between the traffic and the heat...it's already not an enjoyable experience. no matter how many times u've been here, it takes a few days before you fully settle in and accept the backwardedness. and you need a few days because traffic doesn't allow you to get more than 1 or 2 things done per day. "i don't leave the house when i'm home" - auntie says. so u wake up early to shower...and you do you hair and don your nicely pressed shirt only to have the humidity flatten your hair and wrinkle your shirt before you reach the office. u leave earlier than normal to beat the traffic but traffic somehow creeps up on your regardless. u settle into the car and bring some reading to do only after an hour of not moving...you feel carsick and uncomfortably wiggle around holding in the need to pee. drinking coffee isn't a common thing...so stress relief is at the gym and pool. and without the gym...you can't sleep because you've drank about 3 coffees after lunch because of the heat and because meetings don't happen without local black "make your stomach upside down" "strong as shit" coffee...that's life.
so i eat. and work out. and swim. and eat. and have more coffee. and sit in traffic. and go to a few meetings. and strategize how to finagle the human psyche. lure it in with cash. it ain't easy. it ain't a vacation.
medan bahru.... the curry fish head....is AMAZING!
i'm telling you...in jakarta...noodles are a religion. i thought it was just my family until i saw this site...top 50 bakmi places in jakarta. you wake up on saturday to have noodles. no traffic. less people on the street. douse your noodles with chili. swat the flies away from the table. grab the roll of toilet paper on the table to wipe the heat sweats off your forehead. u order "aqua satu lagi" rinse out your straw...take a sip...add more chili to your noodles and slurp down the rest of the bowl. you always seemingly want another bowl. but experience tells you to refrain. because...there's always some snack or dessert around the corner you're going to "share"
why are the noodles just so much better? the noodles in indonesia have more bite. some curly...some straight. handmade flour noodles. flavored with a pork mince and pork fat. and some soy?? and some chilis?? shallots...fried shallots? and maybe some wontons? whatever it is...it's more tasty. sweeter? saltier? more savory?? i don't know why. it's amazing.
bakmi orpa
bakmi gandi
bakmi keriting siantar
i found this book lying in my room when i got back from medan. maybe my aunt was telling me something. it probably has something to do with her saying "i'd like to see you married in the next few years..."
"I do all of these first date things. I also ask 20 q in a row without letting the other person answer. And then I order a prosecco in the middle of their response...[pause] I mean I'm pretty easy going relatively..." - cawabear
in this part of the world...there's always a "snack" looming around the corner. doesn't matter what time. you try to desperately deny that "snack" but it's futile because then the words "let's share" are muttered...and u skip over to order more than enough to share. so you eat till u really can't eat anymore and give the rest to the driver or the helpers...then u want to kill yourself. #bullimianervousa or as steph more properly put it... #normalasianeatinghabits the koreans next to you would probably give you a plaque for your efforts. #bingeandeat #eatandbinge
xxmish"Bulimics binge eat (gorge themselves beyond fullness). And eat. And eat. After these binge periods, during which they feel a complete lack of self control and an overwhelming sense of self-loathing, they use any measure possible, usually self-induced vomiting, laxatives, or exercise obsessively to prevent weight gain." #dinner@xxmish#nonpurgingtype ~ during the current episode of #bullimianervosa, the person has used other inappropriate compensatory behaviors, such as fasting or excessive exercise, but has not regularly engaged in self-induced vomiting or the misuse of laxatives, diuretics, or enemas.
after all these years hanging with benny...i finally spent some time with his brother. ju ju. i actually get to see their mom quite often between ny and jkt....so when i finally got to hang with juju and judy...they decided to take me on a food tour. not that i wasn't on my own food tour already. so we went local. real local. bakmi keriting in PIK. cafe minado...some sop place...and then soto roxy...other than the time i ate street food in india...this one was probably the next dirtiest joint....im alive. i survived...
if you squeeze the lime into the soto sapi....u then dont' know whether the soup is sour on purpose or it's gone bad...its still somewhat tasty...just a lil bit too local for me tho...
