Street Life: Air Mata Kucing

As a child, my parents would put us on a bus or train to Kuala Lumpur to see friends, visit people, or just have a weekend break.

One of my strongest memories of KL: getting out of the overnight train at the old railway station, and strolling to Chinatown (Petaling Street) for breakfast. Air mata kucing (literally translated to 'cat eye water'), is a sweet drink with ice, rock sugar and longans. This stall in Petaling St is extremely famous, and probably still there today. I loved drinking it out of the little steel bowls they used to have, the ice cooling me down in the ever present Malaysian heat.

This photograph was probably taken in 2005 with a Yashica Electro 35. I can't wait to go back there and have it again.

Longans are now popular in the west as a sugar alternative: 'monkfruit' sweetener is popular with fitness types. I like the fruity fleshy taste of longan, or 'luo han guo', in a traditionally made beverage like this. To this day, I haven't found a better version than this stall, though nostalgia is a drug.