sludge..?

This one here looks like sludge/tar, huh?


















But it's one of the best traditional desserts I ever had!

It's actually the black sesame soup/gravy of the tang yuan. Actually I only know this dish to be 'Ah Balling/Ah Baoling' and had no idea that it's more known as Tang Yuan (which sounds better, actually).

Each portion comes with 4 glutinous rice balls with fillings of either green bean, red bean, yam, peanut or black sesame. My faves are the last 2. The others are just plain common. Besides, both the peanut and black sesame have this crunch with each bite, which I totally dig.

These balls come floating in various soups/gravy. My personal favourite will be the plain, clear ginger-infused sweet soup (which is more common) but my boss made me try other (more exotic) flavours. I opt for the black sesame while Sri got the peanut. My boss's version had this funny mix of 2 colours. I wonder what that is. I remember him mentioning, "Almond/walnut cream etc etc...."

Knowing how fussy my boss can be with his food, I'm sure that he must have gotten this from one of the more popular stalls around. And he made me eat it while it's still warm, "So that it can remain soft and smooth. It gets lumpy and will harden up when cold..."

Wah, shiok, ah! He must have noticed how stressed I had been lately. And I have been wanting to eat Ah Balling for days now.

Last time I had it, it was the frozen ones, bought from the supermarket. Thankfully my mum's ginger syrupy soup totally rock and saved the less than great taste of the balls.

Go HERE to see how the ball with black sesame filling look like. My pic was taken after I've wolfed all of them down, too bad.