Category: Indonesian

Traditionally varies between each region of Indonesia. The majoriy of Indonesian food in Sydney is influenced by Western Java and Padang region.

Bandung Culinary Tourism

In the last few years, we reviewed a few restaurants in Bandung. This time around, we would like to write about Bandung’s local food offerings. You could easily find these food in big malls or plazas in Bandung. However, if you want the ‘authentic’ ones that are loved by the citizens of Bandung, we should really hunt for them.

What is Culinary Tourism?

Indonesians love to eat (including me). Their overabundance love of food enables them to create a whole new phrase dedicated to the journey of finding good food. Hence, the term ‘Wisata Kuliner‘ was born. It was hard to find the English phrase for it. However, after brainstorming session with my friends, we decided to use the term ‘Culinary Tourism’ to describe this phenomena because someone has written a thesis about it.

Bandung Culinary Tourism

Batagor

When we talk about Culinary in Bandung, the first thing that everyone mentions should be baso tahu goreng, commonly known as Batagor. Batagor is a deep fried fish tofu that is usually served with spicy peanut sauce and sweet soy sauce. There are two famous batagor restaurants in Bandung: Batagor Abuy and Batagor Kingsley. In terms of taste, we like Batagor Abuy more. On the other hand, Batagor Kingsley is more suitable to have for takeaway.

Batagor Kingsley is located in jalan Veteran 10.

Mie Yamin

Mie Yamin is the Bandung version of Chinese noodles. It is a bit unclear why it was called ‘Yamin’ noodles. We found an Indonesian article about the origin of Mie Yamin in Jakarta. One of the more famous places in Bandung is Mie Yamin Linggarjati in jalan Balonggede. In addition to its noodles, Linggarjati is also well-known for its delicious Avocado juice.

We actually did not visit the Linggarjati restaurant due to the distance. We used the gojek app that is priced quite decently for food delivery service.

Cireng Bumbu

Cireng bumbu is probably the most common dish on this list (you can pretty much buy anywhere and it would taste pretty similar). Cireng is a tapioca-based snack that is deep fried with fillings (usually spicy ones). It is usually sold just outside a restaurant or in food stalls.

What else is available on this Bandung Culinary Tourism?

The following dishes might also be available outside the city of Bandung. However, they have been modified to have the Bandung traits.

Yoghurt Cisangkuy

I’m pretty sure everyone knows what Yoghurt is. The interesting bit about Yoghurt Cisangkuy is that it has been in the same venue for, like, forever! If you ask someone from Bandung, I’m pretty sure the person would know this place. They have a few flavours to choose from and also some light snacks.

Sate Ayam Lavie

Lavie is a name of a baby shop in jalan Imam Bonjol, Bandung.In front of the shop, there is a small stall that sells chicken satay. It’s the perfect place for those of you waiting around!

What I love about Bandung’s chicken satay is the one called ‘sate lemak‘. It is literally just a skewer of fat! Pretty unhealthy I must say, but if you just eat the right amount, they are awesome!

Bubur Sumsum a la Bandung

Bubur sumsum is a rice flour porridge with sweet palm sugar sauce. We bought this from a street vendor usually roaming around the housing complex. What separates Bandung’s from the rest is the use of pomegranate.

Coffee from The Good Life cafe

This cafe might be relatively new when compared to the rest on this list. However, you can’t have a list of Bandung good stuff without a great coffee place! Located in Jalan Anggrek 15, this cafe is pretty obscured and part of a small office house. However, it’s hard to find coffee as good as this one in Bandung!

Obviously, there are a lot more dishes originated from Bandung that we could try. However, we did not have the time to try them all… maybe in the future…

The City of Bandung

Bandung is the third most populated city in Indonesia and is just a few hours drive from Jakarta (depending largely on the traffic!). However, the density of the city is twice as much as the second largest city in Indonesia, Surabaya. That’s why if you want to travel to Bandung, I suggest you to avoid the weekends!

Jan 6, 2016
Shalom Indonesian Restaurant
I have been going to this Indonesian restaurant since they opened their doors in Kingsford! The name is Shalom Indonesian Restaurant. To be honest, it is quite an unusual name for an Indonesian restaurant.

