Just crazy about the fishballs
EVERYDAY at around lunchtime, teenagers and adults queue up in Aberdeen Old Main Street. Not for the Four Kings' concert tickets or new flats but for fishballs and sliced fish meat at the Shan Loan Tse Kee Fishball stall.
The food is fresh, cheap and good. Vendors offer home-made fishballs and fired sliced fish meat (yu pin) made with different kinds of fresh fish, yu pay wan tun (dumplings filled with fish meat) and fried yu pay (fried fish skin). Even cuttlefish balls, meatballs and beefballs are on the menu.
Tse Kee was a hawker in a lane known as Shan Loan in Aberdeen Old Main Street, according to 75-year-old kai fong (neighbour) Mr Chan. The stall has been there for 50 years, Mr Chan said, although its founder is no longer there. When Mr Tse got enough capital, he opened his own fishball stall and workshop, the Shan Loan Tse Kee Fishball.
The Tse Kee is a family shop. Service is swift and friendly and the food is great. For fast eaters, I recommend the yu pay wan tun noodle and fishballs (small bowl $13; big bowl $24; extra big bowl $48) or the mixed bowl (small bowl $24, big bowl $48). For takeaways per catty - fishballs are $44, yu pay wan tun $72, meatballs $48, fired sliced fish meat $72, and cuttlefish balls $52.
''My son and I like eating here because it has been going for more than 50 years. The fishballs and the sliced fish meat are wonderful,'' said one customer, Mrs Liu, aged 33.
Mrs Luk, aged 60, said: ''I am from Happy Valley, this is the first time I have come here. My friends introduced me to this stall, and although the prices are more expensive than the others, I still wanted to come and try it.'' Mrs Lam, 60, who has been buying fishballs and sliced fish meat from the stall for 10 years, said: ''Their fishballs are fresh. My children love them very much. They don't like fishballs from other stalls.'' The trouble is that the stall is always full at lunchtime, from 11.30am to 3.30pm. So I thought I'd go back at dinnertime. ''Oh, sorry. We are open only from 10am to 6pm daily - not dinnertime,'' said a woman at the stall.