Gorengan, The Indonesian Tempura

Lastly, I've been watching Japanology videos on YouTube. It's a program originally broadcasted on NHK channel that tell about japanese culture. And there is an episode about tempura. Same with Japan, the process of deep fried was brought here and suddenly being loved by all Indonesian people until now.

Last night I bought these from a food stall near my house. Deep fried mushroom and chili stuffed with tofu. All just 7k IDR! So great to be eaten with white rice. All vegan plus very cheap.

In Indonesia, this type of dish is called gorengan. It's some ingredients that coated with flour mix and deep fried in palm oil. It can be tempeh, tofu, eggplant, mushroom, broccoli, beans, etc. The most popular gorengan is mendoan, a very thin tempeh that fried half-cooked, so it's crispy outside, soft and little bit chewy inside. The texture combination is so great. It's originated from my hometown and enjoyed by almost all Indonesian.

Usually gorengan is sold in the streets by street vendor. It's a commoner's food, enjoyed by lower class people. The oil quality usually is so bad, and sometimes they even add plastics to the oil to keep it crunchy all the time. I and my family only buy it in some spots where we sure they have good quality foods. Or we just make it at home. Gorengan in Indonesia is vegan, to keep it as cheap as possible. So making it at home is a good saving of money!

Sate Padang

We usually see sate or satay as chicken skewers with peanut sauce. The meat can be either chicken, duck, rabbit, goat, lamb, beef, horse, buffalo, deer, snake, dog, or pork. Altough 80% of Indonesian are muslims, there are some parts in Indonesia where muslim is minority. Or there are some region where many muslims don't do their religion rules and still follow indigenous beliefs, thus make them not consider some food as non halal. So we still see pork, snake, or even dog's meat to be eaten. Just be careful, B1 is Biang (dog, some call it as RW or sate jamu) and B2 is BaBi (pork), particularly when you visit Medan and Manado which famous with the exotic food (mice, bats, etc) or Solo, where there are many dog's meat, or Bali, Kupang, and Papua where pork is common.

Javanese cuisine notably using palm sugar and sweet soy sauce. But in minang cuisine (padang is actually the capital city of West Sumatera, the term padang cuisine in fact refers to minang cuisine)  they never use it and use spices and curry instead. So do the sate padang. Sate padang is beef and cow's innards skewers (most of it are innards, btw) doused with thick curry based gravy and served with chunks of rice cake (ketupat) and spicy cassava chips (keripik lado, lada or lado in minang is chili).

Unlike javanese satay, sate padang is not cooked when we order, all were already cooked and just warmed in the charcoal. The gravy constantly cooked to keep the thickness (when it's cold, the gravy become watery). So the skewers don't include the fats. In javanese satay, as the satay to be burned as order, fats are tucked between the meat to protect the skewers to get burnt, and also to intensify the flavor. Of course you can order to not include the fats if you worry about your health (just like me and my parents).

The taste is.... well, some people love it. It has the hot, spicy, salty, and savory flavor. Other people couldn't accept the taste, because it against their palate (especially javanese who accustomed with sweet satay). The one i took the picture is a well known sate padang in a padang restaurant in Semarang. The flavor is so intense and the hotness is maximum. I and my family quiet enjoy it. Yeah, it's all about our own taste. Some people like it (love it, or even crazy with it), some people don't. But if you like spicy curry, you may try this.

Martabak, The Indonesian Pancake

Recently, the young people in Indonesia has created many traditional desserts and sweets modernized by using ingredients imported from what is famous in the west.

When it comes to Indonesian pancake, we can think about surabi bandung, a sweet dish that processed like pancake (but instead of pan, it cooked in a tiny wok pan fired in charcoal). The traditional version don't add toppings, just plain or with sauce that made with coconut milk and palm sugar. The modern version adds various topping, both sweet and savory. You can find surabi with pizza flavour, cheese, banana, or strawberry ice cream.

Surabi that I had in Waroeng Setiabudi when I visited Bandung, back in 2014.

The trend goes into martabak manis (literally means sweet martabak). In Indonesia, some call it kue bangka (because it is originally invented in Bangka, an Island in the east of Sumatera, before spread throughout the country), kue bandung (famous in Semarang, maybe because the dish firstly introduced there by Bandung people), or terang bulan (popular here in Yogyakarta). Basically it is a large pancake cooked in a pan with many holes that nested inside it, formed by the addition of baking soda. The standard cake just added with chocolate and chopped nuts, but lately people add some premium condiments like toblerone, ovomaltine, nutella, marshmallow, chopped kitkat, and anything else. Sure, those make it more delicious, but the prices rise very high. From the regular martabak costs about 20k IDR become more than 100k IDR! So... i never buy it. The regular martabak with chocolate topping is enough for me.

When i was visiting my sister a week ago, we decided to make martabak in home. My sister got the recipe from internet, and have tried successfully. Then we had crazy idea to buy many sweet treats to make the martabak even more premium than those sold outside. So I rushed to the convenience store to buy many things like matcha powder (to be mixed in the mixture), nutella, chunky bar (premium chocolate bar with cashew or almond, produced by delfi), cha-cha (a type of m&m-like candy coated chocolate), koko crunch (nestle's chocolate cereal), and many more. So here we go....

