|
| |
|
FOOD AND DRINK |
| |
|
|
| |
Compared to other Southeast Asian cuisines , Indonesian meals lack
variety. Coconut milk and aromatic spices at first add intriguing tastes
to the meats, vegetables and fruits, but after a while everything starts
to taste the same - spiced, fried and served with rice. Be particularly
careful about food hygiene in rural Indonesia, avoiding poorly cooked
fish, pork or beef, which can give you flukes or worms.
Rice ( nasi) is the favoured staple across much of the country, an
essential, three-times-a-day fuel. Noodles are also widely popular. The
seafood is often superb, and chicken, goat and beef are the main meats
in this predominantly Muslim country. Vegetarians can eat well in
Indonesia, though restaurant selections can be limited to cap cay -
fried mixed vegetables. There's also plenty of tofu and the popular
tempe, a fermented soya-bean cake.
Indonesian food
The backbone of all Indonesian cooking, spices are ground and chopped
together, then fried to form a paste, which is either used as the
flavour base for curries, or rubbed over ingredients prior to frying or
grilling. Chillies always feature, along with terasi (also known as
belacan), a fermented shrimp paste. Meals are often served with sambal,
a blisteringly hot blend of chillies and spices.
Light meals and snacks include various rice dishes such as nasi goreng ,
a plate of fried rice with shreds of meat and vegetables and topped with
a fried egg, and nasi campur , boiled rice served with a small range of
side dishes. Noodle equivalents are also commonly available, as are
gado-gado , steamed vegetables dressed in a peanut sauce, and sate ,
small kebabs of meat or fish, barbecued over a fire and again served
with spicy peanut sauce. Indonesian bread ( roti) is made from sweetened
dough, and usually accompanies a morning cup of coffee.
Sumatran Padang restaurants are found right across Indonesia, the
typically fiery food pre-cooked - not the healthiest way to eat - and
displayed cold on platters piled up in a pyramid shape inside a glass-fronted
cabinet. There are no menus; you either select your composite meal by
pointing, or wait for the staff to bring you a selection and pay just
for what you consume. You may encounter boiled kangkung (water spinach);
tempe; egg, vegetable, meat or seafood curry; fried whole fish; potato
cakes; and fried cow's lung.
Where to eat
The cheapest places to eat in Indonesia are at the mobile stalls ( kaki
lima, or "five legs"), which ply their wares around the streets and bus
stations during the day, and congregate at night markets after dark. You
simply place your order and they cook it up on the spot. Warung are the
bottom line in Indonesian restaurants, usually just a few tables, and
offering much the same food as kaki lima for as little as 50c a dish.
Rumah makan are bigger, offer a wider range of dishes and comfort, and
may even have a menu. Anything labelled as a restaurant will probably be
catering to foreigners, with fully fledged service and possibly
international food; many close by 8 or 9pm. Tourist restaurants will
charge from three times as much for the same dish you'd get in a warung.
Where restaurants are reviewed in the guide, inexpensive means you will
get a satisfying main dish for less than US$2, moderate means it'll be
US$2.50-5, and expensive is US$5.50 and over. In addition, many of the
moderate and all of the expensive establishments will add up to 21
percent service tax to the bill.
Drinks
Most water that comes out of taps in Indonesia has had very little
treatment, and can contain a whole range of bacteria and viruses . Drink
only bottled, boiled or sterilized water. Boiled water ( air putih) can
be requested at accommodation and restaurants, and dozens of brands of
bottled water ( air minum) are sold throughout the islands. Indonesian
coffee is amongst the best in the world, and drunk with copious amounts
of sugar, or occasionally condensed milk.
Alcohol can be a touchy subject in parts of Indonesia, where public
drunkenness may incur serious trouble. There's no need to be overly
paranoid about this in cities, however, and the locally produced beers ,
Anker and Bintang Pilsners, are good, and widely available at Chinese
restaurants and bigger hotels. In non-Islamic regions, even small warung
sell beer. Spirits are less publicly consumed, and may be technically
illegal, so indulge with caution. Nonetheless, home-produced brews are
often sold openly in villages. Tuak (also known as balok) or palm wine
is made by tapping a suitable tree for its alcoholic sap, comes in plain
milky-white or pale red varieties, and varies in strength. Far more
potent are rice wine (variously known as arak or brem), and sopi, a
distillation of tuak, either of which can leave you incapacitated after
a heavy session.
Food and drink glossary
To begin, select a topic in the navigation bar to the left
|
| |
|
