Nana and Justin Drink Weird Stuff for Your Entertainment: Singapore Edition

(This is one of a series of posts about our recent trip to Singapore. You can find other posts by clicking the "Singapore" tag below.)

Nana and I are always on the lookout for chances to risk our health and our sanity of our readers' entertainment, and Singapore's abundance of fresh juice stalls provided plenty of opportunities. Here's Singapore through a straw, in order of increasing strangeness:


1. Sugarcane Lime Juice

It was our first day, so we weren't feeling all that adventurous yet.
As you can tell from Nana's expression of mild satisfaction, this one was pleasant, though not terribly unusual, and perhaps a bit too sweet.

2. Bandung Rose Syrup Milk Drink


One place we stopped for teh tarik (black tea and condensed milk--nectar of the gods!) was serving this stuff out of one of those giant plastic mixing containers you keep slushies in. The consistency was very slushy, too.


Oh, yeah, and the stuff was pinker than your average sociology major (are you reading, Carlos?).
To be fair, though, the stuff was really pretty tasty: what I imagine you'd get if you made a milkshake out of Persian-style rosewater ice cream.


3. Celery Juice


That's right, baby. Pure, unadulterated celery juice. As in, they put a bunch of celery in a blender, add a little water, and pour the stuff over ice.

It was shortly after this photograph that I realized just how salty celery tastes. Which is odd, since I don't think celery actually has that much salt in it. All in all, I'm not sure this is an experience I'd wish to repeat.


4. Avocado and Honey Juice


I'm told that some people actually drink celery juice in the US (really? like, not in V8?), but I've never heard of this stuff, and I never would have thought of mixing avocado and honey on my own, let alone serving them in juice form.
The result, though, was actually pretty pleasant--sweet, but not too sweet, and rich, with a mild avocado aftertaste.

[Edit by Nana: BUT THEY MADE IT WITH COCONUT MILK! Coconut milk is EVIL, and stealth coconut milk is evil in its most concentrated form. You say it was sweet, but not too sweet. I say it was COCONUT. You say it had a mild avocado aftertaste. I say COCONUT. UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH.]


5. Durian Juice


Durian is a fruit, so this one wouldn't be quite as weird as the last few if it weren't for the fact that Durian is one of the strangest things on this planet. It's notoriously pungent (some would say "putrid" smell) has earned it a lifetime ban from Singapore's public transit system.

In my opinion, it smelled (and tasted) like some mixture of buttered popcorn, almonds, and papaya. Nana thought it was a little more like barf (she's apparently not alone--there's a whole subculture of Durian-haters out there).

The bad news is that, while I thought it tasted tolerable on the way down, the aftertaste stuck around much, much longer than it was welcome.

The Verdict:
Sugarcane Lime Juice = Yay!
Bandan Rose Syrup Milk Drink = Yay!
Celery Juice = Ick!
Avacado & Honey [edit by Nana: AND COCONUT] Juice = Yay! [edit by Nana = EVIL!!!!]
Durian Juice = Ick!