361. Jakarta - The Taste

It was already late afternoon after we have checked in to our rooms. Our dear friend who has been residing in Jakarta for many years, brought us to the nearest mall, Grand Indonesia, for an Indonesian meal.

Nicely presented, I felt.

Not wanting any Avocado juice, she opted for the dessert with bird nest to quench her thirst. And to be exact, jelly strips.

Fish goreng with a gravy very much like the sweet and sour sauce.

This was our second order, and.....the gravy was served in a bowl. Hmmm, so how exactly is the fish served? Everything mixed ready or fish strips and gravy separated?

Egg Telor. A mesh in the interior. Don't know what was in it except knowing it was wholly egg. It was very crispy and went well with the spicy peanutty sauce.

Kid's Meal! The mould the rice in a teddy bear shape. The kid at the table was so fascinated.

What's in there? It was fish roe, mixed with some greens and then grilled. Some liked it, some didn't.

Sambal Squid. There were 8 of us and they served us this one tweeny squid. Does it makes sense? Anyway, the sambal and squid are non-separable, they made a great pair.

Sop Betawi. This one was better than the one at Mangga Dua in my earlier post. Cumin taste was less.

We were all hungry and we didn't much care on what kind of food we were eating because our local friend knows best and decided for us. But, he was very pissed with the service. First of all, the place seemed like having no consistency and order in the way food was served. We asked for sambal chili and they only served it after we finished all of our food. Worse still, the chili wasn't sambal chili, it was just pounded chili. Then, the waiter who took our order didn't listen to what our friend was saying and he walked away when another table's customer called out for service.

Food was decent but poor service. It cost about SGD 80+ for 8 pax if I didn't remember wrongly. Price was reasonable, I thought. However, in my opinion, I wouldn't mind paying more to eat at another place with better service.

The Taste
Grand Indonesia

359. Jakarta - Sop Betawi @Mangga Dua

Sop Betawi

If you visit Indonesia, you will be able to see sop betawi at almost every eating place. It is a very common food. I had sop betawi for a few of my meals in Jakarta. Looked like soup kambing but not exactly the same taste. Instead, it contained beef, with chopped cabbages and chunks of tomatoes, garnished with big spoonful of fried shallots. The soup itself has a rich taste of beef, cumin, cloves and other spices. I felt the cumin content was slightly overpowering. The sweetness of beef in the soup coupled with the cumin content made the soup a tad heavy for the Chinese taste in my own opinion.

The chili sauce had diced cucumber and tomatoes added to it. It was sour, not so much of spicy. The locals have the sop betawi with rice which I think the later really complemented it well. Else, they have the emping (aka melinjo nut crackers) with the sop betawi. The emping is by nature with a bitter taste.

For your info, Mangga Dua is a wholesale complex, full of clothes and accessories and yet in between the messiness, you will find small stalls that sell the local delicacies, like sop betawi and all the kueh kueh.

301. Pondok Jawa Timur

Dining out on the weekends is always a hassle. There are queues everywhere, even the M fastfood chain is full house. Well, it is not necessary that people would go for better food on weekends. A set meal of fastfood can be a satisfying meal too. Anyway, a few of us decided to walk out of Plaza Singapura(PS) after crossing out the food restaurants that were in PS. We decided to go for the Indonesian cuisine at the Atrium. There were flyers on their menu stand which comes with a 10% off coupon. Luckily, there wasn't any queue.

Cendol @$4

A traditional dessert from Indonesia. Cendol has become a quintessential part of cuisine among Singaporeans, Malaysians and the other nearby South East Asia populations. We could easily find them in the dessert stalls at hawker centres. But, we have more ingredients like red beans, atap seeds and etc. The green starch noodles were most probably the reason why I ordered cendol. I felt the taste of Indonesian cuisine is always tagged with the word 'very'. Very sweet, very spicy and food is always very coconut-ty. Coconut milk and chili are almost like the primary ingredients in Indonesian cuisine. Cendol consisted of coconut milk and palm sugar syrup. Too sweet. So, I waited for the shaved ice to melt before drinking it.

