Of Maggi Mee and Nasi Lemak

picture courtesy of KEVII website

Was chatting to YF, an old KE mate on MSN. He's going to Harvard in August and lamenting it's back to hostel life for him.

Oh fond memories! Communal showers and toilets, where you can be "serenaded" by popstars wannabes. Queueing up for mediocre food at the canteen while trying to work out what kind of suspicious meat was used. Queueing up for a turn at the washing machines and dryers. There is no funnier sight than a row of plastic buckets with wet clothes and it is an understanding that the person who empty the dryers would courteously put the next bucket into the dryer. Woe betide the ones who "jump" queue!

I have no idea how hostel living is like at Harvard. At the prices they are charging, obviously it would be of better quality than dingy dear ol' KE hall and I'll bet it is more scenic and atmospheric than the concrete monster that I called home for a good 4 years!

Well, one thing that KE hall has that Harvard won't have. Fong Seng Nasi Lemak! Mention that to any true-blue hostellite and you can see how misty eye they get (plus possible dribbling and drooling).

Come 11.30, a series of knocking on doors and "Oi fong seng! want or not?" A list of orders later and the hostellite lucky enough to have a car will make the journey to Pasir Panjang, next to the bus terminus. Hot from the back kitchen, lovely fluffy fragrant nasi lemak wrapped in banana leaves. Want something more substantial? Just add anything from the spread available - from chicken wings and otak-otak to sotong balls. I once had stir fry green beans so fresh and sweet it has to be plucked fresh 3 seconds ago.

One of my fondest memory is a whole big group of us walking all the way from KEVII to Fong Seng just to eat the nasi lemak in the middle of the night, with the would-be doctors and dentists in their blue scrubs and the rest of us in shorts and t-shirts. An 30min stroll there and back but what fun!

Well, it is not every night we go for Fong Seng. Most of the time, it is the trusted maggi mee embellished with fishballs and seafood sticks. If feeling a bit flush, it would be the cafe down at NUH (with all that 127 steps there and back) or Pasir Panjang Hawker Centre where my Chinese friends will partake in the Teochew Muay there. Once we saw Channel 8 artistes gulping down supper dressed up in Chinese period costumes - they must have done some flying- in-the-air kungfu style filming nearby.

Fuelled with supper, it is usually time to hit the books but most of the time (well, for me at least), supper continues with chatting to the early hours of the morning.