooden coffins balanced on 2 trestles side by side all along sago Lane. Now they are in Kallang Bahru.

Then you would know the Hokkien Prawn Noodles soup stall at Upper Hokkien Street now at Hong Lim Street Complex..

The originator of the Chilli Powder...and the Curry Chicken Noodle...

Where Hong Lim Complex was before there was a street there with many road side stalls with food & a wet market...

It was use to called " Tau Fu Kai"...never knew why they called it by that name? until I was an adult & I ask the elderly genteleman that area, why it was called "tau fu kai"...where there was no soya bean sellers there?, he said " men go there and "mo tau fu"...is you know what it mean...heh he literal translataion "shave to fu"...ha ha ha

Then I reserached the area around there...there were whores along that street & opposite Upper Hokkien Street, where there was once an in-house playhouse for private performances of wayangs etc.. it was a place where the merchants of Chinatown & siew bor to come and have a good time with the ladies of the night...

Of course, there were good food there too..I remember an uniquely Teochew confectionery shop that sell Teo Chew Confectioneries & Teo Chew MOON CAKES during season & a shop hat make Popiah skins...until URA took over...

 

[kingrant]

In Smith Street, we used to have tinsmiths who can mend yr pots and pans, make all kinds and shapes of vessels for cooking or boiling, chak kia makers (wooden clogs)...

Now you have to go to Malacca to see them.

We also had carbide lamps where we add water to calcium carbide inside a metal container and fix on the cover which had a long nozzle. The acetylene gas generated is ignited and it gives out enough candlepower to light up a big room.

 

[Papsmearer]

Anyone remember the man that sell a type of honeycomb candy wrapped with what looks like popiah skin and than sprinkled with crushed peanuts? He used to be outside Robinsons.

 

[halsey02]

Anyone remember the man that sell a type of honeycomb candy wrapped with what looks like popiah skin and than sprinkled with crushed peanuts? He used to be outside Robinsons.

Is he the same man that sell his stuff outside OG ( the old store before renovation)? Opposite People's Park Centre, with the rectangular upright tin, very grumpy!.

I use to just go there and buy them from him, despite of him being very grumpy...can't get this quality anymore..

 

[halsey02]

' course! Who can forget the prawn mee!

I think Tau Foo Kai is Upper Cross St and Hoy Sun Kai is Upper Chin Chew St.

Further up, you have the wakehouses and the older heavy wooden coffins balanced on 2 trestles side by side all along sago Lane. Now they are in Kallang Bahru.

Hoy San Kai is Upper Pickering Street, Upper Cross Street is......the name now slipped my mind...and that is where the "Yau Kai Min" ( the dark sauce chicken with noodle), was and now reincarnated further down the road & standard have dropped, along the same row we have the FROG Plaster ( ko yeok) and the former corner coffee shop ( where hotel 81 is) the 'chi pow kai' (Chicken baked in waxed paper)..where are they now?

Tau Foo Kai is in between Upper Pickering Street ( the two blocks of old SIT flats) & Upper Cross Street...

 

[postnew]

Carpenter Street