Avocado Juice @$5

It's the first time I saw avocado juice served with palm sugar syrup. It gave me the impression that it's going to be very sweet.

"It was not sweet but it was thick" , he said.

Avocado juice at $5 was considered cheap. Getting an avocado fruit would have already cost $1.50. I still remembered the glass of overpriced avocado juice I had which cost $10.

Javanese Iced Tea @$3

Sometimes having named the drink from the country may not necessary means that the drink is special in anyway.

"It was just like teh bing" , she said.

Ayam Penyet @$6.90

Another classic Indonesian dish. It was big on the flyer but shrunk in size on our table. We had 2 servings. Served with a triangular-sized tau-kwa, a square cut of tempeh (fermented soybean cake) and chili sauce. Basically in the dishes we have ordered, I realised there were just 2 types of chili. One which had been cooked and the other uncooked. I personally felt chili sauce is a must-have for ayam (chicken) penyet, else it would be like something is lacking. The cooked chili sauce was used for ayam penyet. The ayam was a tad dry.

Sop Buntut (oxtail soup) @$8.90

The uncooked chili sauce for sip buntut. The pieces of oxtail were cooked till soft and they were delicious. The clear soup was slightly salty.

Tahu Telor @$8.90

Tahu (tofu) was cut into small cubes. I was surprised to see potato cubes in the dish. The thick peanut sauce on top was sweet. It was delicious to eat with the chili.
Gado-Gado @$7.90

The Indonesian salad. Comprised of vegetables like cabbage, lettuce, bean sprouts, hardboiled egg, rice ketupak cut into small cubes and peanut sauce as the dressing. I didn't like the gado-gado because the peanut sauce had a smoked taste.

The bill was about $59 for 4 pax. Food was just mediocre and service was relatively slow. We had 2 cendols on our order. One came at the start of our meal and the other arrived as the last after our reminder. 10% discount was automatically printed on the bill when we asked for the bill.

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Pondok Jawa Timur
The Atrium Orchard
(next to PS)
Tower 2 #01-16
Singapore 238891
Tel: 6884 5853

57. Sinar Pagi Nasi Padang

Sambal tempe with prawns
Chicken rendang


Tahu goreng

The tagline of Sinar Pagi Nasi Padang is 'We serve authentic padang food'. Well, I'm not really pro in padang food so I have no idea how authentic they are. Padang means 'field' and padang food means indonesian food. Padang food is mostly spicy because they like to add sambal (chilli) to whatever dish they cooked. In padang style restaurants, the most popular dishes are the rendang and fried tempe with prawns.

In Sinar Pagi, another popular dish is the tahu goreng. It was served piping hot. So crispy yet light and satisfying. My friend who worked near this place often have this tahu goreng for lunch. Well, I think too much will make her fat. Afterall, it's fried food.

The sambal tempe with prawns was good. Not too spicy. I had high expectations for the chicken rendang but to my dismay, it failed me. The chicken rendang was not nice. The peanut sauce was not those that you will ask for more. Just like you had satay which was so-so and the peanut sauce a substandard.

The dishes except tahu goreng was already chilled, in other words, they were not served hot from wok. They were taken from trays just like you had your chinese economic food, ala-carte. It might have been better if all the dishes were served hot.

I like the teh tarik. I think the teh tarik was 1 of the healthiest that I have ever drank. It was not like the others, it had a low degree of sweetness. It was like teh tarik siew dai. I think this was very not like the norm because usually the teh tarik I had were of ultimate sweetness. Luckily, the rice was served hot and it was those fluffy type. Haha. My bill totalled up to $26. My taiwanese friend whom I played host to said the food was nice but I think otherwise. I think he has not tasted the ultimate one....which I am still in search of. Haha.