Indonesian Food

There's no dieting here. The food is too good!

No chopsticks are used, and rarely have I been provided with a knife. Indonesians eat with a fork in one hand, a spoon in the other. The spoon is mostly used to help push food onto the fork (and to eat soups and sauces).

There are contemporary and traditional styles. Traditional first.

The traditional foods include rice, chicken, fruits etc. but with different flavors than we're used to. For example, I've frequently been served hard-boiled eggs - but boiled in a beef broth (I think) of sorts which gives it a mud-brown color and a distinct flavor. Not bad ... but different. Rice and chicken are as we expect, but once in a while there will be a dish on the menu with "chicken hearts". I have skipped that one. Jackfruit is common too - I've had it cooked, it brown, looks like small wood chips but with a soft texure and tastes like ... soft nutty wood. It is pretty good and served as a condiment. Soybeans are common too. I've heard reference to an "avocado juice" drink, but haven't had much luck finding it so far.

But it's not all good. There's the fried and cooked beef skin. The flavor is good, but the texture leaves a lot to be desired. Skin is mostly collagen (i.e. gelatin) and this side-dish has the consistency of juicy motorcycle seat foam which falls apart in your mouth like the gelatin in cans of Spam. It is truly the only thing I have not liked so far.

I'm also finding many coconut milk dishes, which shouldn't be surprising since there are plenty of coconut trees here ;-)

The contemporary cuisine is very similar to Thai with some Indian influences but without the curry. I was very surprised when I looked for a curry dish and didn't find one. Instead I have found many dishes with peanut sauces, bamboo shoots and compositions similar to pad thai. Fried eggs are very common. Chicken marinated in the same fashion as tikka marsala, whole roasted fish and roasted teriyaki duck. The duck was excellent ... not something I would usually try, but I sure did enjoy it. Oh yeah .. can't forget the tofu. Great food for soaking up local spices.

Beef is also common, but usually served braised and in a soup, like this:

Being a thoroughly modern society, cuisines from other parts of the world are available such as sushi, pasta, hamburgers etc. It just depends how much you want to pay. The steakhouse attached to the Grand Hyatt has excellent food but it is overpriced - the Norwegian salmon I had last night blew my meal allowance by about double but it was one of the least expensive items on the menu - the 5 oz corn-fed midwestern filet mignon was $110 ... the shark fin $120 (and shark fin soup was $45). For the sake of comparison - a lunch at a local Indo establishment with rice, beans, chicken and shrimp is about $2 - about the same as a cup of Starbucks.

Oh .. the coffee (called 'kopi' here) .. Indonesia has some of the best coffee in the world: Sumatra, Sulawesi, Papua. And that one that is picked out of civet poop. In general the coffee here is very good, but I suspect the best coffee is exported. When served coffee in cafe's or with meals it has always been thick, dark, aromatic and strong, but it lacks some of the complexities I'm used to back home. A quick cup at a Starbucks confirmed this - the complexity was there. Since coffee beans are a great cash crop, I wouldn't be surprised if the best beans are exported (although the roasting process has a large influence too). But for all this great coffee .. the Grand Hyatt rooms only have water heaters and powdered instant coffee. I made a cup the first day and once sip later it was down the drain. It was worse than ANY coffee I have had, even the stale overcooked car dealership stuff. Yuck!

On our excursion to Yogyakarta we made a trip to a bakpia factory. These desserts (pictured above) are cooked green beans with sugar, covered with dough and roasted. Despite what it sounds, these are actually Very good and are available in various flavors - cheese, and my favorite, chocolate. The owner brought us into the rear of the shop where hundreds of workers sat, rolling the filling, covering with dough.

That's all for now .. I'll leave you with another picture of the bakpia because I'm going to eat one now (and Chrome crashes when I try to delete it).