The Dead Cockroach: Jia Ji Mei Shi @ Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre

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After an intensive three-months renovations, Chinatown Complex Market & Food Centre has finally reopened much to the relief of the stall owners (no income for three months!) and the nearby office workers who had to venture further for their lunches.

Honestly, I do not see any difference with the newly renovated food centre. Illumination within is still as bad as before, throwing people into a dreary mood. Furthermore, seemingly cleaned tables still have stains on them, suggesting half-hearted jobs from the cleaning crew.

The only evident thing I see are the nets put up to keep out the birds.

The very first stall that I cannot wait to revisit is Jia Ji Mei Shi which serves all-day breakfast like chee cheong fun (rice rolls), orh kueh (yam cake), porridge, fried bee hoon and rice dumplings, etc.

This particular stall is one of the more popular ones hence a perpetual queue is to be expected although it is not as terrible as Liao Fan's (Hawker Chan) which is just perpendicular in front to their stall.

The food that I will never fail to order here is their $2 chee chong fun and orh kueh combo served with sweet sauce and chili sauce.

The chee cheong fun is quite generic but the orh kueh, in particular, is velvety smooth and soft without being mushy. Of course, it would be better if there are bits of yam within.

There are definitely better ones out there but the ones here are comforting in its own ways.

If I am not ordering anything else from other stalls, I would also order a bowl of their cuttlefish & peanut porridge ($3) to make it a full meal. I do find the porridge a tad too salty but also satisfying due to the generous servings of cuttlefish and peanuts.

I will order their rice dumpling ($2) occasionally when there is a craving for it. They have bak chang, nonya chang and green bean chang. I will usually order the nonya chang but I do not know what came over me to order the bak chang this time.

Not that the bak chang is bad but it is not my favorite chang.