Our Top 3 Places for Cendol

Everybody has their favorite place for Cendol.. especially when the weather gets hot!

Malaysians love their desserts, and when the weather gets hot, they naturally look for the nearest cendol stall. Cendol resembles a green worm-like jelly, and its basic ingredients are coconut milk, a worm-like jelly made from rice flour with green food coloring (usually derived from the pandan leaf), shaved ice and palm sugar. Other ingredients such as red beans, glutinous rice, grass jelly, creamed corn, even durian, might also be included – they are optional so you can tell the cendol man exactly how you like your cendol, and he will make it, just the way you like it.

Here are our Top 3 Places for Cendol.. what are yours?

1. Banting Cendol

Banting is a small town, but it has some seriously great joints for food and local desserts. This town is in the district of Kuala Langat. Banting has only approximately 50K residents and is situated on the banks of the Langat River. It is a rest town on the old Federal route, since it is also located close to the historical town of Jugra, the former royal town of Selangor. We find what we are looking for in the form of a Cendol Stall called Cendol Banting Kamarudin. The Indian-Muslim guy who owns the place is really cool. He moves with lightning speed, shaving the ice, the old fashion way, never missing a beat in the noon day heat. Close by, the people hover, like parched vultures, waiting for a stray morsel to satisfy their throbbing cravings.

Oh yes, in the land of the thirsty, Kamarudin is King! He scoops red bean and sago pearls into a bowl. He then places that bowl beneath a prehistoric shaving machine and starts to move the block of ice back and forth over a sharp blade fixed to that wooden contraption, very quickly, several times over. White, fluffy ice that looks like snow, starts to fall into the bowl below, until it resembles a mountain of ice. Kamarudin then pulls the bowl out and ladles in a generous scoop of coconut milk with green strands of pandan-flavoured mung bean. This is what the folks standing about gawking, are here for. With a finishing flourish, he drizzles some Gula Melaka (coconut palm sugar syrup) right at the peak of the ice mountain and serves the best cendol dessert in Banting!

The fabulous Cendol. The green cendol strands are soft and springy with an intoxicating pandan aroma. The red bean and sago jelly go perfectly with the sweet and salty coconut milk – adding salt to the coconut is a must. It gives the dessert some dimension, and extra kick. Here is the shocker. This delightful thirst quencher in a bowl cost only RM1.00 per bowl. What can I tell you? You’ve got to love Banting!

2. The Pudu Cendol Man

Venturing deeper into the slip roads and back alley ways of Pudu, alongside the beads and tailor shops, you will find the Cendol man. Plastic tables and chairs in all sorts of assorted colors line the back roads and you will see people sitting down and eating snacks such as rojak that go so well with the Cendol.

White, fluffy ice is expertly shaved off from the noisy ice machine, that’s going a mile a minute, and fashioned into a mountain of ice, in a bowl below. He then ladles the coconut milk with generous strands of soft cendol into the ice. He douses the lot in brown gula melaka. This father and son business has been around for ages, in Pudu. The father is rather distinguished looking, sporting a neat platinum white beard – you can’t miss him.

The fabulous Chendol for just RM1.50. The green chendol strands are soft and springy with an intoxicating pandan aroma. If you add red bean, glutinous rice etc, the price can go up, but it is still pretty affordable. The green chendol strands go perfectly with the sweet and salty coconut milk. This place does it just right!

3. The Brickfields ABC/Cendol Stall

Run by a couple, this iconic stall in Brickfields is a hot favourite with folks who are tired of the heat, and looking for a little refreshment. Patrons like to come here for the ABC (ice kacang) as well as for a sip of fresh young coconut juice. Most people pack back their drinks as they have limited sitting space in front of their stall. We love the Cendol because it’s creamy and power packed with flavour!

slinky smooth cendol and thick fresh coconut milk.. bliss!