That question summed up the choice of Indonesian food for me at first. To be fair my meal on my first night in Jakarta was very adventurous, as I met a fellow solo traveller and we sat on the street at a low table ordering unknown dishes from a pop up tent. The risk paid off and we ended up with a tasty mix of grilled chicken, tofu, tempe (soya) and dimsum. The following night I took someone else there with a similar strategy and failed. We ended up with a plate of chicken feet that I had to hide under a tissue for half an hour before making an attempt to eat one. I couldn’t even find any meat.
After leaving Jakarta menus seemed to become more limited and often the decision was simply nasi goreng or mie goreng, fried rice or fried noodles, almost always with egg, often with vegetables and sometimes with chicken. Other options, such as grilled chicken, didn’t tempt me as the chicken was always on the bone with little meat. I really like variety with food so even though all the meals tasted good, and were often very cheap, I started to get bored. When the menus got longer and I had learnt to translate more items, I discovered other local dishes to try, such as nasi campur, a large dish involving several elements such as chicken, tempe, peanuts and vegetables around a rice centre.
Satay became a firm favourite, not surprising given the similarity in flavour to my beloved peanut butter. I had a couple of standout satay sauces; it was hot competition between Mama’s silky smooth sauce (Mama’s Warung, Ubud) and Downtown’s (Sanur) rich sauce but Downtown won for presenting the chicken on the table still on the grill.
I was wary of trying seafood in some places but couldn’t resist at the famous seafood market in Jimbaran. After a long time walking up and down the vast aisles of fresh catch we finally selected some prawns and took them to a local restaurant where they were grilled along with some red snapper, clams and squid.
After a couple of weeks of local food, and a ton of rice, I started to give in to Western options and had the occasional pizza or sandwich. However, I tried to stick to local food most of the time and also real local experiences such as small warungs, cafes full of only locals or street food. In Gili Trawangan everyone would head to the big night market for buffet style local food (and less traditional but oh-so-amazing peanut butter pancakes).
To drink, I tried fresh young coconut, drinking the water and then scraping off the milky flesh. I also enjoyed my fair share of local beer Bintang, a staple drink for travellers in Indonesia.
The Bright Side Foodie 