sea.indonesia.1

tinutuan manado

although i still have a loooot of posting debt,

i have to jump forward to my latest culinary exploration

finally came to here..

the famous bubur manado (manado porridge) a.k.a tinutuan!

thanks to critters@lembeh girls 

who took me on my first night in lembeh, bitung, north sulawesi

been craving for this one since few months ago

the taste... ?

 much much better than what i was hoping for :)

chocolate.cookie.crackle

another come homing trip
reunited me with
my childhood favourite ice cream

baskin robbins ice cream


why?
not only they have 31 flavours,
but every year
i always get a free scoop..
on my birthday :)

31 flavours
which one to choose?
...

always ended up with jamoca almond fudge
but this time
let's try chocolate cookie crackle
yuuumm ;d

brussel.spring

everytime i went back to my hometown

i always try to spare some time and visit this place

just to enjoy their super crispy waffle
topped with strachitella ice cream



yumm to the mee, yummyyy!

celebes.trip

this time, my foodprint exploration was a bit different ...

becoming one of the 66 lucky bastards
who won a free trip to travel around Indonesia
this is like.. the best time ever!

aiming to try each and every local treats as much as possible
these are just some of result of my never ending hunger :P

oh i haven't told you which part of Indonesia i went to, have i?
for 14 days i, actually we, me and travelling partner
traveled aroud west and south sulawesi

sulawesi, formerly known as celebes island,
located between kalimantan and maluku

okay, stop talking and start drooling
divided into 4 posts, based on each location

selayar island
sengkang
toraja
makassar

enjoy :)

part.one.selayar

nasi santan is the famous local dish here in selayar island
why they called it nasi santan or coconut gravy rice?
obviously because they cooked the white rice with coconut gravy

nasi santan goes along very well grilled fish, squid, or even fried chicken

another must have item in this dish
is a portion of sambal belimbing
a type of chili mixed with crushed peanuts and cuts of stairfruits

but beware, if you order grilled squid
likelyhood your fingers will ended up just exactly like mine :)

and this is local snacks from selayar island, keripik melinjo
fried melinjo, or gnetum gnemon, dipped in liquid palm sugar

next destination
sengkang, south sulawesi

part.two.sengkang

well ...
i do not think we can call it an exploration for this one
because what happened was

while we were crossing tempe lake in sengkang,
our boat, known as katinting boat, accidentally leaked badly
and we.. err.. well sort of drowned ...

recalled back, it was a funny experience though
300m from our drown-location, was actually the exact location of our destination
the floating village of buginese tribe
-talking 'bout wrong place wrong timing-

felt sorry for our misfortune,
the lady of of the house made us a nice warm fried bananas
accompanied with a glass of hot tea to calm us down, which if i can added,
did not work well for one of us, if you know what i mean ;p

anyway, before we said goodbye to local villagers
i managed to sneak into the kicthen and tried their local snack,
made of rice flour and sugar, pan fried and served warm
yummy ;d

definitely not bad
after what we had experienced before :D

next destination
toraja!

part.three.toraja

toraja
can not tell you how much i enjoyed this place

after a long night driving towards rantepao, toraja
we finally arrived at mambo restaurant
and tried local famous dish
pamarrasan buffalo meat

accompanied with the super hot sambal katokon

but cooled down immediately by the sweetness of tamarella juice

pangrarang pork, grilled pork with rica-rica sauce
sayur tutuk kelapa, vegetable tap with coconut
at mentirotiku restaurant, batutumonga

traditional roasted cassava

traditional baked sweet potato

preparing papiong chicken, stuffed chicken in a bamboo

and this is it
papiong chicken served with warm white rice
simple, but probably the best food i have ever had :)

another local dish was our menu for breakfast

toraja pork satay


next and final destination
makassar, south sulawesi!

