A couple of weeks ago, my friend YT made us a version of Indonesian street food we call “Bakmi Bakso Abang-Abang”. It’s basically a noodle soup with meat balls (usually beef). She made the beef balls herself! And they tasted great too! Even the bowl reminded me of back home .. those bowls which have drawings of roosters on the side. LOL! 
Back home, we usually eat the noodle on the side of the street (sometimes, they cover the gutter and set up some tables/chairs and tent on top of it), or we get it from the vendors who push carts (gerobak) around to sell it, or in a small and simple “restaurant” (warung .. ok, bigger restaurants have them too  ) .. like the last two pics in this post. Sometimes we can even add tendons, tripe, fried wonton (pangsit), etc.
Ugh, now I’m hungry. And I want to go back home. 
Great food for a cold day. Hmmm .. maybe I’ll call my friend to get the recipe for the beef balls, or maybe ask when she’ll be making some more of those good stuff! Moahahaha.
I actually haven’t been up there in months, but I just posted a few old pics from there on my food/drink flickr set.
If you like spicy (hot) food, try their Angel Fire Chicken dish … it’s not on the menu, so you have to ask for it. Hmmm … if it’s not on the menu, should I be mentioning it here?? Hehe ..
Their martabak is similar to Indonesian .. but different. No acar …
Love their nasi goreng (fried rice) and the shrimp chips …. hehehe
They are located in the SouthEast corner of Major Mackenzie and Bayview Ave (Richmond Hill), next to a gas station & across from WalMart/Dominion plaza.
Hmmm .. now I’m getting hungry ……………..
Last week, my old high school friend, LT, came to Toronto from New York City. Heck, we even went all the way back to junior kindergarten (Yeah, we stuck to the same school all the way — wah, betah ye kita?). LOL. We were in a few classes together, she had her own gang and I, um, I don’t remember being in a gang — I was the nice, quiet and introverted girl (still am, BTW! >;)) just sitting nicely in a shade somewhere.
I haven’t seen her in years (last time we saw each other was when my sister and I went to NYC — a few years ago). She has a 2-years-old girl now, an exact replica of her according to me (although, her husband protested .. haha). They were in town for a couple of nights, and so I went to see them both nights. They roamed around downtown during the day, so at night we were just relaxing, catching up on things, and eating (what else? LOL!).
The first night, I took them to Yueh Tung restaurant (Elizabeth St. south of Dundas St., west of Bay St.) just a block from where they were staying. My sister and I (and a bunch of other Indonesians) love going there for their Chili Chicken (they have two kinds, regular and hot plate, we usually order the regular one). So, we ordered Chili Chicken (pic below), Pork Ribs with Black Bean Sauce and Tofu with Meat. I still like the chicken, and apparently my friend also likes it!!! LOL! The husband doesn’t really eat hot stuff (hey, more for us!! ) .. and the kid, um, apparently the kid likes only steamed rice (and maybe with some kind of soup or sauce. LOL! Funny girl … ).
The second night, we almost went to Yueh Tung again (it’s so close!). HAHAHA. But we decided to walk to Chinatown and eat at Swatow (Spadina Ave. north of Dundas St.). So, the five of us (this time JW came along) walked and chatted and ate and had a good time. Below is the shrimp wonton that we ordered as a side dish.
This time, the girl ate the shrimp wonton.
Love the girl. She’s so chatty, just like her mom and dad .. well, I don’t know about the dad, but the mom is very chatty. I drew a flower and a butterfly on her Magna Doodle and she pointed to each one and said the correct word!!! Wow, I was impressed! Then I drew some more things (yes, I dug a hole for myself) and she told me what she thought they were. And before I knew it, she wanted me to draw other stuff! LOL! And the dad gave her hints too: “How about a frog?”. She said “frog!”. I said “How do I draw a frog?” … I tried, and she said “It’s a RABBIT!”. Ugh! Then I just added a pair of long ears and a bunny tail (hey, she thought it was a rabbit .. might as well made it into one … hahaha).
Then the dad said “How about Nemo?”. Me thinking “NEMO??” . So I drew a fish with stripes, the girl said “NEMO!”. PHEW!!!
Then the dad (again??!!) said “Hmm .. Dori”. OK, so I drew another fish (I wished they had a Magna Doodle that could use colours instead of just black — I could definitely use one, all I remembered of Dori was that she’s blue. ). The girl said “DORI!”. YESS! Then the mom said “How come Dori looks like Nemo? Just bigger?”. SSSSHHHHHHHH!!! The girl thought it was Dori, that’s the most important thing!
And JW drew her a face, and she kept saying “NOSE” … hahaha.
Cute girl. 
Yesterday was Indonesia Independence Day (62 years).
So I thought I’d put in the spotlight one of the many exotic fruits we have back home: durian (duren so we say back there). I love this fruit, uh huh, all of it (smell, taste, texture) .. LOL!
The first time I saw people selling durian here in Toronto was in Chinatown. The fruits were frozen .. so they only looked like durians, but they didn’t smell like ones (I got “poked” by the thorn when I was trying to smell it ). Back home, they have fresh ones .. honestly, we could smell it from FAR away! I must say even the frozen ones have that distinctive smell. Hahaha. Some people (yes, even some Indonesians) don’t like the smell. I love it.
To open one, I remember when I was little I stood on it (LOL), just to get that first crack .. then we just cracked it open. The actual fruit can be a bit firm, can be a bit mushy. Although I like a firmer one better, I’ll eat the mushy one too! Sweet … *drool*
Hehe .. I ordered a durian drink one time. One of my non-Indonesian friends tried it and she had this look on her face .. but she didn’t say anything. She waited to see my reaction when I took a spoonful. I like the drink, although it could be stronger (more durian taste please!!). She thought I didn’t know what I ordered .. and was anticipating a strange look on my face .. haha. (No, she didn’t like the durian drink).
