Sigh

I have to say, the crummiest thing about being down with whatever throat/cough virus this is, is missing my favourite dessert, my reason for living, the essence by which the earth goes round... see koh teng.


You can choose your own ingredients, or take a bit of everything. Mine has a particular inclination for jelly-like substances. And a couple of fruits - lychee, longan, rambutan with pineapple, and sea coconut. You can try out the stuff I tend to leave out - including red beans (I don't care for how they tend to disintegrate and change the texture of the drink), white fungus, and a papaya-like looking thing called pek kuay. There's also cincau, or leong fun, or grass jelly. I've had this on an average of once a day for the past two weeks (basically ever since I found out I had a license to wallop the stuff, with my low glucose level), and I've cemented my obsession with the following:

• See koh teng is mostly sold from a van, and for my favourite dealer, I know his entire schedule from memory - covering three locations, two daily shifts, one off day. Plus I know how well his two different afternoon shifts tend to go, which affects the closing time of his evening one.
  
  
• I have memorized exactly where all his ingredients are placed, and in what order, so that when I drive and stop next to his van (where I can't see what he has in front of him) I can just roll down the window and say, "One big packet, without row three."
  
  
• Without a second thought I'll go out in the rain to get my daily ration of see koh teng. Right now I also head to work early every Wednesday just to pick up my packet on the way.
  

In the meantime I've attacked this cough thing with just about as many ingredients: Cap Ibu dan Anak, a foul-tasting mint drink, Piraton, salt water, honey-lemon tea, Strepsils, cough syrup...