part.four.makassar

one can not just come to makassar without putting their hands on the seafood
yep, this provincial capital of south sulawesi, was and still,
is the main primary port of the eastern archipelago of indonesia

aniway, we arrived late in the afternoon
just managed in time to catch a glimpse of losari sunset
before the night falls and city lights started to shine here and there
but still have plenty of time to try their local famous seafood

a lot of good selection seafood places in makassar
but this time we tried at warung makan ikan segar, lae lae



for dessert?

been craving for the famous pisang eppe,
a local term for grilled flattened banana,
ever since recommended by some of my friends

strolling down losari beach
we finally sat down at one of street hawker
and order 3 plates of pisang eppe

next morning
time to explore makassar local culinary
sooooooo many choices, but as a first timer
i chosed to try the famous recommended one


first stop, coto makassar at jalan nusantara

second stop, bought some makassar pork meatball, known as nyuknyang

initially i wanted to buy the one at jalan bali,
but finished already and it was still around 12 in the afternoon!
can not believe how famous the place is

so instead, i went to rumah makan asia timur at jalan timor
luckily they still have lots of nyuknyang stock
picture to be added later ;p

third and last stop, es pisang ijo at rumah makan bravo

and this means the end of my celebes trip
planning to come and visit here again?

of course!

bebek.bengil

last month, i got the chance to visit bali again
last time i went there.. hmm almost four years ago but then,
you will never ever get bored visiting bali :)

weeks before i finally arrived in ngurah rai airport
all kind of balinese food image already spinning in my minds
over and over and over again

bebek bengil is one of them
one of the most popular place in bali, indonesia many says,
this is a must try.. at least once
me? yeah, i never this before.. shame on me ^^

the same question always pop up
what is bebek bengil,
why they called it bengil..
and so on and so on
will let you know later,
all you need to know first is bebek = duck :)

the portion was huge, especially the fried duck
the taste also very good.. but then..
somehow i prefer the fried duck in my hometown, bandung
much more flavor completed with super hot spicy sambal


the grilled pork ribs also famous here
but as this consider non halal food for some of my traveling friends,
i cant just simply order and eight in from of them ;p
next time.. next time.. i will definitely go back to bali anyway.. someday

as for dessert, me and my friend share a portion of black russian pie.. sluurp

so.. what is bebek bengil anyway?
if we literally translate it into english
it is called dirty duck diner.. but waiiitt..
does not mean they served a dirty fried duck :D
this is their story...

'' When we were building the restaurant,we thought long and hard about a name.
Many good suggestions came from our friends, but none seemed just right. We knew we wanted a Balinese name that translated well into English. However, for a long time the metaphor eluded us. One tropical monsoon morning, when the restaurant was very close to being finished ( we had the concrete floor down, and the tables in ), a flock of ducks from the rice field across the road ( yes, there were rice fields all around us then ) ran quacking and squawking into the restaurant and across the floor and tables. They left muddy webbed footprints all over the place.
They were our first guests - those dirty ducks ! ''

similar.but.not.the.same

up 'till now, i've been staying in malaysia for 1.5 years already.
how is it so far? well, so far so good.. surprisingly i really like it here.
hmm.. maybe not the same answer if you ask me a year before (yeah)

that reminds me on my farewell party in july 2007. rather than celebrate it in a very ''indonesian'' kind of place, i chose a place that serves malaysian cuisine (hmm..) weird choice, knowing that i will have to live with that kind of food for the next few years.

i've heard nasi lemak before, but back then in katjapiring, that was the first time i-eight malaysian food. although now i know, it was similar but not the same. anything is always better in their original place.


as you can see, katjapiring is the name of the place.
it is a restaurant at parisj van java mall or pvj in short, bandung. we-eight dinner in a big group, maybe around 8-10 person, so we can order many things.

although they specialized in malaysian dishes, they also served nasi langgi garingan simpang lima, it is an indonesian dish.. we also ordered belacan chicken. some of my friends chose nasi lemak, which is the signature of malaysian dishes.


