Coconut Milk Saigo + Mango Saigo (not mine)
Location: Fruitti Mix in First Markham Place
Price: $16.95 total for 2 medium, warm :’)
This place has everything and for real cheaps! It serves all kinds of drinks, milk teas, slushies, HK desserts, and also hot crepes, sweet and savoury, french toast, banana boats, steamed rice sets, hk street food, Japanese savoury pancakes, all day breakfasts? The food court already covers a whole lot, and this stall is carrying like half the weight (lmao jk no every stall here kind of goes super hard on variety).
I am giddy the moment I hold the warm saigo in my hands, for that is an option they offered me, and i immediately pounced on it. Warm is, for me, the optimal temperature for most food and beverages, as the heat or cold doesn’t interfere with my ability to truly savour the taste. The exceptions are foods and drinks cooked/brewed specifically for a certain temperature in mind.
Coconut Saigo:
The first sip might not have suggested it, but as you keep going the drink blossoms into a warm, sweet, milky, lightly coconut-y concoction textured with lightly airy bubbles which I find personally much more manageable and appealing than tapioca. Listen, nothing beats a traditional cantonese dessert, and drinking it through a cup and bubble tea straw rather than a bowl and ceramic soup spoon is an updated modern version of ingesting the same thing that I highkey board the train for. It turns the tradition to something you can bring with you on the go, carry around and easily drink. It’s convenient! It’s good! It doesn’t leave tapioca pearls at the bottom for you to painstakingly slurp up! 西米露 revolution!!!
Saigo tangent: the prevalence of this dessert in hk and Guangdong in general is, I think, a testament to the unique cultural connections it shares with Southeast Asia countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, who produces the majority of the world’s saigo. It’s geographical placement has archaeologically/historically meant the region which Hong Kong lives in is a hot bed of cultural interactions unique to the area and it’s actors. Singapore, through its architectural visuals and lifestyles, provide one of the best examples alluding to this interconnectivity. Immediate thoughts, verify veracity later.