A room with AC?
A cold shower?
A fan?
All of these things help, but the best way to combat Malaysiaβs arduous heat and humidity (in my opinion) is with a bowl of cendol!
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Cendol is an unlikely dessert, and something that I wouldn’t have dared try just a few years ago; the ingredients alone would have been enough to make me turn up my nose and head to a different food stand.
This refreshing dessert is popular in several South East Asian countries, and is made using shaved ice, coconut milk, palm sugar, glutinous rice with green food colouring (which resembles slimy worms!), red kidney beans, and sometimes even corn (I can’t say I care very much for the latter two).
I ate this for dessert after lunch, for my mid-afternoon snack, and sometimes after dinner the whole time I was in Melaka.
Ahhhhh, refreshing!
Have you found any foods that help beat the heat?
When I was in the summer heat in Tokyo, the only thing that seemed to cool me off was either a bowl of cold udon noodle soup or hiyyayako, which is basically just a block of cold tofu with soy sauce, scallions and dried fish flakes on top. No idea why that cooled me off but it worked!
Hmm, neither of those sound too appetizing to me. π
The weirdest thing to me about Cendol is not the ingredients, but the fact that most Malaysians seem to treat it not like a dessert but as a drink!
It does melt very quickly, so it makes sense. π
It looks weird and wonderful – I seriously need to try it now. In Thailand, I was always a fan of cha nom yen (cold Thai tea) to cool off, or coconut ice cream – maybe a little less adventurous, but super tasty.
Coconut ice cream sounds good to me! I’ve been eating so many popsicles since I got here.
Isn’t it weird how in Asia desserts always include vegetables? In Cambodia you can get loads of rice and sweetcorn desserts too. I am not such a huge fan to be honest, but locals love it.
It takes some getting used to. I didn’t think I would enjoy the little chunks of rice or beans in my dessert…hehe. π
In Hanoi I’ve been served vanilla ice cream with a few slices of cucumber… I couldn’t understand that π
I’ve heard of ice cream with onion slices! If I had a choice between the two, I’d probably go with the cucumbers. π
I saw the video last time and my mouth was watering. It’s a weird combination I must admit but believe it’s super tasty and can cool you down π
Hehe, you have an adventurous taste! I was a bit hesitant to try it, but it turned out to be deliciously refreshing!
In Taiwan we had something, don’t know what it was called, but it was sugar water, crushed ice, and green or red beans.
That sounds quite similar – minus the coconut cream. I bet it was just as refreshing as the cendol! π
wat a cool dessert.. never tried it before, but once I will! π
It’s a good one to try! π
I was wondering where the ick factor came in, until I read ‘red kidney beans’ on the ingredients list. Can’t imagine that working too well with coconut! Reminds me a bit of the ν₯λΉμ (patbingsu) in South Korea – delicious fruit, ice, oh and REDBEAN. Still, surprisingly refreshing, and this looks it, too!
I never did try the patbingsu! I always thought it looked a bit too strange to order so I stuck with my waffles and gelato from Caffe Bene. π
Oh cendol is a strange dish – very refreshing but strange! :p
This actually looks really delicious – though the kidney beans leave me puzzled. I’m definitely going to be looking out for this.
My favourite refreshing things on a hot day here in Mexico are paletas. They’re just a fruit smoothie frozen onto a stick. Absolutely gorgeous!
Mmm, paletas sound good! I think I’ve had something similar to that in South America.
After all our time in SE Asia, I can’t say I’ve ever tried this interesting dish…or even seen it! Unreal. Sounds odd, but I would definitely try it. After the stuff I’ve been eating in China, that sounds like strawberries & ice cream π
Cheers.
Hehe, I’d be curious to hear about some of the desserts in China… π
Desserts in Malaysia were so weird! But not bad, not bad at all…
I wonder what other strange desserts I’ll encounter across SE Asia… π
My fave in Penang! You took me back. Good thing we have Vietnamese equivalents back home in Cali. π
Forgot to mention. The proper way to pronounce cendol is (chen-dahl). Still tastes just as good. =)
It wasn’t till afterwards that we realized we had been butchering the name all along…haha π
Love it. Who would have thought that red beans would taste good in a desert?
I certainly wouldn’t have thought so. I’d be happy to switch the kidney beans for some jelly beans or gummie bears instead… π
I’m so jealous of your perpetual travels. I’m so glad it finally started!
A loooong time coming! It feels good to finally be travelling again. π
Yea it doesn’t look too appealing, but I believe you when you say it’s good! Haha. In Germany, there’s an ice cream dish called spaghetti eis that really popular (especially where I live in Mannheim since it’s invented here.
It looks like this:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spaghetti_eis.jpg
It’s actually just vanilla ice cream, strawberry sauce, and coconut shavings, but it’s pretty strange looking, especially when I first saw it!
Ohh, so the ice cream is served to look like spaghetti! Haha, at first I thought maybe they decided to add some spaghetti to their ice cream…that would be strange!
Hai , have u try ABC (ais batu campur) at malaysia , it quite similar to Cendol but the ingredients are a bit different . sometimes they put ice cream on top of it ^^
Yes, I did try that one! I really enjoyed ABC, mostly because of the ice cream they put in it. π Yum!
Hei, Audrey..Did you try durian while you were in Malaysia?
I did get to try durian. π It has an…interesting flavour…haha. I’m sure it would grow on me if I had it often.
It looks interesting, but the glutinous rice shaped like worms puts me off!
But I do want to try as much unusual and different foods, so I may try it while I’m here! π
Hey. haha. I’m not being mean or anything but it’s actually pronounced chen-dol. I know it looks like its pronounced sen-dol. but it’s not. π
Thanks, a few people did point that out to me afterwards. Now I know how to say it properly once I visit Malaysia again. π
Hye Audrey! How about visiting Kuching, Sarawak someday? Hehe..
It is one of the interesting states in Malaysia.