First Timer with Local Bandung Food! : Seblak

That day my friends and I walked around a shopping mall in Yogyakarta. I didn’t recognize that it had some kind of mini hawker center inside that sold like street food and beverages. Then I saw this unique name, Seblak. I wondered what kind of food that was. After a quite long time of thinking and waiting for people to clear the queue line, I ordered one portion of this ‘new’ dish.

After a quick research, I learned that Seblak is actually a traditional dish (or you can count this as snack and not heavy meal) from Bandung, West Java. I’ve never had foodie trips around West Java before so this snack right here was like a teaser for me. I’d be glad to be able to get some foodie experience there, but this time, this one was quite an eye-opener. You can get this in Lippo Plaza, Yogyakarta.

Seblak

The visual appearance might be unappetizing but the taste was the other way around. Its main ingredient was kerupuk which was crackers for side dish, very common and vary in Indonesia. Kerupuk udang was used in this dish. I didn’t see the cooking process but I probably could take it like this : the kerupuk udang used for this dish were still raw, meaning they’re still inedible. They were then mixed with all the broth, spices (I tasted quite strong ginger flavor in it) and other ingredients (mine came with egg and slices of meatballs).

The kerupuk became soggy and soaked with broth, thus resulting in chewy and soft texture. To top this up, the amount of kerupuk used were outstandingly massive. The broth was has savory flavor with subtle taste of saltiness. There were more complete version of Seblak that contains more protein if you’re going to order there. Upon the final product, most of the kerupuk were still attached to each other, making it easier to eat. 😀

Anyway, I kinda like this ‘appetizer’ even it’s Bandung’s traditional dish but STILL was made in Yogyakarta. My best guess is it’s still cooked with some Yogyakarta flavor in it and not an authentic eastern Java flavor. Even so, the differences may not be that much, I assume. 🙂 So, I’m gonna end my story here (such a short one isn’t it? :D), stay tuned for the next foodie trips, give like if you enjoy reading my experiences, and leave some comments if you have any ideas or opinions.

 

CHEERS AND HAVE A GREAT DAY!!

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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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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*