i also found out, talking about malaysian cuisine is always talking about 3 culture, the malay, chinese, and indian. char kway teow is one of the popular noodle dish in malaysia, and also singapore. but the one that we ordered here called fried char kway teow gurney drive. my malaysian friend told me that gurney drive is a famous place in penang state, north side of malaysia. i've been to penang but unfortunately i haven't tried the original fried kway teow in gurney drive.



while for indian food, roti canai is one of the popular dish. you can eat it with chicken or lamb curry or dal curry (vegetable curry). but nowadays, they also make roti milo (with milo powder springkled on top of it), roti kopi (coffee), onion, cheese or anything that you want. what we ordered here is roti canai with curry chicken.

authentic.sundanese.cuisine

i realize after reading back all the post, that i haven't mentioned anything about the best place to eat in the whole wide world (for me at least.) let me introduce you the one and only, indonesia.

first city i would like to tell, well supposely bandung.. but not for now.
i will start with it's neighbour, garut. i went there in 2006 with my bestest friends and we-eight quite a lot. first place that we visited is an area named kampung sampireun.

like bandung, garut is a part of west java. the people in west java are mostly sundanese, so you can also find any sundanese food you want here.

eating sundanese food never be complete if you don't have these items, kerupuk emping (melinjo-nut crackers), sambal ulek (crushed chili paste), and jambal roti (salted dry fish). sweet-thick soya sauce also very important, along with lalab (raw vegetables).

about this lalab thing, there's a proverb i found in the web, it says sundanese people will never be starved even if they were left in a jungle as long as there are plants for them to eat.

this is only a joke, but it's true that the sundanese people have been used to this habit of eating plants, such as lalab, for generations until today. sunda is just a land of paradise for lalab lovers.

talking about vegie's, for appetizer i immediately ordered karedok. gosh, this is just the best salad for me. only a simple mix of traditional salad with peanut sauce. but you know what they said, you don't know what you are missing until it's gone and that is exactly what i felt these day. i miss indonesian, specially sundanese food, so much.

anyway, we also ordered nasi liwet, nasi tutug oncom, ikan bakar, sate, sayur asem, tempe and tahu goreng. i'm not sure how to explain these food, but let's try.

nasi liwet is a traditional steam rice dish with coconut gravy and vegetables. we ordered nasi liwet ikan asin (with salted dry fish). very tasty hmm...

while nasi tutug oncom, as the name itself nasi (rice) tutug (mix) oncom (similar like tempeh), so it's a grill rice-mix-with-oncom dish served with traditional fried chicken, fried tofu, sambal hijau (green chili paste), lalab, crackers, and also ikan asin (salted dry fish). see, sundanese food never complete without all these simple-but-very-impotant items.

ikan bakar is grill fish (we ordered gurame fish), sate is satay. you can ask for chicken, beef, or lamb satay. sayur asem is a sour tamarind soup, a popular vegetable soup in sundanese food, while tempe and tahu goreng is fried tempeh and fried tofu. overall, the food was excellent.

i told you before, we-eight quite a lot in garut ... so we have not done yet, next stop was a place called mulih ka desa (return back home to village).

here, we wanted to try a very traditional sundanese food and snacks. so we ordered singkong goreng (fried cassava), another tempe goreng (fried tempeh, we just LOVE tempeh), rujak buah (fruit rojak), and tutut bumbu kuning (snail in yellow gravy), with complementary kerupuk rangginang (traditional crackers), sambal terasi and sambal hijau (dry shrimp chilli paste and green chilli paste). for beverages, we choose tea in pot and two glass of cingcau hijau (jelly with syrup). all served in a very traditional way. but bottom line is, all these food are just amazing.

amazing food, amazing place, amazing friends... that's just about everything.

*one of the delights of life is eating with friends*
second to that is talking about eating.
and, for an unsurpassed double whammy,
there is talking about eating while you are eating with friends.
-laurie colwin 'home cooking'-