During a recent impromptu road trip, KY and I spotted a ‘pandu lalu’ sign for ‘cendol bakar’.
Traditionally, cendol is an iced dessert, made with coconut milk (santan), palm sugar and green worm-like jelly made with pandan leaves (screwpine leaves). so how do you roast (bakar) it???
It momentarily left us speechless. We didn’t know whether to be confused by:
- A drive-through by the old roads of Kuala Selangor for a popular Malaysian dessert? .. OR
- Roast (hot) cendol (cold)???
We had to check it out, we had to!
It was a good feeling when we saw this bunting that they give their cendol away for free to the poor and OKU. Just show them your welfare card and you’re on your way to enjoying a free iced cendol!
The marketing brains of Cendol Bakar is having a whale of a time. The hype precedes the product.
Cendol Bakar takes their rights and quality very seriously. Can’t blame them, turns out they are famous! A quick check on Cendol Bakar Facebook reveals that currently, the only franchise is in Rembau. They’d revoked licensing for the Dengkil outlet for inferior quality, and publicly denounced an outlet in MRR2 as being a direct copycat.
We were lucky that we didn’t have to wait long for our turn. On weekends and public holidays, the queue could be a 40 minutes wait!
Choices and prices seem a steal to us KL/PJ folks. It is not often that you see cendol served with fermented glutinous rice or durian for RM3.50.
Turns out, the ‘bakar’ part was the roasting of the palm sugar for that special burnt flavour. Ingenious 🙂
The menu stated that a bowl of Cendol VIP comes with nata de coco (coconut jelly), basil seeds (selasih), corn (jagung) and kacang (peanuts), all for RM2. I’m not sure why mine came with red beans? Maybe to make up for the lack of peanuts that day.
The burnt palm sugar was detectable, though I’d expect more for a fulfilling taste. At Cendol Bakar, you can ask for free refills of your cendol, that is if you are willing to queue up again for it.
KY enjoyed fermented glutinous rice (pulut tapai) version. “Hurry up with the photo so I can eat!”
Cendol Bakar is surrounded by food stalls. One sells ‘soto power’, ‘bakso king’ and ‘laksa meletop’. Branding is everything.
The soto was quite nice, perhaps due to the additional flavouring of two non-harmful dead ants. RM4 per bowl.
A few steps away from the main stalls was this singular stall where a lady sells king curry puffs. Big curry puffs must be an in-thing here; earlier we’d passed by a few roadside stalls selling ‘karipap gergasi’. Gigantic curry puffs, whoaa!!
It sure is massive! We didn’t buy any… much to our regret an hour later.
Give Cendol Bakar a go! It’s along the Kuala Selangor – Teluk Intan road, about 11km from the highway exit. If there are too many parked cars, you can always opt for the drive-through option!
GPS: N 03 18.221, E101 17.826
Opens: Weekdays: 11am – 6pm, Weekends: 10am – 7pm
