Savoury scones from the famous Beechworth Bakery’s Albury store ($2.90… very delicious!). We also had a piece of bright red Jelly slice, straight from childhood birthday parties. It was like the bakery had directly imported it from the 80’s.
I didn’t end up getting the time to go down to the pretty colonial-era goldrush town of Beechworth, about an hour outside of Albury, to have scones or pies at the bakery proper during this stay (or get lollies from the great olde-style sweet store right next to the bakery), but thankfully their Albury store is just as yummy.
What better place to enjoy some scones than down by the Murray River in Albury, the scene for so many of those sugar fueled childhood birthday parties? The Oddies Creek Off-Leash Park is one of Pogo (our fluffy silly dog)’s favourite places in town.
But like most of our family though, when there is food around, Pogo isn’t interested in exercise.
He has very poor table manners. At home, he knows he’s not allowed on the table, but he didn’t feel those rules applied at the park.
This jumping style is how he got his name of Pogo. (The park is partially sealed off in the background because they are building a new playground area)
Once the scones were gone, he finally decided it was time to have a run. He’s a scaredy dog though and will only play with puppies his own size. If there’s a big dog, he won’t stray far from his sisters.
Tweet 
Delicious 
Digg 
Facebook 
Ping 
Stumble
A street vendor selling mie ayam noodles in Solo, Central Java, near the Karaton. Right behind the fence there was a paddock full of pungent goats who kept sticking their noses through gaps in the tarpaulin, trying to get some lunch from diners and making lots of noise when they were denied a meal.
Below is the product of this man’s labor. It was quite tasty, but I don’t really eat bakso (seriously, who knows what is in that stuff?) so I didn’t really touch those, only a little taste. But the rest was good.
But after a couple of mouthfuls… CRASH. A goat had stuck his head through a gap in the fence and knocked over a whole tray of vegetables. It was certainly a unique way to dine.
Tweet Delicious Digg Facebook Ping Stumble
I made a whirlwind trip to Melbourne earlier this week to go to the US Consulate to get my visa to study in Washington D.C. I’m APPROVED! Yay!
But that wasn’t the only yay. The food in Melbourne is fantastic and I was lucky enough to have a delish breakfast with my lovely friend Tilda at the wonderful new cafe in Abbotsford called Three Bags Full. With very chic yet relaxed decor, including repurposed traffic signs as seats and tables, the cafe apparently attracts queues on the weekends. Melbournians are so crazy about their cafes they are willing to queue for breakfast if the spot is top notch.
We didn’t have to queue. Three Bags Full has a well-edited breakfast menu, each dish focusing on a handful of clear flavours well executed.
I had these delicious grilled mushrooms on thick wholegrain toast, sprinkled with dukkah and served with chunks of gooey goats cheese. Just delish. I am crazy about tomato relish, and when I saw that the relish at this caf is homemade, I ordered some on the side, which was also fantastic. My brekkie buddy had the homemade baked beans on toast with rocket and said it was “nomtastic”.
So is it queue-worthy? I’d say yes. There’s some shots of the interior over here, I was too busy chatting to take any.
Three Bags Full. 56 Nicholson St, Abbotsford, Melbourne. Ph: (03) 9421 2732
We also had some fabulous food at:
Peko-Peko Japanese and Kent St Bar, both on Smith St in Collingwood. Fantastic Japanese! I can highly recommend the sweet potato dumplings and the Curry Don! Mmm. Kent St has some great cider and mulled wine, the hipster Melbournians winter drink of choice. Mmm. Full bar review over here.
RiceBar. 121 Grattan St, Carlton. A cheap student restaurant selling a range of rice-based Asian dishes, I came here to get a hit of something Indonesian or Malaysian before driving back to Albury. No Indonesian on the menu, but some Malaysian dishes, including a nasi lemak, which was decent (but I’m a harsh critic… I’ve been very spoiled with food in the last few years). Cheap by Melbourne standards ($10 for a nasi lemak, which after being in SE Asia for so long is shockingly expensive lol). Here’s a pic of my nasi lemak.
It looks tasty, right? It’s a shame that here in Australia, banana leaves are expensive, so shops have to resort to banana leaf patterned plates…. none of that lovely aroma from the leaf.
Tweet Delicious Digg Facebook Ping Stumble
Let me tell you the story of the best crab I’ve eaten in my life. Twice. Lol.
In Banda Aceh, just across from the Medan Hotel, there is a little area of food stalls under a pavilion. Down the back of this cluster, directly across the road from the Selera Kita Restaurant, stands a stall that sells Mie Aceh and Mie Aceh Kepiting (Acehnese Crab Noodles) at night. The thing that drew me to this little stall in the dark was the case of live crabs out the front being filled up out of a fishing net as I walked past. Fresh!
