Tukang Chi Chong Fan (steamed rice noodle sheets man)

Chi Chong Fan is an Indonesian version of steamed rice noodle sheets or commonly named as Cheong Fun (腸粉 cheong fan or 肠粉 chángfěn) and commonly served in dim sum. The rice noodle sheets are made from mixed rice flour and water, poured into a special flat pan and then steamed. The authentic ones are usually are rolled and filled with different types of meats like beef, shrimp or barbecued pork, often topped with sweet soy sauce and sprinkled with sesame seeds.

The Indonesian steamed rice noodle sheets (Chi Chong Fan) is well known from Medan - capital of North Sumatra, Indonesia. Besides, the sauce and the sprinkles are different than the authentic ones, the rice noodle sheets here are remained flat and without any filling except those extra added little pieces of "ham". Chi Chong Fan has a very soft and smooth texture.

The vendor is selling on his bicycle.

You can see the red dots on the chi chong fan.
According to the vendor, it's ham *wink*3 bottles of sauces.
from left to right:
salty soy sauce, sweet sour sauce, chili sauce.

Cut the chi chong fan with a scissor.

Toss all the 3 kind of sauces.
Final touch, sprinkle with fried shallots.

A portion costs only Rp. 5.000 (about US 60 cents)

Tukang Tahu Gejrot (Stinky Tofu man)

Tahu Gejrot is stinky tofu (beancurd), an authentic snack from Cirebon (a city in West Java that's famous with the nickname as Prawn city).

Seriously, this tofu has a very strong odor which is stink. How bad does it smell? Uhmmm... Just imagine rotten tofu, hehehe.... But not unlike the Chinese stinky tofu where people already can smell it from a distance, you only can smell the stink of this tahu gejrot when you give a bite on it. Btw, the flavor of tahu gejrot is quite mild.

Not everyone likes to eat this tahu gejrot; my mom is one of those people who can not stand of the smell and the idea of eating "rotten tofu" but her daughter likes it *grin*

This vendor is selling his tahu gejrot on his bicycle but then you can also find other tahu gejrot vendors selling on carts.

The fried stinky tofu.

The ingredients for making the tahu gejrot sauce:

In the bottles: tamarind water, palm sugar water.

In the drawer: Palm sugar, garlic, shallot and bird's eye chili.

The vendor prepares the sauce.

He grinds all the ingredients of the sauce on the little black plate.

He uses a little pestle to grind the ingredients.

I love the taste of this piquant sauce. A mix of sweet, sour, hot and agreeably biting taste with the pungent smell from the fresh garlic and shallot.

Pour the sauce on the top of the stinky tofu and cucumber.

A plate of tahu gejrot costs only Rp. 6.000 (US 70 cents)

Rainbow Cupcakes

A few months ago, I was tempted to make rainbow cupcakes. I used Wilton coloring with the result as the below picture.
I showed it to my friend and she said that the colors are not really attractive since it's too soft. I guess she actually meant my rainbow cupcakes look dull, hehehe. Well, Wilton's colors produce their best for pastel colors and there's no any other food colorings to find here in Jakarta, better than Wilton's product - I think.

I noticed that many of the American food bloggers are using Americolor product for food coloring. So, when Lynn told me that she's coming to visit me in July and asked me what I wanted from the States, the first thing that came up in my mind was those beautiful Americolor food colorings.

FYI, Lynn was a Singaporean blogger who is living in the States. I've known her for more than 4 years in the blogsphere but not until last year, when I finally met her in real person for the first time in Bali. We had a wonderful time traveling, shopping and eating together around Bali for 3 days.

Anyway, Lynn canceled her trip to Jakarta for the security reason (remember the Jakarta's bombing at those 5 stars hotels last July?), thus she sent me a parcel.

Well, the parcel already reached Jakarta 2 weeks ago but there's a problem to get it out from the Indonesian Customs office and also the Post office. I had to face many silly bureaucracy procedures. At last, I got the parcel out from the Post office yesterday *so relieved*

In the parcel, it contains the book "Eat, Pray, Love", 1 bottle of Omega 3 supplement, 1 set of gourmet writer plus extra 2 pens, and 12 bottles of Americolor. Yay!!! Thank you so much, dearie!
So... today, I couldn't wait to try out to make the rainbow cupcakes again and this time, I'm using the Americolor, yipeee!!!

