And the winner is ... bags!

Well, maybe not the winner. I actually still don't know which take-away container is the most common. However, the bag is indeed proving very popular for cold drinks. I see it all over the place, and have now been given a few myself.

Sugar cane juice with lemon:

Note the straw sticking out of the bag. The vendor put the half lemon in the bag, tightened the bag and squeezed it (oh the convenience!) then added ice, (freshly pressed) sugar cane juice and a straw. (I should add that this was possibly the best sugar cane juice with lemon that I've had here.)

Also used for iced milk tea:

Someone in front of us in the milk-tea line bought tea for four -- and it is definitely easier to carry four of these one handed than four cups (maybe even when those four cups are in a carrier). The coldness of the ice also circulates better in the bag than in a cup.

And here's how you drink out of the bag:

While walking.

Although you can't really see it in this photo (yes, the camera does take videos ... if its user switches from camera to video mode), James is in motion -- a key element to the bag take-away format because the fact of the matter is, you're not going to be able to set the bag down on your desk (oh the inconvenience!).

You could, of course, pour your beverage into another vessel (like we did the Indian food). James suggested that one could instead hang the bag from a coat rack or doorknob in your office. Now if I could just find a 10-foot straw ...

Bag of coffee, anyone?

The other day I saw a man walking down the street, carrying what I could have sworn was a bag of coffee.

At the time, I thought maybe his coffee cup had sprung a leak and he just let all the coffee leak into the bag and got rid of the cup.

Ok, that probably sounds really odd and you're thinking, "What planet did you grow up on and why in the world would you think that?". To which I respond with this photo:

It seems that the drink carrier given out by most business here in Singapore bears little resemblance to its American counterpart in cardboard or molded paper pulp, as the case may be.

In fact, my first thought when I saw the guy with the coffee bag was that he was lucky he didn't get a carrier like this one. This other local version is basically a plastic coffee sleeve, with a strappy handle, but with no reservoir for coffee to leak into. (This photo isn't ideal, but this guy was sort of onto me so it was the best I could get.)

And then we got some carryout Indian food for dinner.

The tandoori chicken and the naan came in styrofoam clam shells and the pratha came wrapped in paper. Everything else -- the rice, the chutney, the dal, the aloo gobhi, etc. -- in bags.

These clever little bags have a drawstring up top (as you can see from this picture of the empty pappadam baggie), which gets cinched and then tied around the base of a loop formed in the bag.

All you have to do is pull on the loop and the drawstring loosens up and you can untie the bag and pour the contents into the serving vessel of your choosing.

How common these carryout bags are remains to be seen, but they're pretty nifty ... unless you're living in a hotel and your only serving vessels are two coffee cups and their saucers.