When the weather is as great as it has been the last few days in the Netherlands, my appetite changes. The barbecue has already been lit a couple of times and salads have been eaten too. This homemade salad was made as a quick side dish and consisted of all kinds of lettuce, corn, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, avocado and a pesto dressing. A nice, quick summer salad.
Walking outside in the warm nights of Indonesia is always fantastic. Especially when you are searching for a place to eat. So, stumbling outside of the boulevard of Pangandaran, there it was. A restaurant called Mungil, just beside the sea. I saw the sign of the restaurant and then I knew it: this is where I wanted to eat. Not because it said that they had cool beer, not because the sign said that they had juices, not even because they said that they had Indonesian seafood (that was one of the main reasons though), but because it said that they had “kind of…” all sorts of things! And especially the “kind of seafood”. What in the world is “kind of seafood”?!
After ordering some drinks, soon the food was served. Sate (skewered meat), perkedel (flat round patties made of potatoes, vegetables and meat) and a dish with prawns all served with nasi (white rice) topped with bawang goreng (fried shallots). Although the prawn dish was quite salty, I cannot say it didn’t taste nice. With the nice food, good company and the sound of the sea in the background, it definitely was a successful night.
When I am eating at my girlfriends parents’ place I know I will not leave hungry. Some time ago they made this delicious paella. With a bright afternoon sun shining on our heads, it was just like I was back in Spain. It was made with original Spanish fideua, filled with vegetables and all kinds of seafood.
This small brown package contains one of the best things you can eat in Indonesia: sate kambing! Small pieces of goat on a skewer, slowly grilled over a charcoal fire. After taking the skewers of the grill, a brown spicy peanut sauce is added. If you have never eaten sate kambing, you definitely should. It is fantastic. And although it tastes great, the sate I had wasn’t really photogenic. As you can see below…
Doesn’t look appealing? Doesn’t matter! Because it is simply delicious!
One of the first nights in Jakarta we went out to have dinner. We were advised to have dinner at a small road-side restaurant just across the place were we slept. When we came there, we looked at the extensive menu and just picked some things we liked. Since we didn’t knew how large the portions were going to be (we didn’t bother to ask), we ended up with a table full of food: our own ‘rijsttafel‘. We had plain rice, bami goreng, kangkung (water spinach) fried with meat and terasi (dried shrimp paste), vegetable soup and some chicken. Although we had so much, we ate it all. It was delicious!
A slightly vague photo, I admit. The reason why is that this photo was taken outside, at nighttime in Jakarta. During the day, there was a parking lot for cars just around the corner of the place I stayed. But at nighttime? Chicken, chicken chicken! Specialized in chicken, this mobile restaurant pops out of nowhere during nighttime. On the left of the photo you see some ayam goreng (fried chicken) and in the right upper corner is a bowl of bubur ayam (chicken congee). Not only was the food tasteful, it was cheap too. But the best thing of all was just the possibility of sitting on a bamboo mat, next to the road on a warm Jakarta night and eating chicken with your hands.
After a hard day of work this dish is just heaven. A variety of pasta, garlic, red onions, pepper, spinach and shrimp. Shortly stir fried in a pan. Simple, easy and quick, but also very tasty.
The Ya Zhou Café is a Korean restaurant in the ‘basement’ of the Suntec City Mall, next to the Fountain of Wealth. As you can see on the picture below, the menu consist of a card with pictures of dishes. I seriously cannot recall what was on the menu, but just check out the pictures of the food!
That plate above was served sizzling hot. And seriously, the sound of a stack of beef sizzling away on a plate sounds like the best symphony you could compose. The beef was slightly seasoned with spicy herbs and other spices that I couldn’t identify, but it tasted great.
The dish above was a mie soup with a beef broth. Also served with a significant amount of beef. Great.
Add some Tiger beer to the meal and it makes it instantly better. The only thing I didn’t quite like was the soup that you can see above on the right. It was more like a broth, but it tasted a bit strange. It had a powdery, grainy ingredient which wasn’t really to my liking.
This was another delicious sizzling hot plate of meat. With this amount of meat and some rice your meal is going to get great. If you are a vegetables fan you really should order another dish since the microscopic touch of green on top were the only vegetables around.
On thing that was a great side dish was the kimchi that you can see on the bottom left of the picture above. Kimchi consist of fermented vegetables and it really does taste a lot better than it sounds.
This stewy dish was once again filled with meat, meat meat. Oh, great food times followed.
The dinner I ate at Café Des Arts in Antwerp was already a long time ago. The dinner was delicious nonetheless and worthy of posting. As you can see the dinner started nicely with a fine Belgian beer. As I am more of a beer lover than a beer connoisseur I just ordered a ‘Belle-Vue Gueuze’ since it was listed on the menu and I guessed it would be a Belgian beer. After ordering the beer the waiter looked strangely at me and asked me if I was really sure. Since this confused me a little bit I asked him why he said that to me. He replied by saying that the ‘Belle-Vue Gueuze’ was normally only ordered by old (elderly?) people. I ordered it anyway.
The beer tasted very unusual, having a distinct sour taste. Not bad though, just different.
Then the highlight of any meal: the food. I ordered a beef stew with fries and some Belgian mayonnaise on the side. When you see this picture above, don’t be afraid. That wasn’t all. I got my beef stew in a pan that the waiter put on the table, then he opened the pan and served the stew right there on the table. The fries were delivered in baskets that were even refilled when we were eating.
The black pan was filled with beef stew.
Whilst eating, I ordered another Belgian beer. This time a Hoegaarden Grand Cru, which is a more regular beer. Still good though.
This steak with pepper sauce was the dish my girlfriend ordered. It was good, but nothing out of the ordinary.
The good thing about Café Des Arts was definitely the location since it is near to the train station and also next to the crossroad that connects the busy Keyserlei and Meir. We were sitting on a table next to the window and we could see all the people pass by which was fun. Also, although I don’t know if it is regular policy at Café Des Arts or not, our waiter was really nice and gave us some more service than usual.
At the moment I am in Indonesia, enjoying all the fantastic food Indonesia has to offer. This mie goreng has been the absolute culinary highlight of my trip so far. I ate it at a roadside warung just across the street of the place where I am staying on Jalan Cikini Raya in Jakarta and it is a warung that is, conveniently, opened 24 hours a day. The mie is filled generously with all kinds of vegetables, fried egg and fried shrimps. But the best of it all is the rich flavor of the mie itself. A very recommended dish.
Dude What's My Food? 