i have an identity crisis for sure. that's kind of become me. even i get confused as to why i have this natural affinity towards all things korean. it was thought to be a phase. but even now...why do i crave korean food? why do i prefer to listen to korean music? why do i naturally gravitate towards korean female features? and esp after living there to see through the facade of all of it. to understand it from within. to live and dislike and realize the disparity of who i really am. yet i still can't run from it.
so when i see hallyu 2.0 take over asia...it disgusts me. and it makes me the biggest hypocrite ever. and so when we tried to push cali's finest in asia...we realized...the american look is no longer. hallyu has taken over....even on consignment...couldn't get a bite...BOOO!
overpopulation can kill a city. pollution, sanitation, overly crowded, traffic etc. china, india, indonesia...culprits of overpopulation. and so when they close of jl sudirman on sunday mornings for exercise enthusiasts...it makes jakarta seem not so bad. tho when i ran it...it was torrential downpour...still cool nonetheless. with upcoming elections and the mrt construction...this rotary usually takes me 30 minutes to go around. this mornings run took me 2 minutes to go around...
about an hour and a half west of jakarta....lies depok. like most of the capital of the fourth most populated country in the world, it is developing. redeveloping. and at a steady single digit gdp growth since the IMF crisis in the late 90s compounded with a commodities boom the last decade...indonesia is amidst a middle upper class/ service sector boom. investment has capped out with high speculated prices...and government restrictions...but if u have the manpower and development capability....there is huge room for opportunity. (with traffic and 4G about to launch...mobile and tech opportunities are plentiful....but we'll touch on that at a later point). and so at 7am...we headed out into traffic to look at our newest development property. mcdonalds is there. that's promising. ciputra is there. that's promising. 9 years ago...the boom was office/residential mix. now the townhouse development is in demand. lets hope our calculations are correct. 5 years....
pagi sore nasi padang. my favorite nasi padang joint. friggin so good. maybe it's because we went early...or it was friday and everyone was still at mosque. but since when do you get hot ayam goreng at nasi padang?? fantastic.
macat at 7am is BAAADDD
i didn't realize how old my dad was until i saw my dads elder brother. my uncle is 82...which makes my dad...OMG...i had this idea in my head my dad was still in his mid 70s. which means...i've been in asia way too long. and wtf have i been doing away for so long? and i assume that may be the same reason my mom's been at home the past 8 months. tho she's been a crazy artist at home painting up a storm for her upcoming exhibit....
every family has it's issues. every family has it's drama. every family has it's gossip. no situation is better than another...and so. only later in life are the ghosts revealed...i've talked about my own humbling experiences and mistakes...and a lot of the learned process comes from listening to old stories...helps deal with dynamics of cultural idiosyncrasies of my family...
Christian just so happened to be in town for an interview so i cleared out the day to sit and have a chat with him before he hit the airport. and with the traffic getting more and more horrendous in jakarta...5km took me an hour. i was late. but christian didnt panic. he knew this country. he landed, smelled the humidity, the burning plastic and breathed in the nostalgia of his previous stint in another third world city, cairo. and so i told him to use the bathroom before getting in the car...and we headed to plaza indonesia...then skye bar.
we had a long conversation about everything. it was a good talk. it was almost like a "before sunset" series type of back and forth getting to know each other dialogue...a continual devils advocate conversation about difference of cultures...with no disrespect....and forcing one another to find answers from within...to find the right words to describe emotions and cultural idiosyncrasies in a linear and rational manner. in the end, while you find answers through conversation...you learn a lot more about yourself. to which i had this conversation afterwards...
i can't really remember the specifics of the conversation. but i do remember hearing myself speak. i do remember having to use a lot of english in a more eloquent manner than im typically used to in asia. i remember not only having to pull out diction...but also frame my current life in words which i hadn't done since the previous summer...and it didn't stop there...he pressed my answers...asking..."why don't you just do this???" why don't you just be yourself regardless of the passive aggression...don't perpetuate that bamboo ceiling....and as i tried accept asian obedience for what its worth...i realized...he was right. i just needed to be me.
and that prompted a later convo with simon....
