Street Culinary

We are very often feeling bored of everyday menu served at the restaurant. We need something new or something adventurous. When in the restaurant, the food may be has the same taste to the meals that are served at home.

Indonesia has culinary richness, good cuisines are not only can be found at the café and restaurant but also at the street. The street restaurants can be found in almost every city in Indonesia, from Jakarta to Papua. The street restaurants are commonly called tent café or lesehan (cross legged/no chair available). The street restaurant means the food kiosk that is built (not permanently) at the side of the street. Tent is used for the roof and the wall.

The street cafés serve various menus such as bakso, sea food, Chinese food, Javanese Food like gudeg, pecel lele, java bakmi, and other food like setae, fried or toasted chicken and nasi goreng (fried rice). Generally, this kind of restaurant opens at 15.00 p.m. and will be closed at 1 or 2 a.m.

It is very easy to find bakso in Java Island. Bakso is something like soup with noodle, fried tofu, vegetable and the most important is the bakso (ball shaped meat). The good bakso is made form pure meat (bigger meat proportion and smaller flour proportion). This can be seen from the color and the texture, the darker the color the better the quality.

Java noodle or bakmi jawa is commonly can be found at Jogjakarta, Solo and at certain place in Jakarta. The cuisine is made from noodle with chicken, duck’s or chicken’s egg and of course special ingredient. This bakmi can be served in two ways, boiled and fried. Bakmi Jawa has different taste from any other cuisine from outside Java. The most famous bakmi is Bakmi Kadin in Jogjakarta. It is located at Bintaran Street, about half kilometers to the east from Kraton or Sultan’s Palace.

When we talk about the price, the street restaurant has lower price then the other restaurant, for example the price for bakso is starting from Rp. 4.500,00, for bakmi Jawa is starting from Rp. 5000,00 and Rp. 1.500,00 for the drink such as tea or orange. Lower price doesn’t mean lower quality, many of them have good taste and quality so that it can be a solution for the backpackers.

Tips

• Ask the price to the seller before ordering the food. This is very important because some naughty sellers will request more money from the regular price.
• Bring cash. Credit card service is not available.
• The more the visitor, the better the taste and price.