While I was waiting for my crab and noodles I got talking to another woman waiting for crab. She wasn’t wearing a jilbab (Muslim headscarf) that all Muslim women in Aceh must wear. I later learned she was from Medan but living in Aceh for work. She insisted on paying for my noodles and crab to welcome me to Aceh. She was very forceful so I had no choice but to accept the offer!
When my noodles and crab were out of the frying wok and wrapped up in brown paper and banana leaf, sealed in a bundle with an elastic band, I went back to my hotel. Without any cutlery (or even a table) in my budget room, I sat squatting on the floor with my paper, eating the noodles and crab with my fingers. So kampungan!
The crab was just beautiful. So flavourful with loads of juicy meat, and obviously beautifully fresh. The noodles were fantastic as well, with a thick spicy gravy dotted with little seeds. Rumor goes that they use marijuana seeds in these noodles, so maybe that’s why I loved it so much? lol
The next night I went back a second time and complemented the owner of the stall on how delicious the crab and noodles were. I was paid back for my praise with the most gigantic crab in the case… seriously this crab was not meant for one person.
Back in my hotel room again that night, the crab was just as delicious, but so huge that I barely managed to eat it! Its crabby legs were sticking out of the little black plastic bag used by food stall vendors all around Indonesia. But once again, an amazing meal, even though it was eaten in the most unpretentious of circumstances.
Tweet Delicious Digg Facebook Ping Stumble
I wrote a little bit earlier about Aceh’s absolutely delicious coffee shop snacks and some delicious Aceh food that I ate in Jakarta. But I ate even more Acehnese food in Aceh (derrrr obviously) and WOW ZOMFG it truly is one of my favourite cuisines in Indonesia.
The top picture shows a serving of ayam tangkap (which literally means “caught chicken,” conjuring up delightful images of someone running around a yard chasing the night’s dinner…). This dish is an Aceh specialty, which is had at a restaurant called Rumah Makan Aceh Specific (you can’t get much more specific than that, right? This resto had a couple of outlets around Banda Aceh) and is just delicious.
The seasoned caught chicken is deep fried along with bay leaves, curry leaves, green chilis, shallots and a type of local leaf called temurui. The crispy crunchy fried leaves are served with the chicken pieces, and a splash of the leaf-seasoned oil is served as a dressing. The texture of the fried leaves is really unique and the chicken is infused with the flavor. Just fantastic. It was served with a side of vegetables (including a huge piece of okra… yum) cooked in a coconut milk curry, as well as Aceh’s special soy-sauce based sambal, that has a very slight vinegar hit to it too? Mmm.
At first the dining room went quiet when I arrived and I ordered with everyone looking at me and serving me with the deference of waiters at a five-star hotel mixed with a dash of nervousness. But after the meal, I sat down and started chatting to the guys who were working, telling them about how I loved the local cuisine, and everyone warmed up and calmed down! The conversation eventually moved on to the usual topics… “not yet married” etc.
“Maybe you can find a husband in Aceh!” the older manager said.
“Maybe!” I replied. “But only if he can cook well!”
Before I knew it, the baby-faced and totally embarassed chef was being reluctantly pulled out of the kitchen…
“He’s single!” the waiters laughed as they tried to pull him into the dining room.
Oh dear… the best response I could come up with was to laugh and say that my bags to go back to Australia were already full and that I didn’t have enough room for him. That seemed to be enough and I managed to leave the restaurant without an engagement but hearing a trail of guffaws as I wandered back to the hotel.
I also ate the best crab of my life in Aceh, but that will get its own post. But all of the day-to-day food was just divine. I went to “just another regular Acehnese restaurant” near my hotel called Selera Kita and it was also fantastic.
In Aceh restaurants, they usually just bring loads of little dishes to the table and you pay for what you eat. So yes, that thing that looks like a brain on the left of the picture is actually a brain. I didn’t try that one.
I did eat a beautiful mutton curry, some beans cooked in chili sauce and some sprouts and it was all so tasty. I took some of the sauces from the other dishes as well to try, including off the fish, and the sauces were divine.
Mmm. I’m getting hungry just thinking about it.
Tweet Delicious Digg Facebook Ping Stumble
Aceh. You’ve heard of it, surely? It’s famous for quite a few things.
1. Tsunami. In the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, just a bit over five years ago now, some 70,000 people in Aceh province lost their lives and the capital Banda Aceh was pretty much totally trashed by the earthquake and huge wave that followed. The main mosque in the city, that stunning construction in the very first picture, was one of the few things that was left standing… some saw this as a sign of God being angry… which in some ways has kinda led to…
2. Caning? Stoning? Whack laws about people who wear pants that are too tight? Shariah Law? Fundamentalist Islam? Terror cells training in the countryside? Yes, that’s Aceh too. Known as the verandah of Islam, it was one of the first places where the religion arrived in Indonesia. And thanks to regional autonomy laws, the province now has Shariah Law, which means that all Muslim women wear headscarves and courting teenagers can get into big trouble for holding hands.
