Rice is a staple food in Indonesia, just like in the rest of the Asia. But more than others, in Indonesia nasi (cooked rice) is THE obligatory food, especially since Indonesians don't fond too much on noodles like Japanese, Thai, or Vietnamese do. Hey, we even eat fried noodles with rice!

Here, the food universe revolves around this main ingredients, hence beside of nasi , everything else is merely a companion or condiment! Meat dishes, veggie dishes, soups, no matter how fancy or luxurious they are, all are considered incomplete or even weird without nasi presents. This de-facto standard influences the changes and adjustment made by the international franchise such as Mc D and KFC; Here they serves nasi as standard, not french fries or mashed potato.

Beside of cooked into nasi, rice is also cooked to form another almost staple food of lontong, and ketupat. Lontong is cooked rice compressed inside a banana leaf wrap, and ketupat is a diamond shaped compressed rice inside young coconut leaf wrap. Both are often in favor to nasi upon eating kare (curry), or in certain dishes as lontong sayur and kupat tahu, Both are also good in accompanying varieties of soup and soto. Ketupat usually enters the lime light two times in a year around the two moslem holiday of Idul Fitri and Idul Adha, while lontong almost never.

Pulen

If you're familiar with the characteristics of rice, such as long vs short grain, or where it was planted, in Indonesia we characterize rice by following qualities: cleanness, flavor, whiteness, scent, grain, hardness, price (surely), origin, popular names, and last but uttermost; how "pulen" they are.

What is "pulen"? It's the national lingo of addressing the stick-together quality among the nasi's grains; the stickyness of cooked rice. Since original Indonesian way of eating is with bare hand, hence why the pulen-ness has becoming a very serious issue when choosing a rice variant; a nasi pulen will stick together upon gripped to make kepal nasi, or coned with the tips of your fingers, thus making bare hand eating easier. The opposite end of "pulen", is "pera"; the grains wont stick together with nasi pera, thus making bare-hand eating looks more sloppier. There are some region though, where people favor nasi pera over nasi pulen, but it's considerably rare. Nasi pera is best suited to make Nasi Goreng (fried rice), Indian Biryani, or Arabian Kebuli.

Scientifically addressed, what made the rice considered pulen or pera is their amylose containment, or more precisely, lack of. 0-2%  amilosa containment exist only in ketan (sticky rice), while 7-20% is what considered as pulen, 20-25% is medium, and 25-40% is considered pera ^[1]. Although less favored, nasi pera with its high-amylose content naturally has a much lower glycemic load, which could be beneficial for diabetics.

Indonesian Rice Varieties

In the modern market, most common rice variants are known as: Pandan Wangi, Setra Ramos, and Rojo Lele. In different regions, there is also local varieties of Cianjur, Menthik, and the famous among Western Sumatranese; "Bareh Solok", or rice van Solok, a city in Padang Province.

Setra Ramos

Setra Ramos is the market name for IR-64 rice; a long grain rice variety which is the most economical and quite pulen for general purpose, but considered less flavourful. IR-64 is the rice variety resulted from cross breed and enhancement from IR-8 whom was born in 1967 at International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in Los Banos, Filipina, with other local varieties. For its high harvest gain, IR-8 answers the famine issue in India; unfortunately, IR-8 is very prone to vermin, and did not taste as good as Indonesia's original variety "Padi Bulu" hence upon its introduction to Indonesia, this variety did not get a good welcome. IR-64 is Indonesia's answer to create rice that harvest in abundant, often, vermin resistant, and still tasted good. It answered the Indonesia's concern in providing enough food for the post-war country growth, quite deliciously.

Pandan Wangi

Pandan Wangi related to its name is a naturally fragrant rice. Originally, Pandan Wangi refer to a species of "padi bulu" from Cianjur that is highly fragrant but very pera so it was less known. On the other hand, most species from Cianjur instead is the opposite from this Pandan Wangi: pulen but not fragrant. Only after vendors mixed these two different varieties, Pandan Wangi then becoming a generic name for rice of mixed content. "Padi Bulu" itself is an original short grained pre-war rice variety of Indonesia, which is superb in flavour, pulen, but did not produce large harvest and can only be reaped twice a year. This Padi Bulu today is better known by the origin of the plantation region, which is "Beras Cianjur". Some alternative name of this Pandan Wangi rice are: Cianjur Padi Bulu, Cianjur Kepala, and Slijp.

Rojo Lele

Rojo Lele, refering to the accent of replacing "a" with "o" in words ("Raja" means King in Bahasa Indonesia), originated from central Java, especially around Klaten and Delanggu. It is a short almost round grained rice of very good flavour and fragrant, and highly pulen, even higher than the Pandan Wangi. Trouble is, pure Rojo Lele is very expensive, almost twice the Setra Ramos price, hence why, current Rojo Lele in the market is usually a mix between pure Rojo Lele, with lesser variety to establish a market friendlier price ^[2].

