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.