"hi...since i haven't blogged in a while...i was thinking about that today actually....i was stuck in traffic for a long time and my friend was in the car...and as we were updating each other on life...i realized i'm in a happier and better place now since i don't have that angst to be constantly posting....solace in the blog..."
"i travel a lot. i'm away from friends and family. i'm alone a lot. i see a lot of random things. my mind juxtaposes a lot of things i've seen. and while im seeing life and circumstance in many forms i'm taking a lot of risks with my life being in all these places. i reflect on regrets both professionally and personally. and mistakes are humbling experiences...and with a lot of people not understand where i come from or why i do what i do....judgement makes it hard to share. embarrassment makes it hard to share. and a lot of the times...it's just that there's no one around to share with. and so i use this space to let it all out."
"i'm hopefully wiser now. a bit jaded. but i've gotta be smarter. the only thing to do is to keep chugging away and stay positive. and hope for a little bit of luck. i've always had a lot of facets of who i am...and i've spent a lot of time to develop all of them. and lucky enough to have the opportunity to do so. (even at the expense of forgetting where i come from). i need to find a way to bring it all together. socially and professionally...i've been catering too much to what people think of me. for a lot of reasons. in actuality, i haven't changed that much as a person. but i'm just tweaking my outside and age has helped me meld a more conservative impression, tho my lifestyle says otherwise...i've spent enough time doing trial and error. moving forward i'm just going to be me. the rest should follow."
to follow up last years date, we had a triple date for melati's birthday dinner this year. we became an exhibit for the married with kids couples to our left. they watched, played musical chairs...instigated...and hoped for sparks...i went with it. but my date was shy. really really shy. that kind of easy going mentality doesn't really work in this part of the world. blah...but the couples were very well entertained.
i, the one "from american", has now been to medan at least 5-6x the past 7 years. it's become an annual trip to 掃墓, it's become an annual trip to come visit my family in this part of the world, and it's become a food tour that never ceases to disappoint. i'm just one of those many people who love to eat, who live to eat, who take pics before eating, who eat until the brink and reminisce about what i eat. Age has added to my snobbiness of food and age has also made my tastebuds more chinese. as i said to a friend over burgers at the habit last month in la..."yea, (the burger's) good, but i don't crave it. it doesn't hit the spot. if you ask me what i want, i'll almost always choose rice/noodles." and that's why the chinese/indonesian food fits my palate perfectly. no matter how hard you fight it, the apple definitely doesn't fall far from the tree.
over the past 7 years, i've posted the same photos over and over via facebook, xanga, instagram etc...and it's consistency of flavor, my continual amazement of every dish requires me to continue the annual medan food tour blog. it's that good. it's not for tourists, so i wouldn't recommend going unless you have a reason...or we're getting married and u're coming to visit my family...haha.
you used to fly into Polonia, but now you fly into the newly built Kualanamu International Airport 49Km away from the city center. The airport reminds me of Suvamabhumi BKK airport and it has a train that takes 45 minutes into town. Our car however took over an hour to get into the city via roads that weren't quite finished yet. Four lanes for two way traffic heading out of the airport tollway quickly turns into four lanes entering a developing area chock full of shanty's and flea markets, motorcycles crowding the roads and cars swerving and honking in out and to hasten their route. Unfinished asphalt makes for a bumpy ride and continual lane merging into oncoming traffic reveals that the airport highway route hasn't been fully bought out by the government to complete the highway. Palm plantations line the scenery and we pass by the temple where we need to go 拜拜 for my grandfather. We get into town and hit our first stop...
LAKSA - Jl. Yose RIzal No. 80/ 146 Medan
This place has renovated since the first time i came here. it's cleaner. it's cooler. there are less flies in your face. and the food is still spectacular. I don't like Singaporean Laksa because there's too much coconut milk. This Laksa has a very fragrant mackarel flavor without being fishy and there's very light coconut flavor. It's more on the sour side, it's got that Assam flavor combined with a spicy fish broth that has you spooning for more and more and more...
