The Malaysiafiles: Part 5- Ice, Ice, Baby

The final part of the Malaysiafiles 2014 and another of my favourite things: iced drinks and desserts. Perfect for when the sun is shining and it's hot enough outside that you could physically cook yourself by midday.

I've mentioned things like cendol and ice kacang before, but no-one does it better than the Indonesians and Malaysians, which is where these things come from (there is apparently quite a fiery debate about who did what version of which dessert first, but I'm definitely not qualified to comment on that one).

Ice Kacang and Cendol are similar in the way that they both involve shaved ice (the best kind being snow-soft ice), with sweet syrups (often palm sugar syrup and condensed milk). Now here's where the variations come in: Ice kacang is almost always a mish-mash of delights such as agar jelly, grass jelly, sweet red beans, sweetcorn, palm seeds and fruits, like these:

Cendol, though, is named after the green, pandan-fragrant strands of jelly that's added to the shaved ice dessert. They kind of look like worms, but that's part of the fun.

Cendol seems to come in two different forms, each with its own region of origin (again, hotly debated). One of them is basically like ice kacang with added 'cendol', lbut my favourite way is simply cendol jelly with coconut milk poured over ice and palm sugar syrup:

I did giggle a bit at the sign.

There are simpler icy drinks to cool you down on muggy days though, like iced lemon and sea coconut drinks:

And other mixed ice drinks (this one was cendol and grass jelly with milk and golden syrup- strange but good!)

And of course, sweet red bean ice drinks:

This one came in a small JUG. <3

Last but certainly not least, there is iced Milo, and even better: Milo dinosaur.

It's quite obvious that Milo is quite a big thing in South East Asia.

It's quite nostalgic for me: I always associate the chocolatey, malty drink with visiting my cousins in Australia or Malaysia when I was little. However it was only relatively recently I discovered the existence of the Milo dinosaur.

This is a normal iced Milo:

And this is a Milo dinosaur:

It comes with EXTRA MILO on top. Best. Idea. Ever. Something that's easy to re-create at home, too (which has very dangerous implications for my waistline).

Well kids, that's it from the Malaysiafiles 2014.

Want to try making the wormy green things that are cendol for your own icy dessert adventures? Of course you do! Head on over to my blog Tashcakes! for my cendol recipe and to find out how it's done.

Chinatown: Longji

Or Long Ji. The character for the 'long' part I know is 'dragon', but I wasn't so sure about the 'ji' part. I looked it up and apparently it's 'remember' or 'note down', so maybe 'longji' means 'remember dragon'? 'Dragon's memory'? Please tell me if you know.

This is where Vicky and I went before visiting the Golden Gate Dessert House.

Where?

Chinatown, London, 47-49 Charing Cross Road. Nearest station is Leicester Square.

What?

Formerly Cafe de Hong Kong until relatively recently, It's a Hong Kong café that offers various noodle-based and rice-based one plate meals, as well as many fun icy drinks like bubble tea and ice red bean drink (the latter of which I had this time).

What, no bubble tea this time? I've actually mentioned this place before in previous posts, and usually to say that they do the best taro bubble tea (which is, as you may know by now, my favourite flavour for bubble tea). However ice red bean drink happens to be one of my favourite fun iced drinks, so I'll just as often order it instead.

Ice red bean's basic ingredients consist of red beans boiled until tender, then served with a glass with plenty of ice, along with sugar syrup and a milky substance (often evaporated milk- which is what I got here). Plenty of versions have coconut milk and/ or condensed milk instead, though. Sometimes it's mixed with cendol (the actual cendol, not the whole dessert), sweetcorn, other things... but then with a lot of other stuff it becomes ice kacang.

Longji is awesome in terms of portion size verses what you pay (and it's one of the more affordable places to eat in Chinatown). It's not haute cuisine, but don't forget you're in a café rather than a fancy restaurant. In any case, it's a good place to sit down and grab a bite to eat. Back to portion sizes though: usually I order their ho fun noodles, but I knew that having ice red bean drink along with a main would kill me (there are beans in ice red bean drink. Beans are pretty filling, y'know.) So I went with an appetiser.

Sticky steamed glutinous rice parcels with chicken.

Even the portion size of this appetiser was quite substantial! I was quite happy.

I was a bit of a noob and tried to eat the leaf wrapping at first. Don't eat the leaf wrapping.

These tasted amazing, sort of like a chicken baozi but with sticky rice instead of a bread bun. With two of these parcels it was more than enough for me, along with the ice red bean drink. Vicky went for the ho fun, and even without a fun iced drink it nearly defeated her.

Don't be caught offguard by the 10% service charge added onto your bill- I've seen one review where someone's been incensed by it and gotten into a hot disagreement with the staff about paying. Personally I think it is a bit awkward to say it's an optional charge but stick it on anyway (which would instantly make you look like the bad guy if you wanted to opt out): then again, I always tip anyway unless service is actually bad, and I've found the staff of Longji nothing but helpful. Maybe it's also because I used to be a waitress, and I know what I long-houred, messy, exhausting and often thankless job it can be. Also, a lot of places put on an automatic service charge on the end of the bill, so it's not just Longji. I'm not saying it's right, but I'm not saying it's unforgivable.

I recommend this place because the food is decent for a café and not too pricey, there's a great selection of Fun Iced Drinks (which I shall capitalise from now on since I seem to be constantly going on about them), and I've always found the staff to be pleasant. It's probably more of a lunch-y place, but I have no problem with going there for dinner in the evening (as I did this time).

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I'll be doing some Japanese food posts soon, for a change!