The mixture starts bubbling....

The first trial, matcha flavored martabak with chopped chocolate

Another variation, chocolate powder with crunch from chocolate cereal

Martabak four flavors made by my sister: Oreo, nutella, chocolate candy, and grated cheese, with the addition of condensed milk.

All of them taste sooooooo delicious!! No wonder, the toppings itself taste great. I take one plate back to Yogyakarta, the most beautiful and tastiest of all we made that day. I posted it in my instagram account (you can see the photos here).

So happy cooking together while gathered with families....

Looking at the sky

It's hard to be a telecommunication engineer.... Or anything else.

Enjoy your life!

Mie Kremez

In my childhood, this type of snack is very popular. It is just crushed dry ramen with lots of MSG... 😅

When I was a kid, there were many brands of it, and the most popular is "fuji". It was so popular because of its super mini size, so the price was soooo cheap. Just 50 IDR each! (about 0,3 cent USD). Then there was this, mie kremez. It was much bigger, about the same size of regular instant ramen (unlike these, you still need to crush it and add the seasoning, just like instant noodle!). The modern version of it is much much smaller. Maybe because they want to keep the price minimum so the kids can easily afford it? Haha. Even so, adults of my age still love it.

So Hot!

I live in a country where the sun shines so bright. It's very hot and humid throughout the year, no matter in dry or rainy season. And the UV level is crazy, you can see above  that UV index is at a level of extreme!  Some foreigners who come here usually just wear t-shirt and shorts, but we (local people) must having jacket whenever we go out. You can feel your skin burn, even you have darker skin. My friends once had blister skin for riding motorcycle in day without protection.

Always bring your sunscreen!

Going cashless

In developed countries maybe cashless is a common, but in developing country like Indonesia, very few people going cashless. The government has made some policies to manage this, and some banks and cell providers give many promotions such as discounts to make customers using e-money instead of physical money. I myself find it convenient to use e-money card (we have weak currency, more than 13000 IDR for 1 USD so the need of small money as change is a lot), but some stores just haven't ready yet. It takes too long to pay with card in convenience store like Indomaret. Swipe this, Swipe that, click this, click that... Not  to mention some errors and lost signal in the EDC machine, which is very common here (why they keep using GPRS when we have LTE?). And the queue become even longer.

I support the move, to have some e-money cards and mobile payment in my cellphone. I pay with debit card when I shop in shopping mall. But I don't use credit card, I don't want to have any debt to anyone. I hope the system going better in line with people using less physical money. It's good to the macro economy, so the inflation won't get crazy and our money will keep their value for a long time.

ASUS Zenbook UX303lb Review

I have this notebook for several months, so I want to give review for it based on my experience.

When I bought it (for 14M IDR or about 1000 USD), previously I wanted to buy a macbook air. But it turned out that with the money I could get a laptop with the same convenience but much more advanced specs (The same level with the new macbook pro but with half of its lowest price). Yes! this zenbook UX303lb. Very thin, very light, and very sturdy. What I love the most is its flexibility. You can upgrade the RAM and hard drive easily, unlike other ultrabook. It has many ports, three USB 3.0 (one with fast charging), HDMI port, Display port, and SD card reader (look at the new macbook, just one port for ALL needs). The design is very beautiful and feels bold. And nowadays, windows still dominate the market, so I won't worry with all the software I want to use.

I had confusion when i chose this, whether to buy the new UX305 or this UX303lb. UX305 has lower specs for the same price, but UX305 is fanless, has longer battery life, thinner, and much lighter. Eventually i chose UX303lb because it has the newest Intel Core i7 (vs Intel Core M in the UX305), dedicated graphic card (NVIDIA GeForce 940m), 8GB RAM, and 1TB hard drive. For long usage, I think the specs can support me for both educational and profesional use.

So far, I'm quite pleased with this laptop. I had Sony VAIO before this (still a great laptop for 5 years) so the bar was set high. ASUS UX303lb has a great specs for all modern application. It is very fast; great for gaming, software simulation, or just daily office. The compact body make it so mobile and doesn't hurt your shoulder. The battery life is so-so, great for office (can survive 5+ hours) but not so great for heavy use (2-3 hours. Just look at the specs!). But I dislike the keyboard and touchpad. It's not as comfortable as Sony has, I mistyped and misclicked very often.

Overall, the ASUS Zenbook is such a laptop that I would recommend. It has qualities of a macbook (great design and materials), but has the flexibility of a Windows PC (with a reasonable price, obviously).

Pocky

Pocky with three flavors that are available in Indonesia (wait, there is banana flavor!). I got these from christmas package that was sold at an online store here (blibli.com, great service with free shipping without minimum purchase). Still love the original flavor though....

Sushi Time! (again) at Sushi Tei Jogja

Usually we had sushi roll, and this time we want to try the authentic version of sushi. and these were greeaaatt!!!!! We then ordered another sushi roll, lobster salad, curry rice, and beef bento. It all costs 500k IDR (around 40 USD). So expensive, but no regret! Haha.