Thanks for the nostalgia. I used to live in the flats directly across from Kok Kee restaurant back in its hey days. It was also rumoured that the mansion (I think it was once owned by the Loke family) was haunted. Before it was refurbished and turned into a restaurant, the fenced-off mansion was quite a creepy eyesore in the 60s. After its transformation, Kok Kee used to host many celeb/VIP dinners, private parties (for visiting HK film stars) and loud wedding dinners come Fri and Sat evenings. The seafood they served was legendary. And they used to have those elaborate double-lion dances (complete with illegal firecrackers) during Chinese New Year and folks would line the front of the flats to watch. It was such a happening venue back then.

Next to it was the even more happening complex that housed the Green Fern coffeehouse, Federal Bowl and Latin Quarter (with its very glamorous escorts). Piles of expensive flash 4-wheelers would choke the place every weekend well into the early morning hours.

On the other side of Kok Kee was the Foo Yet Khai flats where a seedy black-clad nightclub, whose name escapes me now, used to get raided by the cops every so often. Rose Chan used to perform her infamous striptease floorshows there in the 60s. And next to that nightclub was the popular Luen Seng restaurant, a poor cousin to Kok Kee.

When I was working as a cashier at Green Fern from '79 -'80, two talented ex-Michaelians (Andrew and Joey), who called themselves "Anjos", used to belt out all those cheesey songs night after night. One evening, all hell broke loose when a well-known local identity pulled out his pistol and shot all 4 tyres of a car whose owner 'had the nerve' to park in the former's reserved parking spot. The latter was more than sore and sorry after the incident.

Does anyone remember those garbage collectors who would trundle past in their MPI trucks during Chinese New Year but not collect the overflowing garbage until they had each been given an angpow? Funny that each truck had 6 collectors only during Chinese New Year. And not 1 but 2 different trucks would come around in the space of 2 days. Ah, such memories ...