Tong Sui at Section 17, Petaling Jaya

I had blogged earlier about tong sui when I made Leng Chee Kang at home but I thought I'll share with you this wonderful place I found recently. For those who are unfamiliar with tong sui, it literally means "sweet water" in Cantonese. Some have beans like red beans, green beans or barley which is boiled for hours so it's thick. Others have ingredients like fruits, dried longans, snow fungus which is double boiled and served with a sweet broth that is cooked seperately.

I stumbled on this little tong sui shop one day, when I decided to detour to Section 17 on the way home one evening. It starts business from 4.30 p.m. onwards for the evening and night crowd that eat at the Section 17 roadside stalls. I am so into tong sui these days as it's an ideal way to cool down during these hot and hazy summer days.

I love the varieties this place has as they are not the usual things that you get at the tong sui place. A bowl of tong sui will cost you RM1.20 which is so reasonable since it's quite a big bowl. You can opt to have it with ice cubes or not but if you don't, it will be extremely sweet.

The stall owner serves his assortment of tong sui from these huge metal pots that have individual gas burners underneath them to keep the tong sui warm. You can serve yourself the tong sui or ask the man tending the stall to scoop out a bowl of your preferred choice.



Here is the thick variety tong sui. Not to sure what it is but it looks like Peanut Paste (Fa Sang Wou). It's a definite must for those who love anything to do with peanuts as they make this tong sui from peanut butter.



This whitish tong sui is barley, bean curd skin (foo chok) and gingko nuts. Usually they boil the foo chok until it's all broken up so it's creamier.



This stall has a variety of unusual tong suis which he has added fruits and vegetables like sliced pears, apples, watermelons and winter melons. They all look so pretty in their huge big metal pots as the fruits and white fungus have floated to the top. This one has sliced peaches, winter melons and white fungus in a clear broth.



In this variety, the red bits are wolfberries (kei chi) that is a Chinese herb good for your health with slices of winter melon and snow fungus.



This is my favourite picture, the red juicy watermelon chunks mixed with the flower like snow fungus.



Some of the tong suis don't look so great in their huge metal pots so I thought I'll share with you the individual bowls which I had drank through out a period of time. This is an unusual one, it has dried figs (mo far kor), fresh sea coconut, barley and snow fungus. One of my favourites as I love the unusual combination.



This is steamed sweet potato and taro in a coconut milk broth which we call bubur cha cha in Malaysia. In this stall, his coconut milk broth is quite watery unlike the Nyonya restaurants that serve it thick. I liked the orange sweet potato which was soft and fluffy. Some places even add bananas, sago pearls in their broth.



This is the sliced pear, longan and snow fungus tong sui. Very cooling but sweet unless you add some ice cubes to dilute it a bit.




These pictures were taken over time as I usually have a different bowl of tong sui each time I pass through this area. Initially when I started snapping pictures, the owner thought I was a reporter. When I told him, these pictures are for myself, he was a bit dissapointed since he thought I would bring him more business. Yesterday when he saw me take pictures of my individual bowl of tong sui, he asked me if I was setting up my own dessert place. I told him nope but I wanted to take pictures to show my friends his lovely tong sui. He was quite happy and told me in typical China man fashion that no need to take pictures, just bring your friends to eat my tong sui.

Tong Sui Stall
(he has this chinese paper article on his stall pasted in front, also serves laksa)
Jalan 17/27
Section 17, Petaling Jaya
Selangor

Starts from 4.30 p.m. onwards. If you come late at night say about 8 to 9 p.m., tong sui may be sold out as it's extremely popular.