I always order emie too. first time i had it in Jakarta, it tasted kind of soapy too me. It had an artificial soapy after taste that I always felt was kind of weird, yet I somehow kept eating it. it was odd...and then i had it in Medan, and the shrimp broth based flavor was more pronounced without a strong artificial gooeyness. the egg noodles allow you to eat the sauce and the emping gives great texture and bitter balance to the sweetness.
from the laksa, to the emie, i look over and see my aunt and uncle breaking up the peyek and mixing up the peanut sauce for the pecel. obligatory intermittent bites of tofu and sayur doused in peanut sauce messes up the purity of flavors in your mouth, but that's probably how it's meant to be eaten. cuz it's still friggin awesome that way.
don't forget about the lemper. they give you a plate of banana leaf wrapped goodies of which i love the lemper the best. shredded chicken wrapped in coconut flavored sticky rice. heavy, hard to digest, oily, but a must eat. delicious.
that's what i ate direct from the airport friday afternoon. on sunday we came back with my cousin and his wife in tow. this time, i had their homemade es cendol. a worm like green jelly made with rice flour in a coconut soup chilled in ice. homemade, best, authentic, if too sweet add ice, refreshing, afternoon snack, we ordered two bowls...hashtag everything.
SELAT PANJANG 16
medan has poorly maintained streets. potholes everywhere, oil slicks, open sewer canals outside of buildings filled garbage, dusty air, dirty parking attendants, dirty sandals with dirty feet and well, that's life here...and selat panjang food street is no different. it's gotten better, restaurants have renovated, food stalls have upgraded their carts and power saving led lights are brighter. we usually sit at number 16. there's no name to the sisters cooking the hokkien mie and the kietiaw goreng at the stalls in the front but that's where we sit. bihun goreng and the kietiaw goreng has so much flavor in each bite, it's stir fried drier than other chinese styles of fried noodles, it's filled with 1:1 ratio of crab, egg, shrimp, bean sprouts, vegetables and chinese sausage to noodles. accompanied with a spicy sour pickled chili sauce that peaks the flavors of the noodles. this style of cooking noodles is my favorite. this city's style of cooking kietiaw goreng is my favorite.
my aunt likes to order the 雜菜。 i eat it. it's tasty. and we ordered that the next day with my cousin as well as the rest of the menu. kietiaw goreng again. bihun goreng again...滑蛋河粉 was a new addition and the satay was brought over from across the street. and the other item to rave about....is the wonton noodles from tiong sim across the street. who knows why the flavor is so good, or why this place tastes better than the other franchises...or why the thinner egg noodles have a nicer bite to it. not more of a bite, but a nicer bite to it. is it the pork fat? is it the msg? is it the chitlins?? don't know how to explain it. mix it up...add a lil chili. so good.
at the beginning of the alley, there's a big guy that sells this steamed white rice flour thick cut noodle along with other dim sum options. he's upgraded his cart, he's gotten new lights, it's cleaner and he's no longer cutting the noodles himself. he's got two workers working for him while he reads the paper in the back. business is good because the chee cheong fun is good. simple, white cheong fun noodles topped with bawang goreng. two plates please...
for an american, the portions are small. the smart thing to do is share and not order more because there's always more coming. and you just have to trust that the next item will be just as good to offset your yearning to want a second portion...no matter what! in this case, i don't even like sweets, and yet i forwent another serving of noodles to have dessert...and i'm scared of martabak.
MARTABAK PIRING MURNI
this place has also upgraded. renovated. gotten more burners. gotten more plates. they still run a shoddy system with an electrical fan attached to a motor to help burn the charcoal faster, they still use a makeshift wooden stick drilled into a porcelain plate as a stove, they've still got dirty hands moving buckets of batter back and forth while another lines the plates with butter....another fills the plates with batter and places it on the burners. a guy across the table intermittently sprinkles salt, choklat, cheese, kacang accordingly and all is returned back to guy number one to remove cut and place in box. the thin one is a crunchy sweet crepe, while the thicker one tastes like a buttery mcgriddle. don't think about the calories...just eat it. and hit the gym after before and every single time you get back to the hotel. the gym staff knew me by name after the first day.
