"Yu yuan guo tiao gan", Waterloo Centre

Growing up, we rarely ate bread for breakfast. Things like toast, kaya and peanut butter were rarely stocked in our household and we were usually whisked off to school early enough to avoid the morning jam.

During the weekends, my parents would visit the wet market and buy back local goodies such as economic bee hoon, laksa, fried carrot cake and bak chor mee pok. Out of all the hearty treats, my enduring favourite would be "guo tiao gan". It was my Saturday wake-up-call, way before granola bars and multigrain bread made their way into my ritual. And even up till today, I can never understand people who say, "I can't eat much in the morning."

Then for some reason, guo tiao gan just fell off the radar. Perhaps whenever I visited hawker centres, I would look out for items that could be shared among many people like chicken rice or fried Hokkien mee and guo tiao gan is a lonesome dish - not something that everyone would partake in.

Prior to last week, I  honestly can't remember when I last had guo tiao gan. But when the cravings hit, they hit hard and fast.

A very short walk from the office is Waterloo Centre, where you would find the famous Leong Yeow Famous Waterloo Street Chicken Rice, I found a very commonplace-looking noodle store. Devoid of Makansutra certificates, Mediacorp artists photos and accolades... but it serves up a seriously satisfying "yu yuan guo tiao gan."

If you saw my diet last week, you could tell I was indeed making up for lost time.