Rainbow Double Vanilla Cupcakes from Lick The Bowl Good by Monica H

Ingredients:
1 ½ sticks (12 tbsp) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 ¾ cups of sugar
2 large eggs
2 Teaspoons of pure vanilla
1/2 Vanilla Bean, scraped (optional)
½ teaspoon of salt
2 ½ teaspoons of baking powder
2 ½ cups of flour
1 ¼ cups of milk

Directions:
- In a medium bowl, mix together salt, baking powder and flour. Stir to combine then set aside.
- Cream butter and sugar together in a large bowl, then add in eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla extract and the seeds of half a vanilla bean. Beat until well combined.
- Alternately add the dry ingredients and the milk to the butter/sugar mixture. Start with flour, end with flour.
- Divide the batter into 6 bowls. Color your batter with food coloring (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet).
- Spoon or pipe your batter in thin layers into the muffin cups, being careful not to mix the colors.
- Bake at 375 degrees for 18-20 minutes for 20 regular cupcakes.

The result *big grin*

Btw, I only got 16 mini cupcakes, not so sure why *blur*

All these cupcakes are dedicated to my dearest Lynn :)

Tukang Siomay (steamed fish cake man)

Remember my post the "Tukang Batagor and Siomay"?

This vendor is also selling Siomay(steamed fish cake) but without the batagor (fried fish cake) and instead selling on a cart, he uses a bicycle to sell the siomay.
Let's see together what's inside the big pan ;)

Siomay (fish cake), bitter gourd, cabbage, tofu (bean curd), potato - everything is steamed.

Cut into pieces.

The peanut sauce, chili sauce and sweet soysauce as the condiments of Siomay.

Pour the peanut sauce and drizzle some sweet soy sauce.

Not forgetting the kaffir lime juice.

I love Siomay because it's savory and tasty. It's also chewable because of the starch. With or without the peanut sauce, I'm OK but yes, the peanut sauce and kaffir lime juice made the siomay so tasteful.
If you like hot, then you can ask for chili sauce on the side of the plate :)

Tukang Putu Bambu

You can only find Tukang Putu Bambu after the dusk. They usually will walk around the neighborhood with their carts until late at night, and you can tell directly when they pass in front of your house from the special sound comes out from their steam.

I believe that some of you are already familiar with the name of Putu Bambu because it's a quite well known snack also in Singapore and Malaysia.

Sometimes, I got confused with the origin of the food because some food in Indonesia are the same in Malaysia. So, again like the cendol drink, I made a little research and found out that Putu Bambu is originally an Indonesian traditional snack (source: wikipedia/kue putu). The famous Putu Bambu is from Medan (capital city of North Sumatra - Indonesia).

So, what is Putu Bambu?

Putu Bambu is steamed cake made from rice flour and filled with aren sugar (palm sugar) in the middle of it then steamed in bamboos.

The empty bamboos ready to be used. Coconut and the grater.

The process of making Putu Bambu.

Steam for about 5 minutes.

While steaming, the vendor prepares the banana leaf, then after the Putu Bambu has been steamed for 5 minutes, he uses a long stick to push the Putu Bambu out from the bamboo case.Adds grated coconut mixed with salt for the final touch.

Putu Bambu has soft and cottony texture with wonderful sweet fragrance from the palm sugar and banana leaf. The best time to eat Putu Bambu when it's still warm.

1 Putu Bambu costs Rp. 1.300 ( about US 15 cents).

Some of the vendors also sell "Kue Lupis" which is made from glutinous rice and grated coconut wrapped in banana leaf before being boiled for about 4 hours, It's eaten with brown sugar sauce.

There're also "Klepon" and "Cenil".

Cenil is made from cassava starch (tapioca) and water plus red food coloring, boiled and then served with grated coconut and sprinkle white sugar.

