Cambodia: fish amok

Cambodia's amok

n loc lac

After a hiatus, I'm finally back bloggin about food. The reason for the break is not so much a lack of material but rather I was simply too busy eating to write! That's the one of the much-needed comforts to live in Surabaya, and nothing is more satisfying that a food that resembles what you know back home yet with a twist to whet your curiosity.

One of them is the Terang Bulan - pancake with fillings inside. More commonly known as 'bin chang kueh' back home in S'pore, the dough is much thicker, double the depth. We ordered the keju (or cheese) and the staff slapped on a very generous layer and topped them with grated shreds.

Get your fix @ Kharisma (sells both terang bulan and martabak - like our murtabak but much crispier), a roadside warung stall @ Jalan Kertajaya VIII Raya No. 51C, Surabaya.

Gudec

Following the trip in Solo where we were fed systematically - ie. arranged -,

it's finally free & easy at neighbouring Yogyakarta (or Jogjakarta). Though I didn't get to taste the seductively sweet Es Dawet (dessert with fruits), the famed gudec that locals talk about didn't elude me anymore.

Eaten with the fragrant coconut milk-flavoured rice, gudec is a strangely indefinable taste of short young jackfruit strips cooked in a sweet paste. You can choose to eat it with servings of chicken or cow skin - yes, you heard me right.... the skin of a cow tempered to a sparse sponge-like texture hardened slightly to hint of a crispiness on the surface...

Recommended , even for Europeans, if only to get a taste of how different tastes in servings of different foods can be blended into a nice whole...

Seafood at Sidoarjo

After a 1-hour bemo adventure of maneourving 8 people to Sidoarjo and not getting anyone lost on public transport, we finally arrived at Resto Ganjaran at Jl Pahlawan to fill our hungry stomachs with a well-deserved of scrumptious seafood, such as gurame....

... and the highly delectable cumi bakar (grilled squid) ..

and the mother of all cumi dishes here.... the cumi pedas saos (deep fried squid with chilli sauce)

Pangsit Noodles

There's nothing like food from home and nothing resonates with the stomach more than something that seems to hail from home and yet has a tangy twist that's entirely its own.

The pangsit (chicken dumpling) noodles stall opposite my school is just that. Scoring both in terms of its looks and taste, it is a steal at Rp5,000 (just under S$1). The noodles sit attractively under the chicken floss in an attractive light brown, lubricated to a smooth finish with the oil. The veggies reminds you of those back home that we use for fishball noodles; so do the onions that are fried to give off the maximum fragrance without burning. All these strangely makes you overlook what should have been the main actor here - the dumplings... a disappointment which makes you wonder if pangsit means 'skin only'.

I usually judge a dish by its main component and not the frills, but of course there always have to be an exception to make life interesting .....

Rawon

Lest you think that I eat bakso everyday in Surabaya, let me assure you I try to balance my diet... with more beef....

But the sapi (beef) rawon is simply too good to miss. It reminds me of the beef tripe soup I always enjoy back in Singapore, like the one formerly in Bugis Street now displaced to Jurong West. Of course the taste is entirely different - the Indonesian counterpart packing a delectable oomph with its spices. The oil ensures the soup is sinfully smooth but you must eat it while it's hot so that it doesn't form a deterrent cover of guilt-inducing lard over your soup...

VY packed it for me the first time round and it came separate from the rice. The flavour is somewhat more enticing the second time I ate it - at my favourite pecel stall (review coming up soon, hopefully). The soup is a thicker concoction which envelops the rice in it and delivers its flavour straight into the gaps between the rice grains. What else can I say but 'Yummy"!

Super Jumbo Bakso of Sidoarjo, Surabaya

Some things should never be written too soon, otherwise they will return to haunt you.... I have gone gaga over the big bakso in my previous entry too soon, for my colleague introduced me to arguably (put in a qualifier just in case I discover a better one) the best bakso in Surabaya (found in Mada).....

... the Super Jumbo Bakso (applause please!) .....

It is certainly superior in size to all others I've seen so far, its girth stretching across the diameter of the bowl. If the earlier one is big, then this is truly ENORMOUS, HUMONGOUS , COLOSSAL, GARGANTUAN, GIGANTIC, MAMMOTH, ELEPHANTINE and whatever superlative adjectives you can think of.

Its thickness, or more like its height, towers above the horizon of the bowl and would certainly displace all the other contents if you attempt to fit its length and breadth in it exactly. I am still undecided as to which is the better one (vis-a-vis the one in Alun Alun). Its texture certainly betrays a higher proportion of flour and other additives but its sheer size guarantees that you will get your stomach's fill of the chewy meat. Anyway, I never have such fun with a fork and spoon before, because there's just so many permutations you can experiment with to cut meat of this size....

The sweet taste of the soup leaves a sublime aftertaste that is just right after your mouth has exhausted itself coping with the mouth-fulls (litarally!) of beef. The only gripe is that there is no more space for items other than the space-saving vermicelli, unlike the Alun one which has space for one taupok....

(picture coming up soon!)