Been meaning to visit this old style Hainan cafe for some time now. The place is filled with items from the good old days. Very nostalgic even if there is a sense of visual overkill. You really need to feel relaxed and examine them one by one. Owner is very friendly. Shares his vision of allowing networking (before COVID) amongst customers and showed us how he converted an old jukebox to play CDs instead of vinyls.

We ordered the house favourites - Oxtail stew, Hainanese Pork Chop and Beef noodles. The flavours in the oxtail stew was really authentic old school British stew. What blew us away was the three slices of French loaf when dipped into the stew. This is not your average baguette. It’s the old style French loaf baked in a local bakery so this one is crispy on the outside with denser but soft bread on the inside. The meat falls off the oxtail bone easily enough, testament to the number of hour spent braising the meat.

Next up, pork chop. It’s a good piece of pork chop in tomato sauce. Liked that they use bread crumbs to coat the meat before frying, instead of the usual pre-mixed tempura or chicken wings batter.

Last but not least, the beef noodles. When it was served, it looked ordinary if not disappointing. The taste was also quite bland, just a hint of herbs. The condiments that came with the noodles consists of chopped Chinese parsley, chilli sauce, chinchalok and chopped sour pickled vegetables. Again, by themselves individually, nothing fantastic. But magic happened when we added the condiments into the noodles. Two teaspoons of chilli sauce, one teaspoon of chinchalok, two teaspoons of pickled veg and a generous amount of parsley. Give the noodles a good stir and voila! Could have gone for a second bowl. I actually forgot about the slices of beef and just concentrated on the noodles and the soup.

Definitely going back again. Looking forward to fist bumping the owner again and listen to more stories about the origins of local Hainanese cuisine.