Warung Gudeg - Indonesian

An Indonesian friend suggested that we should try the Gudeg dish. We do not know what to expect when we dropped by this ‘warung’ (Indonesian word for small family-owned restaurant).

We ordered their speciality dish, i.e. ‘Nasi Gudeg Komplit’ (Translated: Complete meal of Rice with Gudeg). This is a traditional cuisine from Jogjakarta, Central Java. The main item is Gudeg, which is the green Jackfruit slow-cooked with palm sugar and coconut milk with spices, which include garlic, shallot, ‘buah keras’ (Candlenut), coriander seed, galangal, bay leaves and teak leaves. The Gudeg is served with steamed rice, a braised hard-boiled egg, chicken, tofu and ox rind stew.

Other than the Gudeg, they also served a wide selection of dishes such as Lontong, Ayam Goreng Kalasan, Sate and soup noodles. Most of the dishes are not too spicy,  you have the option to raise the spiciness with the hot chili paste that accompanied the dishes.

The restaurant ‘Warung Gudeg’ is located at Clayton, about 22km SE of Melbourne CBD. The restaurant is owned and run by the Rumayar family. I met Tina and her husband at the restaurant (in the photo).

On my second visit to the Warung, I tried the Lontong Cap Gomeh and Ayam Goreng Kalasan. As the name of the dish sounds a bit Chinese, I learned that Tina has Chinese descendancy. Very much so in South East Asian countries,  the food has a mixed influence of different cultures.  For example,  Filipino dishes like Pancit and Lumpia has Chinese influence. 

Opor Ayam - Indonesian

The Opor Ayam or Coconut Chicken is a classic Indonesian cuisine. The chicken is braised in coconut milk. The traditional drumstick or chicken wing is substituted with a leaner chicken breast.

The chicken is first cooked in the stock with chopped onion, garlic, coriander, ginger , grated lemon skin, cumin and turmeric. After cooking for 5 mins, coconut milk, pounded macadamia nuts and cayenne pepper are then stirred in. Tamarind juice are added to the pan and simmer until the sauce thickened.

You wouldn't have guessed where I picked this recipe. It is from the South Beach diet cookbook. After a spate of festivities, it is about time to go on a diet and shed a few kilos. This is when I will kickoff my most effective diet program. We started yesterday. The beautiful thing about this diet program is that it encourages you to enjoy your food while dieting. Not many diet program are like this. I am so impressed with this program that I often raved about it. So here I go again.

This diet was developed by Dr Arthur Agatston, a cardiologist in Florida (South Beach), where he used to run a clinic. This diet is more an education on eating good and healthy food, which you can continue to follow even after you have achieved the targeted weight loss.

You probably think what on earth is a blog about good food suddenly go in reverse with a dieting writeup, well, eating well and healthy does not mean that you cannot enjoy your food. You can pick up ths cookbook at major bookshop in town.