Klepon is small balls made from glutinous rice flour and filled with brown sugar, the green color is from suji leaf (cat's claw leaf) then rolled into grated coconut and salt.
Whenever I eat klepon, I will put the whole one ball of klepon into my mouth. I love the sensation when I bite it, the brown sugar will pop inside my mouth, so fun and yummy..... hehehe...

Tukang Es Goyang (shake popsicle)

I'm not so sure why those popsicles aka ice on a stick are called as "es goyang" since "goyang" in Indonesian language means shaking. Uhmmm.... do they need to shake the ice or they shake their body while making the ice? hehehe... Well, probably it's just a matter of a name :)

There are many flavors, i.e: mung beans, red beans, avocado, coconut, etc. We even can ask the popsicle to be deep into chocolate and sprinkle it with ground roasted peanuts

Dry ice is provided for those who don't want to eat the popsicle directly (it's for take-out purpose).

I had the avocado es goyang and it costs me only less than US 20 cents :)

Don't be surprised if the popsicle tasted salty and salty because instead of made by milk, it's made from coconut milk with a pinch of salt as the basic ingredient.

Restaurant Soto Madura khas Surabaya

Yesterday, I had lunch together with my ex-colleagues at a restaurant that serves East Java food. Their speciality is the Soto Madura (Madura is an island near East Java - Indonesia which is famous for their satay food and also salt production).

The restaurant was very crowded, not just because it's lunch time but of its famous reputation. It has been opened since 1980.

Inside the restaurant.

A lot of celebrities have been eating here. Their pictures, signatures and comments are framed and hang all over the walls in the restaurant.
As soon as I ordered my food to the waitress which is a portion of Rujak Cingur and a glass of es soda pala, I directly followed the waitress to the back area where I could snap pictures of the making of Rujak Cingur *grin*

Rujak Cingur is a special dish originally from Surabaya - East Java. A combination between rujak (Indonesian fruit salad) and gado-gado (Indonesian vegetable salad with peanut sauce).

So what is special about this salad? *wink*

"Cingur" means nose in Javanese dialect language. So... Rujak Cingur means "Nose salad" and no doubt there're slices of nose in the salad! Oops... does it sound creepy? Hahaha....

Don't be scare! It's only the buffalo or cow's nose! :D

Grind it altogether on a stone mortar.
Add tamarind water, brown sugar and the black shrimp paste.

Place fried beancurd, fried soybean cake, morning glory, cucumber, jicama, ambarella, young mango and also the slices of buffalo or cow's nose.


Wondering how does the Rujak Cingur tasted? Well, actually, people will either love or hate it. Frankly speaking, I would not recommend this dish if you are not an adventurous eater because it smells and tasted quite pungent of the putrid black shrimp paste, then follow with the salty, sweet, sour and hot taste. As for the nose, it's tasteless and feels like eating a rubber ;)


My ex-colleagues ordered Soto Daging (stewed beef).
They ate the Soto Daging with white rice wrapped in banana leaf.

The "kitchen" of the Soto (stewed beef) is in front of the restaurant's entrance door .

We also ordered chicken satay. It's delicious, smokey tender meat being dipped into sweet soy sauce and a bit peanut sauce plus carrot & cucumber pickles on the side of the plate.

I drank es soda pala (nutmeg soda juice). The sweet and sour taste mixed with the club soda tasted pretty tangy and refreshing.

One of my ex-colleagues ordered Es Belewah (I'm not sure what's the name in English. The fruit "Belewah" looks like a small pumpkin but on the inside is like cantaloupe/ musk melon).

Interesting that the restaurant produce their own water bottle.

Restaurant Soto Madura Khas Surabaya
Address:
Jl. Ir. H. Juanda No. 16
Jakarta Pusat
Tel: 3505673

Open daily: 7 am - 10 pm

Disclaimer:The review and opinion expressed here are purely according to my personal taste. There's a possibility that the taste of the food might change later on, which could affect the review and opinion here. I also affirm that no monetary or non-monetary compensation has been received from this restaurant for writing this review.