Call me old school, thank you, but I rather revel in world where a poking a friend or sending him a beverage meant you had to show up and meet them face to face rather than on facebook. Preferably at a coffeeshop, and not exactly the ones that you find in malls, which to me are huge glass and steel tombs sitting above what was once little shophouses that housed rows of curious looking retail operations that were en-blocked upon, selling shoes, specialised canned goods, charcoal, tailoring services (where have all the coat-tail tailors gone), functional bicycles and repairs or even mahjong accessories. The malls that linked them were an ingenious piece of legislated architecture called five-foot-ways. It has a second floor that juts out five feet (or thereabouts) over the front entrance below and acts as a covered walkway. It linked one block of shophouses to another and pedestrians and shoppers can saunter about in the shade or without getting rained on - a brilliant work of urban development devised by the old colonial British landlords here last century.

Mr Wee brews his coffee the way he only knows how,
the old fashioned way.

Then, every other block has a charming old coffeeshop manned by an Ah Ko (Hainanese brother) who invariably roasted their own coffeebeans and stirred a pot of fresh eggy kaya each day and the lingo they used “kopi no” (two cups of coffee) or “kopi kao” (thick coffee) gave it a distinct local character to the experience. These days, I sip a cuppa in a slick mall chain coffeeshop or cafe and realized that I would have received better service if I ordered in Xian accented mandarin or by numbers, listed according to the beverage photo menu hanging above. Come back after getting lost in your thoughts for a split second and it may be hard to tell which city this mall is in – they all look the same.

Ok, enough bitching over how the bulldozers of tomorrow are knocking my soul out of its cultural haven. I am really glad (for now) that they have not bulldozed its way around what’s left of our five foot way shophouse collection here like at the Joo Chiat area, Balestier Road, Little India, parts of Chinatown and even Tanjong Pagar. But look closely – everyone seems to be operating bars, spas, convenient stalls or restaurants. Where’s my good old fashioned kopitiam (and I don’t mean a food court). Going, going….

They use the white instead of brown bread, but hey, it’s thin and nicely done, and you can’t tell the subtle difference.

Then Andrew, a makanmata (a Makansutra food cop), reminded me of this old corner kopitiam in a forgotten spot along Geylang that “my father used to and still buys fresh kaya and has his coffee-socks brew regularly”. I have always seen this little nondescript coffeeshop when I drive into Geylang from Paya Lebar. It’s five foot way sits one feet below the main road which kind of position that stretch of colourful Geylang (mostly red) as a little stage if you sip coffee along the walkway. “My father started this coffeeshop over fifty years ago at Lorong 23 and we’ve been here since the 70’.”, 61 year old Ah Ko Mr Wee Kee Liom tells me as he is pulling coffee from the iconic long nosed kopitiam coffee pot, something he’s been doing for a few decades. “We still handmake our own kaya about twice a week and we blend our coffee powder but get the supplier to roast the beans”. These types of coffeeshop, although fast disappearing, won’t quite catch the eye - it’s old fashioned red tiles, the ceiling fans, plastic chairs and laminate wood tables (which long replaced the marble tables and kopitiam chairs) serving a few hawkers stalls offering local fare and the soft drink and beer ad posters, don’t scream schematic designed international chain and central kitchen with standard operational procedures.

The “cook egg white only” eggs- sensationally smooth
with black soy sauce and pepper.

But their kaya is in league of its own. It’s thick and smooth, eggy, comes old style and unapologetically rich, and when in it’s spread over their hot, thinly roasted white bread with a slice of cold butter, folks like me will look skywards and say “thank you” as I devour it by the five-foot-way seat. They sell a little pot of it at $3.80. The coffee is bold, simply because Mr Wee knows no other way to do it- with searing hot water poured over the fresh coffee powder in a coffee sock to infuse. His soft boiled eggs, and he calls them “cook the egg whites only”, is so because they sit the eggs in hot water for that precise few seconds to cook only the whites before they are left gently to cool and warm the yolks. Slurp, slurp, it is slippery and smooth and perfect with black soy sauce and pepper.

I like that they offer that first cuppa from an ungodly 5am, when all the drunken crawlies of Geylang have already gone home to nurse hangovers.