The menu is pretty much everything you see on the wall above the counter and you have to order and pay the food at the counter. Despite the number of pictures, the menu can actually be divided into four sauces:
- Rujak sauce: This is the default non-spicy sauce
- Hot & sour sauce: Despite the three star logo, this sauce only has a fleeting hint of hotness. I said this as a person who doesn’t like spicy sauce!
- Balinese sauce: This one is probably best suited for people who enjoy occasional hot food.
- Shalom sauce: This one is for the hard core chilli lovers!
Btw, if you are unsure about any of it, just ask to separate the sauce from the dish.

These are the four dishes that we ordered almost 90% of the time.

Beef / Fish Ball Soup – Bakso Sapi / Ikan Kuah – $5

It is a very simple beef balls in a soup. We usually order this for the little one. Add some sweet soy sauce to the warm rice and you got yourself a decent dish to feed your kid!

Deep fried tofu with peanut sauce – Batagor – $5

Although the description said ‘batagor’ (the famous fish-based dish from Bandung), it is actually not that batagor. It is just deep fried tofu that was coated with flour. I’m pretty sure there is no fish involved in it (or probably very little, hardly-visible amount).

However, I still enjoy the dish and have always been my staple when coming into the restaurant. I love the peanut and sweet soy sauce!

Fried beef ball with Hot and Sour Sauce – Bakwan Penyet – $8

This is another extremely simplistic dish. You get sliced and fried beef balls and a boiled egg with the sauce and a plate of rice.

I particularly love to combine this dish with the tofu dish above. It reminds me a lot of food in my hometown.

Grilled beef ribs with Balinese sauce – Iga bakar bumbu Bali – $12

The grilled beef ribs is probably the most decent-sized option in the menu. There are not a lot of places in Sydney that served grilled beef ribs for only $12.

Happy Soda – Soda Gembira – $3

Happy soda is actually just a combination of soda water, condensed milk and rose syrup. But when I was younger, it is pretty much my top three drinks (along with Durian and Avocado juices).

Indonesians love sweet drinks and happy soda is no different. They usually put quite a lot of condensed milk and rose syrup. However, happy soda is served unstirred. So you can adjust the level of sweetness to your liking.

The final verdict for Shalom Indonesian Restaurant

Whenever I need an Indonesian comfort food, I usually go to Shalom Indonesian Restaurant. They may not have the best décor or the fanciest of dishes, but it is the one restaurant in Sydney that felt closest to home for me.

Did you know?

There is another Indonesian restaurant that everyone in Sydney seems to love going to, called Ayam Goreng 99. It is located three shops down the road from Shalom.

Rating for Shalom Indonesian Restaurant:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.0 / 10

Price: $9 – $15 for main dishes

Place: 7.0 / 10

Details:

Shop 2 / 458 Anzac Parade, Kingsford 2032

+61 2 9662 4455

http://www.shalom-restaurant.com/
Jun 23, 2015
Pempek Clovelly

Review:

Generally speaking if you compare it with the price in Indonesia, Indonesian food in Sydney is very expensive! However, if you compare it to Sydney’s food prices, they are still pretty cheap. One restaurant that I frequented is Pempek Clovelly.

Pempek is a traditional fish cake originated from the city of Palembang in Indonesia. The unique aspect of pempek is that it comes with vinegar sauce. The sauce is a combination of palm sugar, garlic, vinegar, salt, and chili. The sauce is an integral part of the pempek dish. So, if you don’t get the sauce right, you will spoil the taste. For those of you who have never tasted pempek before, I must warn you that the dish is sweet and sour. The sweet and sour taste usually dominates the flavour.

These days, you can pretty much get pempek from any big cities in Indonesia. However, it is still considered a rarity in Australia. Pempek Clovelly is one of the few restaurants that sells pempek in Sydney (or Australia).

They have six different pempek: ball, stick, tofu, skin, fish cake with egg (nicknamed ‘the submarine’) and omelette. Personally, I like the submarine and omelette with an extra fish cake skin. Being in Sydney, Pempek Clovelly separated the chili from its vinegar sauce.

