Simple, Tasty, and Legendary : Pecel Madiun

Unfortunately, my trip to Surabaya was for a few days only and I didn’t get to try a lot of food :(. I still want to try lontong kupang which is usually sold in seashore food stall (I tried once.. ONCE! In Kenjeran beach, and I’m quite addicted to that delicious seashore dish, but it’s for next time).

Long story short, I was going back home again to Yogyakarta by train. Since I was a kid, when I’m going to Surabaya, there’s this ‘tradition’ for me (and my mom who’s usually my companion in travelling to East Java) when the train hit the stop in Madiun. Buying nasi pecel! Nasi pecel could be found in plenty of places in Yogyakarta but, again, like the problem on my last post, the taste has been fixed to the taste bud for people in Yogyakarta. It’s way sweeter here, while the original nasi pecel which is from Madiun is more salty and has strong peanut taste to it.

Anyway, this is how it looks

..

Nasi Pecel Madiun
(whooopss.. sorry, that was the last bite since I forgot to take a snap of it :D)

*It’s a little bit out of focus since I took a picture on the train and it’s shaky as heck*

Here’s a little description : nasi pecel is a very traditional and simple dish. It consists of rice as the main carbs, and several kinds of vegetables like water spinach (a.k.a. water morning glory), beansprouts, cabbage, cucumber, sometimes spinach, and long bean (a.k.a. Chinese long bean or yardlong bean). So healthy, eh? The protein are varied and really depend on the seller or personal preference (but a sliced-and-diced tempeh is a must), in my case, a sunny-side-up egg which was deep fried in a quite long time to create egg crisps.

The top of it is the peanut sauce. Since it’s more to the sweet side in Yogyakarta, in Madiun (or Kediri, I’ve tried nasi pecel there), it’s more to the salty and savory side. It’s quite spicy as well for me xP). The sauce was made of grounded peanut, brown sugar, and then mixed with water but only a little bit, resulting in a thick brown peanut sauce.

Since it’s for takeaway, the seller wrapped the food with banana leaves as wrapper. However, a little story, the mass transportation law (especially for trains) in Indonesia has changed a little bit after ministry reshuffle. What does it have to do with nasi pecel? *heh…* Back when I was younger, the sellers were able to hop on the train to offer nasi pecel. As time flies by, the sellers were only able to approach the trains, shouted from the outside to let the passengers aware. NOW, they aren’t allowed to do such things, therefore, no sellers available. They are replaced by a food vendor in Madiun station and to get food, you have to hop down the train, run to the vendor, and hop back in so you’re not get left behind, because the train only stopped for about 4-6 minutes. And that’s what I did to get nasi pecel. Luckily the station wasn’t crowded, so I could manage to buy it with ease, but beforehand, even before the train stopped, I already rushed 2 train cars ahead to get a head start because the CS told me that the vendor was in the middle of station and my train car was quite on the rear side.

This is my mom’s favorite dish, though, so I had to get it at all costs. 😀

So, that’s the only things that I could do during my retreat to Surabaya, I really hoped to taste more food while I was there, though, but looks like time didn’t allow me to. Probably next time, when my purpose of travelling is just for food, dish, and cuisines. 😀
Thank you for reading, leave comments if you have ideas or opinions, give like if you enjoy reading, and see you next time.

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.

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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*

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*