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September 27, 2006
Tong Shui
Desserts, like clothes, come into and out of fashion. One year retailers will have trouble keeping Ben and Jerry’s on the shelf only to see freezer burned pints pile up next to the suddenly empty Quadratini shelf the next. Right now, it seems like Tong Shui—a mix of congee, beans, and sugar— is becoming the next fad dessert in Singapore, much like bubble tea was big just prior to its collapse last year. The dessert has been around for a long time as a Cantonese specialty, but it seems to be spreading.
I pick up a small bowl of Almond Tong Shui at least three times a week. I get it hot and eat it with a spoon (you drink the cold version directly from the bowl). While most Tong Shui is clear, the version that I buy at 22 Upper Cross Street (as far as I can tell, this is the name of the store) looks more like yogurt. You could make a similar dessert if you heated a small bowl of the Silk soybean-based vanilla yogurt and added a small amount of almond extract. It would not be entirely the same, but it would be close.
I like this dessert (and this particular form of the dessert) because it holds a great deal of potential for other recipes. Any cake made with this substance would be denser by degrees than a normal cake, and there is at least one yogurt-based recipe (which Flora taught me a long time ago) for Samosa dough which could be turned into a dessert recipe if I substituted Tong Shui for the yogurt. I may experiment this weekend. I’ve wanted to take Overheard in New York quotes and bake them into fortune cookies but the quotes are often too long. I could use the Tong Shui Samosa dough, though and make oversized fortune cookies.
Normal Tong Shui—which looks like a broth soup filled with vegetables or noodles— has had trouble getting traction in the states. Apparently the only two Tong shi restaurants in Manhattan closed this year. At the same time, the 22 Upper cross street version could do very well. Why? I looks more like a traditional western dessert. The differences comes down—I think—to blended vs unblended fruits/ nuts/ vegetables. That’s it. In the traditional case, I could never get traction outside the Chinese community in the states. There would be too much confusion about the food. I use a blender and a modern looking container and suddenly I have potential a dessert sensation.
Presentation, it turns out, is at least 50% of the challenge. Take Bread Talk. There are tons of Asian bread shops in the United States. Bread Talk could succeed with a wider audience because it does a better job presenting bread, offering smaller selection with better labeling and descriptions. This is also true of Best Cellars It offer a small selection of cheap to mid priced wines in a big space but provides more information per bottle in a very non-seedy atmosphere and has succeeded in a very competitive market. I’ve been asked to look at packaging for coffee in the past and the same thing is true.
Often products remain constant but packaging comes in and out of fashion. Go into 7-11 and look at the new array of plastic bottles. Often the products inside are very standard (or a combination of two different things such as snickers bars and milk—ick) but the bottles now come in all shapes and sizes, limited only by the challenge of loading the bottles on a pallet and getting them into a truck (a tougher task than getting them to stay upright on store shelves).
Okay, now I am off subject. I think. Work is a calling.
Normal Tong Shui
New Tong Shui
Pointless Pontificatin | By jb | 11:24 PM