Pempek Omelette – $7.50

Pempek Skin – $2.50

In addition to pempek, they also sell quite a variety of dishes that are only priced up to $10. In this occasion we ordered their Chicken Noodles. It was quite a simple chicken noodles with meatballs, mushrooms and veggies.

The final verdict for Pempek Clovelly

Being a specialist in pempek, Pempek Clovelly definitely delivered one of the best pempek I have ever tasted. Pempek is a sweet and sour fish cake. So you might need to adjust your taste palate to enjoy it.

Rating for Pempek Clovelly:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $2.50 – $7.50 per piece

Place: 6.5 / 10

Details:

198 Anzac Parade, NSW 2033

+61 2 9697 0009

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May 20, 2015
Martabak Cafe Australia
Review:

This week, I will review one of my favourite Indonesian desserts, Martabak Manis (Sweet Martabak). Traditionally, martabak (or better known as murtabak) is a savoury dish that resembles pancake. The Indonesian version of martabak is differentiated into regular martabak and the sweet martabak (East Java people sometimes called it as terang bulan – translated literally as ‘bright moon’).

I was introduced to Martabak Cafe Australia by my friend. His ‘sales pitch’ was that their sweet martabak was similar to the famous martabak joints in Indonesia. I have never tasted martabak in Sydney that is remotely close to the taste of the ‘real deal’ in Indonesia. So, hearing the word ‘similar’ makes me happy!

Looking at the menu in the restaurant, half of it is reserved for its martabak manis and the other half is for five other meals in the restaurant. So, you can tell that martabak manis is clearly its champion dish. The grid-like menu might seem a bit too challenging, but it’s actually very easy:
- Choose your base (pandan, or original) and the following combination of flavours: Peanut, Chocolate, Cheese, and Durian
- Choose to have half or full with five or 10 pieces respectively
Their martabak manis was gorgeously sweet! It was fluffy with loads of toppings and big! It truly feels like eating martabak manis in Indonesia.

While we were there, we also ordered the savoury Martabak with Chicken Curry. It is quite an interesting version of Martabak as I usually enjoy martabak in Indonesia without the curry bit. They also have Martabak with beef rendang!

We also had Mie Goreng Udang Bawang (stir egg noodle with garlic prawn, tomato, meatball, garlic chives in special sauce) and Nasi Goreng Ayam (Indonesian fried rice with Chicken). The noodles were nice and had a decent proportion of prawns. My guest told me that the fried rice was a bit too ‘colourful’. There were too many flavours at play.

Mie Goreng Udang Bawang – $12.95

Nasi Goreng Ayam – $10.95

Siomay Bandung is an Indonesian-rendition of dumplings. Instead of soy sauce, we use peanuts and sweet soy sauce (kecap manis).

For those of you who really love Durian, they also have Ice Durian Drink.

The final verdict for Martabak Cafe Australia

Martabak Cafe Australia has by far the best Martabak Manis in Sydney! We actually do not mind paying the slightly premium price.

Rating for Martabak Cafe Australia:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10 (or 8.5 if you just eat their martabak!)

Price: $15 – $22 per martabak

Place: 6.5 / 10

Details:

439 Harris Street, Ultimo 2007

+61 2 9566 4178

http://www.martabakcafe.com.au/
Apr 17, 2015
Old Thanh Huong

Review:

I seemed to be hanging around Marrickville these days and this week’s review is also from Marrickville! It is an interesting Vietnamese restaurant called Old Thanh Huong.

The interesting bit was that we were not there for its Vietnamese dishes. We went there because a colleague recommended a very good Indonesian dish from this restaurant (Yep, an Indonesian dish!).

When we arrived at the restaurant, we were a little bit sceptical. It was far away from hip or modern and the menu consisted of letters and numbers (no shiny pictures, etc). To compound our worries, the restaurant serves Vietnamese, Chinese, Thai, and Indonesian food. It is usually never a good sign when you see quite a variety of dishes in a restaurant.

