This was our first time dining at an Indonesian restaurant. While we’re quite familiar with Southeast Asian food, we had never eaten at a predominantly Indonesian place.
There were two different servers that night, one who was super friendly and the other who was not. Luckily, the friendly one was our main point of contact. We were able to ask her tons of questions about the menu and the dishes. Indonesian food seems to be a pretty good mesh of Chinese and Thai cuisines.
We were between the Treasure Hunt Chicken (lemongrass) and the Sambal Chicken, and ended up going with the Sambal because it was spicier and we thought it would have more flavor.
Sambal Chicken – chicken breast cooked in Indonesian chili paste, medium hot. This was literally just a plate of cut up chicken pieces in a super sticky sauce. The sauce was unexpectedly sweet, which we didn’t really care for. Had we known ahead of time, we wouldn’t’ve ordered it. It also wasn’t spicy at all, so we had to ask for extra hot sauce on the side. The sauce must have had lots of sugar or corn starch or high fructose corn syrup in it in order to give it that sticky texture that is characteristic of poor quality Asian sauces. Perhaps they are catering to the Western palate, but we would’ve wanted something more natural. The dish was ok, but we wouldn’t order it again.
When we ordered hot sauce on the side, we were given two choices. One was the traditional one made with chili peppers and the other one was a special (non-authentic) sauce made with scotch bonnet peppers. Scotch bonnet peppers are not at all used in Indonesian cuisine, but the cook just happens to like it and uses it in the sauce. That sauce was much better, more flavorful, and actually spicy. We’d recommend ordering a side of that if you like heat.
Mixed Vegetables – we ordered a side of these for freshness. It came with red peppers, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and beans. I was really hoping it would be more flavorful, but it was a pretty generic sauce.
We went through two sides of rice as well to supplement.
Lemongrass tea – interesting and we’d recommend trying it here while you have the chance. It’s sweetened with honey.
We were really hoping for more flavor! We can’t generalize about Indonesian food more broadly, but the dishes at this restaurant didn’t have much of it. Also, the sauces were a bit off-putting and didn’t taste very natural. But we can’t knock it down too much because we can’t compare it to other Indonesian places.
