Hi, my name is Shanty…and for any of you who haven’t known me for long, let me share you the fact that I am known for my passion of culinary experiences. Most of my friends understand that to me food isn’t just a matter of substance to make you feel full and content. To me, food and the act of eating is an experience. I like giving food the extra mile of enjoyment, by looking at the colors, smelling out the fragrance each ingredient’s have, tasting the contour and even touching it to figure out what it feels like. I did all that in the name of science and yes, I’m going to be honest, it also quench my curiosity.

Recently I just had a rare opportunity. While I was just around Kebayoran Baru area, I was pretty much stuck in the rush hour of lunch time traffic. So instead of spending the next hour sitting in my car getting grumpy and cranky, I pulled over and found myself a good parking spot. Lucky me :). Usually I would probably have to yell at someone to even get a parking space two blocks away.

I was walking down the busy street of Pasar Mayestik when I saw an old guy on the side cart selling interesting form of drinks. It was like some kind of striped green and white jelly on a big round tray getting cut and put into a glass. The interesting part was, the old man wasn’t using a knife to cut the jelly but just a piece of utensil that to some extent looked like a sharp bamboo stick. He was doing it fast, he didn’t keep his customers waiting long. I came closer to see what he was going to put in next. It turned out to be coconut milk, some crushed ice and simple syrup made from brown sugar, then he put a top on the glass, gave the customer a plastic spoon and started on his next customer’s order. It was so fun watching him, I spent a good ten minutes there just watching him in action. Then I got terribly curious and decided to order one glass.

When I finally got my glass of “Selendang Mayang”, by the way that was what the drink called. I sat down at a long bench and started to play with my drink. I took a bite out of the stripey jelly, and to me it tasted plain but I can smell and noticed the green color was from Pandan leaves. It had the fragrance. I tried taking a sip of the coconut milk, and it was sweet and so light because the ice melted a little. When I mix the Jelly and the yummy liquids together it formed a very refreshing drink. Not too sweet, a bit chewy on the texture. Overall, nice.

I told my mom about it and she said, I was lucky, because that particular drink was a delicacy back in the days when my mom was a young girl, and nowadays not many people can actually make a decent Selendang Mayang. It took hours and hours to make the layers of greens and white Jelly made from a mixture of rice flour and sago, and nobody really bothered to keep making this traditional yummies anymore. How sad.