UCOK DURIAN - typically after dinner at selat panjang, we would walk a few blocks over or was it drive a few blocks over to eat durians on the street. right in the middle of some intersection close by, there would be a mound of durians on the street or on wagons surrounded by men with gloves and a hooked knife peddling durian to the next customer. they'd hack at the spiked fruit...wedge the knife between the ridges and split the durian open, exposing the oblong shaped yellow custard inside. it's a pungent aroma of stench most people describe as awful. the ones who like it, bathe in its aroma, sitting stoolside sucking the durians flesh away from it's seed. this time however, we drove quite a ways to ucok durian...
single people can't eat durian. so even though i like it, i don't really eat it. the emanates from within for a day longer than i'd like but this time, i had some. from my memory, the durian used to taste better in medan. dry and sweet. this time it wasn't so dry. and not so sweet.
i feel like i should probably break this up into a few posts as immediate gratitude of food bloggin is fighting the chronology of memoir writing allowing unfinished laziness to creep in. medan days are filled with the food tour routine typically started with a 630am wake up call to enjoy the inclusive breakfast buffet for coffee and medan papaya (aromatic and fragrant) and medan pineapple (sweet translucent almost can-like). but that always turns into a slight tasting of other foods...so you can imagine that if i'm not even passing up on the hotel buffet food...either the food is that good, i can't get it anywhere else, i'm a lush, i'm fat, hotel food is fantastic and i've stretched my stomach significantly.
關帝廟 Vihara Setia Budi. - it's ridiculous to think the breakfast buffet spread doesn't even count as breakfast for us. because after some coffee, juice, sop & sayur...eggs...fruit...and whatever else of that extensive south east asian spread i felt like nibbling on...we would almost immediately head off to the next meal. on saturday, after breakfast buffet, after dropping the kids off at the pool, after a quick trip to the gym...we first stopped at 關帝廟 to pray for a lot of things...there was 白虎 which is supposed to protect your family kind of like 路神 which we found a lady who would do it for us as she would read the buddhist scripture more accurately. and then there were all these other shrines i'd pray to not really knowing it's meaning but just making my rounds, covering my bases until my aunt said..."你應該去拜婚姻“。。。and for the first time in my life i pulled sticks and threw the beans on the ground. i eventually pulled a 49.
"omg, did you get this? i'm so sorry. can't get any worse than this" - steve
TK KUE MEI YEN - and when prayers don't go well, the food should. we stopped by for some offering gifts. picked up some fruit. bought a can of beer because my grandfather liked to drink beer. picked up this 老婆餅 and 豆蓉餅 on the way. (fantastic use of pork fat here).
Afuk 88 CHA SIO PUI - next door to this place...they sold out when we got there...and we wouldn't have enough time to pick up the next morning...but Melati said i'd like it.
RM TABONA CURRY NOODLE & HOUSE - and then there's time for lunch post bad fortune no. 49. it's looking like i won't be able to find my match...even if i were living with them, i wouldn't find them...i wouldn't be with them. and whoever i find will be the wrong one for me. because i am that bad of a judge of character...and so i burned it. thanked the gods for the advice and moved onto a meal of kari bihun ayam with local kopi kosong. for 10 bucks we fed three. for 10 bucks, that curry beehoon left a lingering savory delightful taste in your mouth, throat and tummy without that heavy feeling. the chicken was already cut up off the bone ergo very easy to eat and to combat falling asleep in the heat, i had a hot coffee. (ice will kill you in this country)
full and happy. and with more material about my dating life to chat about whilst stuck in traffic we headed back to the airport and then to temple. good to see gramps. =) *waving*
RM BINTANG BAWAL - IKAN STIM SPECIAL NYONA NANI. the next day, we had curry again for breakfast because erwin hadn't had it yet. i can't even remember which day we had what and what day we had what...because there were so many double takes and double meals and well on one of these days after a meal we had already had....we went to eat nasi padang. chinese style. chinese style indonesian food suits my palate the best. and we come here just for this fish. recipe seems simple but never tastes the same when you try to make it at home...
tauco. wine. sugar. ginger. garlic. chili. scallion. - i'll have to try it at home...
