When it was announced earlier this year of the impending closure of Lavender Food Centre, I am being reminded of how I have always like the wanton mee sold there, the stall which always has the queues. That place had also actually helped me to reconnect with what I have missed about being a Singaporean when I was away on a student exchange in the United States last year for three weeks. It is the food. When I returned back to Singapore last year on the wee hours of Christmas Eve morning, my family chose to have dinner there. I chose to eat the wanton mee for my dinner without thinking twice. As I was eating it, I realised it was still as a good as ever. Or maybe I had actually missed eating it during my time in the US. My family would come to order other food as well, and I will always remember my mother asking me how it feels like eating Singapore food again, as she called it. That was when it really hit me in terms of the food I missed during the three weeks I was in the US. If my experience was anything to go before what my mother came to ask me, the age-old adage is true when it comes to absence makes the heart grow fonder. For my case, I actually started to realise I may have come to take what I tend to eat for granted…until I was away in the United States for three weeks.