Kickapoo
(Lunch: near Arab Street, Singapore)
I like this image because the background is blown out white with sunlight and Ying looks so cheery. He was evidently quite pleased to have a week off from work and was enjoying all the delights of his home country. I finally sampled the wondrously saccharine lilts of ‘kickapoo joyjuice’, the green tin of which you can see in the extreme foreground. It isn’t an unpleasant beverage, it is refreshing but seems to have no actual flavour, save that of sugar. The colour of said fizzy drink was a concern – a livid yellow green like cartoon toxic waste. I meant to buy a few cans to bring back for fun but we were so busy during this brief trip to Singapore that we never had a chance.
Somehow, even though Ying has spoken about kickapoo joyjuice before, I never really believed it existed – it has the most ridiculous name and has no defining characteristics except its colour and the terrible packaging. I can’t make out the design on the tin – it involved a wooden tub of some kind, perhaps a couple of figures prancing out of it. Suggestions are welcome! As for the lunch itself, in all honesty, I can’t remember what we were eating here, but I do remember it was very new to me, but tasty nonetheless. Ying is drinking iced Milo, but the local coffee here can be served iced. All the coffee I had in Singapore (with the exception of the fantastic coffee served by Ying’s dad) was tempered with a liberal slopping of condensed and evaporated milk. It made for a sugary, syrupy coffee that rendered it a saboteur to all resting and sleeping.
The left one is mee rebus (noodle in the soup) and the right is lotong (rice cake). They are both Malay food.