BOLU MERANTI - BIKA AMBON HELEN...as i mentioned, medan is a food tour. and even if you're stuffed...you can't help but to eat more because it's just so tasty. and while you're eating, you're thinking about where to eat next. and while you're thinking about what to eat next, you go to pick up more food. and in between meals, we went to get a massage and then went to pick up cakes. what i don't understand about this non-touristy city of medan is how people seem to buy everything in bulk. not every customer can be a visitor right? not every customer can be flying off tomorrow?? then why are the lines out the door with people ordering in BULK. no one is ordering one or two cakes to go, no one is ordering two bowls of noodles for the road...no one is buying a bag of chips to bring home. all i ever see are people carrying boxes of 8 bolu meranti's....or pre ordering 100 dollars worth of bika ambons...or we got stuck behind a person ordering 400 bakso before us. insane!!!
looking around at the chinese people in this area....looking around at the indonesian physique in this area....it's unmistakable that my inherited traits stem from this part of the world. my wider physique, my stockier frame, my thicker bone structure doesn't stand out so much living in america, but such a large frame isn't common in northern asia. but in south east asia, the indonesian influence, the diet of butter, sugar, pork fat, deep fried goodies and heavy curry's create larger and thicker people. just look at the mom and pop shop owners....and just look at their daughters. wow. my peeps.
BAKSO LEBONG SAPI/ URAT - this little shops gotten a bit run down but just follow the rule of "never trust a skinny chef"...and u'll know this place is DA BOMBZ!!! fatty owner...fatty 2nd generation...fatty meatballs have a chewy beefy consistency and flavor that has you dipping it over and over in their green chili sauce. even the kietiaw tastes a bit different. it's clear cellophane type noodle complements the beef broth very well. and there's a chock full of garlic and shallot flavor in both the soup and the meatballs. very very tasty. sedap!!
POPIA - as we sat and had beef balls and beef tendon balls...i unwrapped a bag i picked up on the way to the restaurant from this stall below. we ordered 8....the guy recommended we order 10...the person that showed up after me ordered two full bags. i love 潤餅 or lumpia or popia...whatever you want to call it. the big chef scares my aunt...always worried his sweatiness will drip into the food, but it seemed ok today. and i chowed down. 3.5 lumpias for me. 1 for everyone else....i can't breathe. i'm having food fatigue. food sweats. drinking a ton of coffee. need to go to the gym some more.
JUMBO - the food tour's become a competitive eating marathon. justifying gluttony is tough after the 3rd day. and i quote from youtube.com/furiouspete - "before an eating competition i stick to a liquid diet to expand my stomach and so i can have energy during the event. and then after an eating competition, i basically go back to my regular diet. your body is in an heightened state of metabollism with all the extra calories and not all the nutrition can be absorbed at one time. so i basically go back to eating what i normally eat and your body recovers pretty quickly." i hope that's true. i've started combining heavy lifting with 30 min of cardio each session just because i need to work huge muscle groups in order to get that constant calorie burn up for dinner...across the street
u walk in. and it's chinatown. pick any chinatown in the world. it's like any cantonese style chinatown restaurant. it's called jumbo here, probably stemming from the HK floating jumbo restaurant. in the states it's probably called imperial something...or crystal jade...or oriental garden....and it's a rectangular room...some pillars here and there, red backdrops with 喜喜 covering the walls. a big fishtank with the star PETS. JURUNG FISH. HUGE, TENDER, SCALES ARE EDIBLE. STEAMED TO PERFECTION. CANTONESE STYLE. 1.3M RP. just fantanstic.
BIHUN BEBEK - people who visit, people who come here for work, all eat at the same places. which is every place i've listed here. melati heard it was a must-eat from her "he has the weight to prove that he's an eater" friend. i've had it before and love the grandma sitting in her pj's at the counter. and that place opens at 630am. people wake up early as heck and by 9pm...everyone is basically in bed. we went to visit my uncles sister, and whether there was a blackout or not....it always seems like everyones in bed right after dinner. it makes you wake up early to enjoy a breakfast like this...just make sure you bring enough cash on you because odds are, you're going to run into someone...and the medanese way is....someones picking up the whole tab.
so tired of this post. so tired of food. back to jakarta. oatmeal time. hope this gets me back blogging again....