Nevertheless, we soldiered on and proceed with ordering the recommended dish: Chicken in Indonesian-Style Mentega Sauce. Indonesians usually refer it as Ayam Goreng Mentega. To our surprise, the portion was pretty decent and the chicken was awesome! It had a hint of chilli in it but they really nailed it. We also ordered the same mentega sauce but used rabbit as the other meat. Suffice to say, it did not work.

Our next dish was Crispy noodles with duck. It was quite a decent portion and probably the only non-spicy dish of the day. We also ordered XO Sauce Chicken fried rice. To my surprise, it was actually pretty spicy! My Indonesian friends loved it.

We also ordered Vietnamese Pancakes. This was our first time eating Vietnamese pancakes and we were very excited to see the size of the pancake (or technically more like an omelette). The pancake was filled with chicken, seafood and bean sprouts. You also need to eat it with lettuce and the Vietnamese fish sauce. It was very refreshing!

We closed our quite a big lunch with fried banana and ice cream.

The final verdict for Old Thanh Huong

Despite our early worries, Old Thanh Huong’s Mentega Sauce is the dish that will make us want to go back for more!

Did you know?

I know I did not write much about Vietnamese dishes. Chopin and My Saucepan actually ranked Old Thanh Huong the second best pho in Sydney! I actually tried it on my first visit there, but I didn’t take any pictures at that time.

Rating for Old Thanh Huong:

7.0 / 10

Taste: 7.5 / 10

Price: $11 – $20 per main course

Place: 6.5 / 10

Details:

356 Illawarra Road, Marrickville 2204

+61 2 99558 0863

Apr 7, 2015
Willis Canteen

Review:

One day a friend of mine asked me a question: Do you want to eat gado-gado? At first I admired his courage in offering me something that I don’t eat that often (vegetables) and obviously my subsequent question ensued: What’s so special about this one?

He said “This is the best one in Sydney and you even need to call them up in advance or be prepared to wait for an hour”. I was really tempted to say: are you mad? I’m not going to wait for an hour for my meal!

However, there was that ‘call in advance’ method (I still had my doubts at that time) that we can utilise so that we don’t need to wait for an hour.

We went on a Sunday afternoon and the restaurant was quite packed (good indicator of a nice restaurant!). Willis Canteen is the name of the restaurant. There were no big dramatic sign boards and no fancy decors. It was a plain and simple canteen!

As we were a bit late (because somehow we went to a different location!), my friend was already there with the gado-gado my wife ordered already on the table! She pointed out that this gado-gado was very similar to the ones in her city. Gado-gado literally translates into mishmash or mixes. It is a mixture of boiled vegetables with homemade peanut sauce. This peanut sauce is the very reason the preparation time was long. It wasn’t from that pre-packaged stuff you get from Asian groceries. They were passionately (and freshly) made by the chef.

Gado-gado – $12

I ordered another variant of peanut-based dish, Ketoprak. I will let you read the description in Wikipedia for ketoprak. Ketoprak is slightly different than gado-gado, but if you get the elements wrong it will be called something else. Their ketoprak was fabulous!

Ketoprak – $11

We also ordered Iga Penyet and Rendang. Iga penyet was a lot simpler in presentation. It was beef ribs with just a couple of vegetables and a small stone mortar with spicy sambal (chilli). In Indonesia the term ‘penyet’ is actually used for smashing the sambal with the main (usually soybean cake, eggplant, or chicken). The beef rendang was the icing on the cake on the already nice lunch.

Iga Penyet – $12.50

Rendang – $12.50

The final verdict for Willis Canteen on facebook

Willis Canteen surprised me in many good ways! I can feel the owners’ passion for food in every dish they served.

Did you know?

Seriously, if you are told that you will be waiting for a long time for your gado-gado, it means you WILL be waiting for a long time. If you want to order the peanut-based stuff, please call them in advance!

Rating for Willis Canteen:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 8.0 / 10

Price: $10 – $15 per dish

Place: 6.5 / 10

Details:

197/392 Jones Street, Ultimo

+61 2 8040 8372

Willis Canteen on facebook

Feb 26, 2015