So the other day I went to the Ixora Foodcourt to have lunch during the short break in between 2 classes, it was a Wednesday if i'm not mistaken. Surprisingly there weren't that many markets loitering around the area as they usually do during the other days so I felt like it was safe to actually have my lunch there instead of packing it and eating it alone in my room. Anyway I ordered my default pecel lele at the Jawa Food (or something, I forgot its name) stall, and pondered on the alternative of dessert without drinks. The drinks there are very expensive (RM2 for a fricking iced milo) so I decided to skip the drink and order dessert instead, since the prices are similar.
After perusing the list of desserts (names like ice teler, alpokat, kolak got me confused), I ordered something that sounded familiar, lai chee kang.
Now lai chee kang is a Chinese dessert made by boiling/double boiling/simmering (whatever! do I look like I know?) many different types of err.... things. These 'things', to be more precise, are white fungus, kembang semangkuk (a type of weird looking seed, I think), lotus seeds, dried longan, some lily bulb thing which I'm not quite sure what it is and uh, many more. These ingredients are then boiled/double boiled/simmered with rock sugar or gula kundur I think, over a period of time, until all the flavours of the ingredients have been infused well with the water used to boil it. Therefore you're supposed to get a rich brown sweet flavourful broth after you're done making it, something that looks like the one in the picture below.
After perusing the list of desserts (names like ice teler, alpokat, kolak got me confused), I ordered something that sounded familiar, lai chee kang.
Now lai chee kang is a Chinese dessert made by boiling/double boiling/simmering (whatever! do I look like I know?) many different types of err.... things. These 'things', to be more precise, are white fungus, kembang semangkuk (a type of weird looking seed, I think), lotus seeds, dried longan, some lily bulb thing which I'm not quite sure what it is and uh, many more. These ingredients are then boiled/double boiled/simmered with rock sugar or gula kundur I think, over a period of time, until all the flavours of the ingredients have been infused well with the water used to boil it. Therefore you're supposed to get a rich brown sweet flavourful broth after you're done making it, something that looks like the one in the picture below.
I don't know what that white round thing is in the bowl,I just googled lai chee kang and this is the most decent picture of a
lai chee kang I could find. Hopefully this IS a picture of a bowl of
lai chee kang and that round thing is not a fishball or something.
lai chee kang and that round thing is not a fishball or something.
It is supposed to be good for you, too. Healthwise, that is. I mean, it is an understood thing among people of every culture, that when you boil weird plant based ingredients together the concoction will always be 'good for the health'. Add animal parts and it will be seen as an 'aphrodisiac'. Add endangered animal parts and it would be seen as a 'more potent' aphrodisiac.
Anyway, back to the story, I ordered the lai chee kang and it arrived. Behold, the clear soup, the pieces of jelly floating in it, the few strands of dark brown kembang semangkuk swimming, to signify its presence in this lai chee kang as an excuse to make it look 'herbal-ey'.
And, the icing on the cake is, or rather, are, 3 pieces of macaroni at the bottom of the bowl! Like, what the fuck?
THE lai chee kang. Or rather, THE 'lai chee kang'. With a ''.
It adds to the pseudo-ness of it.
Apparently, it tasted as bad as it looked. The broth tasted like plain sugar water. Having jelly and pasta rolling around in your mouth simultaneously is just absurd. The kembang semangkuk was annoying, I can't quite explain why; but they were just, annoying.
Not something I would usually recommend.