Beside of the common varieties, there is also varieties of "beras merah" (red rice), similar to internationally known brown rice. Though contains higher vitamin and fibers, nasi merah is less consumed for it's unusual sweetish flavor, pera character, and surely, the high price. (bay)

Image from: http://melissasuryaningtyas.wordpress.com

Bandung is a capital city of Jawa Barat region (Western Java). At about 700 m above the sea level, this is one cool city that was planned by the Dutch colonial as a resort city. This is also the city where Indonesia's long standing chocolate factory exist, the Ceres - which is widely known as the largest and longest producer of chocolate rice (meses). But we won't discuss more about Ceres or chocolate rice here, as what I want to introduce you about, is the Bandung's original Coklat Suzanna*.

Though the birth of Suzanna can't be separated from Ceres, as the current producer, Ir. Sukandi, was the early Ceres's Direktur Utama (Head Director), before he then manage his own chocolate factory "Abadi", which produced this Coklat Suzanna**.

Coklat Suzanna is a trapezium shaped hard chocolate candy, with bitter sweet dark chocolate on the outing, and brown chewy nut nougat fillings. The combination of bitter sweet firm chocolate indeed goes very well with the sweet nutty creamy chewy fillings, a good balance; so while the chocolate is melt in your mouth, the nougat will still give you a good prolonged enjoyment.

With its composition, no chocolate locally or internationally (that available here in Indonesia), could match the sensation and eating experience Coklat Suzanna can deliver.

I know this beautiful chocolate from when I'm in my early teens, until now I'm in my middle threes. Along the way there's been some degradation in quality, but they seem to have fixed that, and come up with the new design also; the original ones has only simple paper belt on top of the silvery wrap, with the word "Suzanna" in mixed primary colors. Only recently its got some style and classy wrap.

 

Notice the nougat filling? Have I mentioned that it's chewy good? :)
At the downside though, this breed is rare to find. Though not as tough as some years ago, currently you can only find it around Bandung, and Jakarta at most. And in big supermarkets only. Price is dead cheap, as for this kind of goodness you need only spend about 3K (about 3 pcs for 1 US$).

Interested? Well at this moment international flight to Bandung is only served by Air Asia which left from Malaysia, but due to its close distance from Jakarta, it's one of the tourist favorite weekend destination; especially for its culinary richness, and the dead cheap branded clothes in the booming Factory Outlet stores. From Bali there's also regular flight served by Air Asia Indonesia and Merpati, with ticket ranged between 360K to 600K depends on the season. (bay)

*due to a confusing typography, some people calls this "Coklat Zuzanna" instead; though from the printed product name you can see that there's different facing among the first and the second "z", which makes the first "z" more closely resembles as "s"; not to mention that "Suzanna" refers to a common people name, while "Zuzanna" is considered faulty by most spell checker apps. Haven't ask the creator to find out which one is right though.

**data gathered by Sogi -- http://sisogi.multiply.com/photos/album/31, member of the most successful live sitcom show in Indonesia, Extravaganza, who used to be a radio DJ, which also happens to be a close friend of my sister from the high school.

Here's one Chinese style seafood restaurant in Bali, minus the usual entitled high price. Choices are abundant, from chicken to beef (no pork), shrimps to mud crabs. Cooking varieties consisting of the usual goreng mentega (in margarine sauce), saus Inggris (in Worcestershire sauce), saus Tiram (in oyster sauce), saus pedas (in hot chili sauce), and some consisting of the not so usual saus madu (in honey sauce), and the special goreng telur asin (in salted egg sauce). The last one is made with mashed yolk of the telur asin, a local delicacies of preserved egg, usually made from duck's egg, hard boiled, salted, then left fermented for some days in a mix of ash and terracotta compound, before consumed. It's a bit of acquired taste, but once you get it then there's no substitute for a good moist oily telur asin.

Their Udang Telur Asin (pictured above) consist of medium sized shrimps, fried in flour batter and then sauteed in the mixture of foamy margarine sauce and telur asin's yolk. It's a treat for those who enjoy rich and salty tastes.

Don't forget to taste their "Terong Magic" also, which is a batter fried eggplant, served in sweet and hot soy ketchup sauce.

Except for some, most of the menus here are priced according to their size. Small portion is abundant for two, enjoyable by four, while big portions is suitable for family dining.

With a very decent price and good enough taste, this place is a favorite among budget eaters as well as friends celebrating special occasion.

Interior is not much though, stair to the second floor is weathered, uneven floor level, but it's quite clean, and air conditioned room are available to drove away the heat of Denpasar weather.

Beside of the Chinese food, Cak Asmo also serve simpler variation like Mie Ayam (Chicken Noodle), and Siomay Bandung (Dumplings with peanut sauce and sweet soy ketchup).

Cak Asmo has two locations, one is the newer and bigger restaurant at the Teuku Umar street, about 20 minutes drive from Kuta or Seminyak. The other, and older location is tucked in at a small street near the Simpang Enam; same road further north.

Expect to spend about 60K for a meal with two dishes, rice, and ice tea for two. (bay)


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