Bandung

Rose syrup and condensed milk in a vivid pink drink — a staple of Malaysian and Singaporean hawker stalls with roots in Persian rose-water culinary tradition.

Bandung is a sweet, rose-flavored milk drink of distinctive pink color that is one of Southeast Asia's most recognizable non-alcoholic beverages, consumed throughout Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and among Southeast Asian diaspora communities globally. The drink's preparation is simple — sweetened condensed or evaporated milk stirred with rose syrup or rose water until uniformly pink — but its cultural identity is rich and specifically tied to the hawker center and mamak stall culture of peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. Rose syrup in South and Southeast Asian cooking reflects the Persian and Mughal culinary heritage that traveled through the Indian subcontinent to maritime Southeast Asia with Muslim merchants and scholars from the 9th century onward; the use of rose water and rose extract in sweet preparations is common across Pakistani, Indian, and Malay-Muslim culinary traditions. Despite its name referencing Bandung, the capital city of West Java province in Indonesia and one of the country's largest cities, the drink's strongest cultural association is with Malaysia and Singapore, where it has been a standard hawker stall offering for generations. It is particularly associated with Ramadan buka puasa (fast-breaking) meals and Eid al-Fitr celebrations in Muslim communities, where its sweetness makes it a natural first drink after a day's fasting.