The Icon of Eid Mubarak

Every year in Indonesia, Eid Mubarak celebration become a full festive of the nation. People get busy on preparing anything: new clothes, new shoes, and not forget the tradition itself: feast food fiesta. Traditional Indonesian rice cake made from young coconut leaves is the icon. My friend, a science geek, describing the rice cake in sentence like this: “High density agglomerates of steam-expanded high moisture rice grain.”

The plain taste of rice cake would not be complete without other dishes. There are vegetables and meat dishes which every local has their own style cooking, but the renowned name you could mention are opor ayam (traditional chicken cook with coconut milk and spices) and rendang (extended heating of beef muscular protein in coconut extract emulsion, another scientific translation).

When we are in town, mom usually like to cook these dishes with her own style. This year she cooked bunch (and i really mean a bunch) of rice cake with papaya vegetable also cooked in coconut milk and her tasty tahu tauco (fried tofu cooked with fermented beans and chili in soya soup). Meat dishes were taken from our local Padang restaurant. Usually she cook chokoes (something like squash) vegetables but i asked her this time to made it from young papaya fruit.

Later on, a day before the celebration, i could not help myself drooling while seeing my friends updating their cooking status of this rice cake. Fortunately mom arrived home not for long with her dishes. I prepared my plate in sudden, divided the rice cake into pieces then i poured the vegetables together with tahu tauco served with beef rendang aside. And finally, kering tempe (stir fried tempe with chili and soya sauce) as topping. And this time, somehow her cooking taste much better with young papaya vegetables. I could not help myself eating this for the next 3 days in a row :P

Cinnamon Sugar Pretzel

I'm fall in love with it. Pretzel has been around for very long time, some say from 600 AD. What was a reward to children for their prayer has become fancy food, sold at the stall in shopping mall. The taste has been varied as well, from standard cinnamon sugar to Parmesan cheese.

It didn't look difficult to make, so with Pizza dough experience on my belt, I start working on Pretzel dough. Problem come when I feel that the dough didn't raise as expected. Either I didn't give it enough time, or I'm kneading too much. I was left with slightly tough dough.

Nevermind, I thought, dividing the dough into 4 batches, each for 4 pieces. The more I rolled and knotted, the better it is. For the last batch, I manage to make a bigger knot, good enough for a nice looking Pretzel.

I went with standard topping, cinnamon plus sugar, and salt. My suspicious came into reality when the pretzel didn't raise in the oven. It didn't taste that bad, although a little bit tough. The cinnamon mix very well with the sugar, sweet enough with the pretzel.

I have told few things to improve on the look, hopefully it wouldbe better next time.

In the Mood for Yum Cha

"In the Mood for Yum Cha", so the words written on Kiko's status. That night, when she called me, she instantly propose to brunch at Samudra Restaurant. Samudra Restaurant has been our favorite place for Yum Cha because of its great taste and reasonably priced menu. In fact, it is so reasonably priced that we never wan't to cook the Dim Sum ourself. The taste might not worth the money and effort.

Translated into "Drinking Tea", Yum Cha is actually refers to the overall dining experience. But what we were after are the Dim Sum, the bite size Chinese dumpling, served in unusual way. Instead of the waiter taking your order, he/she will push a cart full with those Dim Sum. Wave your hand, someone will come to your table, and you can point on the dishes you're interested in. The dish, normally with 3-4 pieces of Dim Sum, is soon served on your table. The waiter will then mark a piece of paper on your table, which is basically to track on what you picked.

We ate alot, from Puff Char Siu, Scallop Siu Mai, Pork Siu Mai, Cheung Fan, Ha Kau, Kumis Naga. In between, we took few sips of tea; yeah, we want to experience the original Yum Cha experience.


We are full, but the dessert is hard to miss. We had Gui Ling Gao and Almond Puding to complete our brunch. As we walk to the parking lot, I can see the smile from the tip of Kiko's lip, a satisfied smile...

Samudra Restaurant
44-46 Jalan Jenderal Sudirman Kav. 44-46 8th floor BRI II, Center Park
Jakarta, 10210
Phone: +62 21 571 3572

Original Padang Food

Kiko just returned from trip to Padang, West Sumatra. Along with her is various Padang Food, very famous and versatile food available almost anywhere in Indonesia. It is a special one, originally made in Padang, and probably by Padang people as well, with original spice.

The jerky meat (known locally as dendeng) is always my favorite. Padang has so many type of jerky meat, the thin crispy one with red chili called dendeng balado and the soft brown one with green chilli known as dendeng batokok is easily available here. Kiko bought the later, and another one that I've never seen before: dendeng baracik, served with raw tomato and slice of shallots.


But that's not all. There are a piece of duck, dipped in green pepper, called Itiak Lado Ijo in local language. Although look spicy, the taste was just nice, not as spiy as it look.

And finally, the one I asked her to bought: Pale Bada. Bada is some kind of fish, wrapped with shredded coconut and cassava leaves. Finally it is wrapped with banana leaves before being steamed until cooked. It is sweet and spicy, perfect complement for the cassava leaves.

Don't forget to eat all of them with a hot, just-cooked rice, with your hands. It will be your perfect dining experience

@ Sumber Hidangan, Bandung

"Was it a factory before?" The old lady behind the counter grin. "This building has been a bakery shop since 1929." She then look to the man beside me. "And I've been working here since 1964. " Forty five years working in the same place, selling the same stuff. And the shop is another amazement by itself, having survived the test of time for 80 years.

The sun shine brightly outside, scorching the town of Bandung, despite of cool breeze of wind. But once insideSumber Hidangan, all the hot weather is replaced by cool air, thanks to the high ceiling. The building has a narrow 2nd floor, which I originally used by the landlord to watch over the worker, and made me thought that this was a factory. "That was only to help cleaning the ceiling", the old lady said. She is friendly indeed, and will happily explain all the cookies if you asked.

Two glass of Ice Cream were served before us, perfect for such hot weather: Cafe Glace and Chocolate, both topped with crushed peanut and canned peach. The Ice Cream is not so special, with rough texture and slightly less sweet, but combined with the peanut, they are perfect! We can see people come and go while eating, some buy the classic cookies (such as Speculaas, Jan Hagel), other ordered a bowl of chicken noodle, and eat by himself, while probably drifting back through time.

We were reluctant to leave this cozy place. Besides, the evening sun makes this place even nicer, with the only light source coming from the front door. I soon ordered a piece of cake, and glass of coffee. My Speculaas is packed, so I took one as a company for the coffee. We spend another 1 hour just to talk about few unimportant thing, while watching people come and go.

And still afterwards, it is with hesitant that we pay the bill and leave, promising that one day we'll be back, for a piece of mind.......