#indonesian-cuisine

#indonesian-cuisine

As an American who's traveled to 44 countries over the last 30 years, I've seen my fair share of unforgettable places. But if I had to choose one place to visit again and again, it would be Bali, an island and province in Indonesia that combines vibrant culture, natural beauty, and a pace of life that feels both energizing and restorative. After spending a month on the island in 2023, I fell in love. Here's what made my trip to Bali so special.

Tempeh is a gift to all home cooks from Indonesia. Made from fermented compressed soy beans, it's an intelligent ingredient equivalent to meat in terms of protein, subtle and nutty in flavour and chewy in texture. Happily, it is also now widely available in most large UK supermarkets. Here, the tempeh is cooked in a typical Indonesian way that is, fried until crisp, then coated in a sticky, spicy sweet soy sauce and liberally sprinkled with salted peanuts.

When Kopi Bar shuttered its original location in Walnut Creek in June, it left behind many fans who turned out for its distinct menu of Indonesian-inspired beverages and pastries like coconut cappuccinos, creamy avocado coffees and croissants made with klepon, a traditional Indonesian sweet glutinous rice ball filled with palm sugar, colored green with pandan, and rolled in grated coconut.

I loved the mie tek tek (also known as mie goreng), a dish my wife and I would order regularly, but prepared much sharper and elegantly here on floral plateware and a tangle of microgreens garnish. The wok-fried noodles are well-sauced, seared ever so slightly, and tossed with fragments of tender chicken. Crunchy cabbage and chopped greens add additional texture, resulting in something sort of like chow mein but more dimensional.