I’ve been eating kuay teow (or flat rice noodles) soup with fishballs almost every other weekend. Of all the hawker food, I guess I could call this my all-time favorite.

Most weekends, my neighbor will very kindly help me buy from the coffee shop near the market that she goes to. It’s quite tasty and the soup is not too salty unlike some where the soup is like salt water with practically no flavor at all.

Of course, nothing beats the fishball soup I make at home. Just look at this - it’s got tons more ingredients than the hawker version so much so you can’t even see the rice noodles .

I brew the soup overnight and I add 2, sometimes 3 different types of fishball - the white comma-shaped ones, the round white ones and the large fried ones. I’ve also added some foopay, or flat beancurd sheets, and a generous helping of shredded chicken, chopped cilantro and Chinese lettuce (you can’t see it because it’s at the bottom of the bowl).

The hawker only gives you 3 or 4 fishballs, a few shreds of chicken meat and if you’re lucky, a few strands of Chinese lettuce and cilantro. That’s all you get and its taste is nothing compared to the homemade version. I prefer to homecook my own hawker food because the coffee shops and hawker stalls are generally quite dirty. I’m spoilt that way .

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