The Real Deal : Tahu Tek

Now, this time is about one food that I’m putting my crosshair on during my trip to Surabaya, or generally East Java. Back in Yogyakarta, there are some places (or food cart) selling tahu tek, but I believe the taste isn’t as good as where it comes from. In Yogyakarta, the taste is sweeter since they used less petis (read my previous post to know what petis is).

So, tahu tek is originally from East Java since it uses petis as the main ingredients which is very common in East Java. Let’s see how it looks first

Tahu Tek
(it was takeaway so it was using paper wrapping)

*Note : I don’t really know why it’s named with ‘tek’ but my logical side think that it’s an onomatopoeia of a frying pan lid being hit by hawkers (which is usually walking around the area) to sell this food, so everyone inside the house are aware that the hawkers are around*

Uh.. Yeah, the visual presentation doesn’t look so appealing but this one hell of a shot of tahu tek (original from the area and what my families who live in Surabaya recommended me. Sorry, I don’t know where they bought this). When I opened the package, it was already like that hahahaha.

Tahu tek consists of some food ingredients like rice cake for the carbs, sliced cucumber, and tofu-egg mixture. For this dish, the main proteins were cooked in a special way. They’re basically just egg and tofu fried as one entire mixture. The egg was beaten together with the tofu and also fried to be one giant omelette which will be cut into pieces with scissors. The texture is kinda messy, though with a little bit crunch from the soaked beansprouts, and mainly porridge-like softness due to the sauce, rice cakes, and tofu.

The thing I love most is the sauce, that deep-dark-brown-horrifying-looking sauce.. Which was so da*n awesome. It’s not mainly soy-sauce sweet like what I often tasted in Yogyakarta. In Surabaya, you’ll get sauce with probably 80% with aroma and flavor of petis and less soy sauce. Sadly nothing like this aren’t sold in Yogyakarta, but I know that getting real petis would be quite hard for people in Yogyakarta since they should buy it online or send it by package/mail.

I went almost half an island just to hunt this cuisine down, to taste the real deal of a tahu tek and it’s satisfying. Back when I visited Malang (in East Java as well), I also tried this food and tasted similar only with IDR 8k per portion, the same with what they sell in Yogyakarta but the one in Malang has twice the volume.

OK this has been a short post, not gonna add anymore since I think I have spit out everything I experienced about this dish, so give like if you enjoy reading my stories, leave comments if you have any ideas or opinions, and have a great day|

 

CHEERS!!

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I also do some artworks (in self-practice as well, actually), if you’d like to visit, you are very welcomed to my Artstation and Patreon profile.

Patreon

Artstation

and also selling some original merchandise at Redbubble
*Sorry, get to promote everything, but, yeah, my effort on living my dream may be starting from the very bottom*

Thank you. :D*

One Taste of Eastern Java : Lontong Mie

Before I start to tell you about anything, let me say first

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR !! 🙂

Yeah, that’s a little bit late, I know.. A lot of thing happened to my laptop lately, so I rarely post something since booting my laptop is a pain in the a** itself. 😐

So, last December, I went to Surabaya for Christmas time with my family, It’s been a while since last time I visited Surabaya and that was waaay before I started to do some blogging. So, last Christmas, I used the chance to taste some cuisine from Surabaya, specially the signature ones.

This time, I got a treat in a food corner in a mall there. Back then, my aunt told me about this dish called Lontong Mie (translated to English into rice cake noodle, seriously) and the first reaction in my mind is ‘WT*?? What’s with mixing rice cake and noodle?’ Later that I know lontong mie is just for the name and I don’t know how people managed to come with such name. It’s sure consist of rice cake and noodle but it has another ingredients along with them.

Let’s go with the appearance first..

Lontong Mie Special Edition (with cingur)

Note : cingur means ‘mouth’ in Javanese. It’s cow’s mouth part which is boiled and then mixed in the dish, some people marinate it with preferred seasoning. It’s a signature protein from eastern Java.

That was the actual lontong mie. It’s not just rice cake and noodle, but also came with cingur, beansprouts, crispy shallots, and sliced fried tofu..They are then splashed with sweet brown sauce made mostly with petis. Petis is Indonesian special seasoning (probably also available in other countries but with different name) which is made of fish/shrimps/some other seafood varieties, but commonly fishes and shrimps. It’s sweet and have unique taste. *Foreigners who come to Indonesia, specially eastern part of Java are recommended to try any dishes that come/served/mixed with petis*. I live in Yogyakarta for a long time but I’m half Yogyakarta and half East Java by blood, so I love eastern Java’s cuisines a lot as well.

For this dish, the thing that gave the most flavor is the broth. Mixed everything and you could have different textures in your mouth in exactly a bite. You would have crunchy texture from the beansprouts, softness from the tofu, chewy cingur, crispy shallots, and sweet and particular petis broth. While the portion seems a little small in the picture, in fact, for an average eater like me, it made my stomach about 80% full from 20% starvation haha.

Despite the strange name, actually this dish was remarkable. Simple but rich in taste. In East Java, like Surabaya, this dish is quite popular and scattered across the city thus you can find it easily that match your own taste bud.

So, this is the first part of my story in Surabaya, and I still have some to come. Stay tuned for my next foodie story, leave comments if you have any ideas or opinions for me and my stories, and leave like if you enjoy reading my experience.

CHEERS!!

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I also do some artworks (in self-practice as well, actually), if you’d like to visit, you are very welcomed to my Artstation and Patreon profile.

Patreon

Artstation

and also selling some original merchandise at Redbubble
*Sorry, get to promote everything, but, yeah, my effort on living my dream may be starting from the very bottom*

Thank you. :D*