3. Wasn’t there, like, some sort of war in Aceh for a while? Yes! There was that on-and-off separatist conflict that killed around 10,000 people. It started heating up in the mid 1970’s, if I’m not mistaken.
4. Coffee. Aceh is pretty famous for its coffee. The alcohol-free culture also means its a pretty popular way to get a buzz around these parts as well.
5. Pulau Weh. Not far off the coast of Aceh lies this island with stunning reefs for diving and snorkeling. I will be heading out there in a few days.
6. Food. Aceh’s food isn’t that well known to those outside of Indonesia, but I’ve eaten it before and loved it, so this, along with all of the above, was part of my reasons for coming.
I have really had a compulsion to come to Aceh since I arrived in Indonesia, just to see what it was like. A place that was so severely impacted the tsunami, a place that has Shariah Law and is the most Islamic in Indonesia… I just had to see. And here I am.
I will wait until I’ve spent a bit more time here before I write about how it “feels” to me. But for now…
Coffee shops are the main social sphere for Banda Aceh-ites. I’ve been here for twelve hours and have already visited two of them. Alcohol is a no-no and the region is known for its coffee, so why not? The coffee shops are relaxed, filled with the young and the old (but a lot more men than women), many of them have WiFi, and when you arrive delicious cakes are plonked down on the table. You only pay for what you eat, just like at a Padang (or Acehnese) restaurant. Pandan or banana flavoured cakes seem to be the default.
These little glutinous pandan cakes were really delicious… and the colour was just fantastic.
Tweet Delicious Digg Facebook Ping Stumble
I was on one of my walks through Tuk-Tuk, the town on the peninsula of the island in the middle of North Sumatra’s majestic Lake Toba, when I decided to stop for some lunch.
There are so many cafes in the little town and during quiet season most of them are empty. Nearly every house has a cafe at the front and guestrooms at the back. I wandered and wandered until I found a little place called Alyssa Cafe, which only had five solid wood tables and was manned by a woman feeding her baby. I decided to stop there and take a seat.
While we waited for the little boy to finish getting his rice porridge from mum, his older sister, only about 6 or 7, bought me over a menu and a cold bottle of water from the fridge. I asked her mum what she recommended and she said the curry. So I chose pork curry.
By then, the little boy, who was in a walker and was less than a year old, had finished eating, and as his mum cleaned his face, I noticed he had a raw gash on his face right across his mouth that made him cry when it was cleaned. I asked his mother what had happened. She said that she was making breakfast for some customers that morning and left the boy next door with his dad, who carves traditional Batak wood sculptures to sell to tourists. While dad was working, the little boy had inadvertently picked up one of his sharp tools to have a play and stuck it in his mouth. Thankfully he hadn’t done any more damage, but his face was still raw. She hadn’t been able to go buy any medicine for it yet, she said.
Kids in tow, the mother went into the kitchen to cook my curry. The little boy was upset and irritable and was crying to be picked up and held the whole time, but mum was busy cooking. I almost felt bad for coming there and ordering food when she was so busy with the kids, but then I figured my custom would help pay for the medicine.
My pork curry arrived and smelled delicious.
It tasted brilliant as well. The curry had a strong lemongrass kick to it, as well as some local leaves in the sauce which really made it special. It was also novel for me to eat pork curry… because the Batak people are primarily Christian, unlike the Muslim majority in Indonesia, pork was on the menu at many spots around Lake Toba. It’s usually hard to find.
But as soon as the dish had been put down in front of me, all of a sudden this little fellow jumps on to my table, protesting loudly with hungry meows.
The mother rushed out of the kitchen and grabbed the kitten off the table saying: “Angry cat! Now I have to feed him!”
There’s always too many mouths to feed, right?
Tweet Delicious Digg Facebook Ping Stumble
Every visit I’ve made to Singapore in the last 1.5 years has usually involved visa runs for Indonesia. We would meet our agent at Wheelock Place, and across from there, a huge shopping mall called Ion was under construction (above). However, on this visit, it was finally open for business… and it is a rather impressive structure on the outside. Shopping malls take a lot longer to build in Singapore than in Indonesia because in Singapore they actually have safety standards and building codes.
… sometimes they even have kooky public art out the front. As usual, I was hunting for food, so I headed down to the centre’s new food court. And wow… it’s pretty impressive. It comes with chandeliers!!
The food court was totally packed, and offers most of Singapore’s favourite hawker dishes. I decided to go for a delicious prawn laksa. The broth was so creamy, it was divine.
Just when I thought the food court couldn’t get any better, I noticed that it also had dim sum/yum cha carts! I was too full for any steamed buns or dumplings though. The dishes were all reasonably priced, no more expensive than other mall food courts.
Ion is located smack bang on top of Orchard MRT station on Orchard Road.
Tweet Delicious Digg Facebook Ping Stumble