My grandparents used to keep the skin after we ate the fruit, and we used it to wash our hands with (we used soap too, yes) — the white (inside) part, not the outside part … they said it helps to get the smell off our hands. I do that now too. Does it work? I don’t know .. but I don’t mind having the smell on my hands .. so .. haha!
They grow on trees .. tall trees too! So, be careful when walking under durian trees …
There’s an idiom that says “bagai tertimpa durian runtuh” (“as if getting a durian falls on you”) which means getting lots of fortune. But please don’t sit under a durian tree, it hurts (you) when it (the fruit) falls on you.
Anyway, yesterday I wanted to finish writing this post. But I didn’t, because yesterday, fruityoaty gave me a couple of links to this site that happens to talk about the city I grew up in, Jakarta and some of the street food there. TWO posts .. and I spent the rest of the evening drooling and wanting to go home…………
This burger joint is from the same guys who came up with the New York Fries .. I love NY Fries (and its cajun seasoning ), so when they opened this restaurant in town last year (in the plaza in the southwest corner of Steeles Ave West and Dufferin), we went to try it. The cheeseburger looked very good, but dunno if it was because the cook was new at this thing (or something), the burger was very dry. 
We weren’t impressed with their burger.
The burger from a street vendor back in Indonesia tastes way better than this one (and the street vendors only use a regular thin bun and a regular burger .. but somehow with only ketchup and sambal, a thin slice of tomato and half a leaf of lettuce, it tastes great! LOL).
Hmmm .. maybe now that it’s been almost a year, we should try that cheeseburger again think of maybe go back and see if the cook has improved his burger-cooking skills. Hehe.
My friend MLL introduced me to this place a long time ago when we used to work in this company in Scarborough. I like the place, it’s small and simple. Their eggtart is great especially when they just came out from the kitchen .. LOL! It’s on Victoria Park Ave, one block north of McNicoll Ave (in a plaza there).
This one is my favourite there (pork with corn soupy thingy .. hehehe):
There’s another place that I used to go to with my sister a long time ago called Campus Restaurant .. small place, but very “homey” (I like it ) — close to York University .. but it’s now closed.
OK, so fruityoaty said that I was uninspired when I posted this .. LOL!
It is a great movie from Disney/Pixar .. and the food looks so good (although we can’t eat them)!! So if you haven’t seen it yet, um, why??
I found this Ratatouille (“ra-ta-too-ee” — unlike the movie ) recipe from the Food Network Canada website (courtesy of the Chef at Home, Michael Smith), and it so happened that that day I had a few vegetables sitting in my refrigerator. So, we got some red peppers and green peppers and tried the recipe.
JW threw in some bacon (yes, yes, it’s not a veggie! ) in there, and here’s what it looks like at the end:
I like it! Yumm!
True, it doesn’t look like what Remy (the rat) made in the movie, but hey!! Hmm .. come to think of it, it looks like the dish Anton Ego’s mom made when he was little (Anton is the food critic) in the movie.
For those who have seen the movie, remember at the beginning when Remy was eating different things and he got different “feeling”, here’s the taste visualization of it (Michel Gagne).
Also, check out virtual set tours of the movie. And a little food photography tips from Pixar’s Sharon Calahan.
And just in case you want to read more stuff, check out AWN’s Ratatouille Pixar Style: Bon Appetit article.
You know, this dish reminds me of an Indonesian dish called capcay .. it consists of mostly veggies (minus tomato so the result is not reddish), apparently the name came from chinese language and means something like “10 vegetables” or something like that … we usually add beef balls and shrimp to the mix (I think my parents decided to do that to make us, the kids, ate the veggies when we were little .. HAHAHA!). And when I happen to have more than 5 kind of veggies in my refrigerator, I’ll see if I can make one and post a picture (or hmm .. I could just go to SW’s place and bug her to make one. HAHA!) ..
Earlier today, DT, AJ and I went to this restaurant that DT wanted to try for lunch .. it’s called “Wok With Yu” (Warden Ave, just south of Eglinton). It’s an Indian Hakka Restaurant. The food is pretty good, AJ and I ordered their Chili Chicken and DT ordered Manchurian Chicken. Apparently both are their specialty!
The lunch menu comes with a soup (today was either Hot & Sour Soup — which was somewhat a bit sweet for my taste — or Wonton Soup) and served over a plate of fried rice.
Below is their Chilli Chicken .. and those green stuff is actually chilli!! I was probably dreaming when I ate it since I thought they were green onions. I think I was breathing fire (steam out of my ears too) when I put too much of it in my mouth at once.
LOL. But I will be coming back.
Hmm .. I think my food pics pool is missing some food pics between Oct 2006 and June 2007 .. Whoa! Ok .. gonna work on uploading them (and blogging them maybe) ..
Toronto Street Treats happened earlier today from noon to 2pm @ Nathan Phillips Square .. so I went and checked it out. They had little tents for the participating restaurants to cook/sell their food/samples ranging from $1 to $6. I was looking for Cava — who supposedly had Florentine Tripe Stew for $2 — but I couldn’t find it! Hmmm!
There were LOTS of people lining up to try the food .. I didn’t even try lining up ..
These guys in the next pic had a better idea though .. rather than lining up for a long time, spending $3 for a sample dish, they spent the $3 to get a sausage. I would’ve done the same thing (I didn’t since I brought lunch), and yes I know, I know, it’s a different kind of food and experience and stuff (hehe):
I love street food (and soon Toronto will have more street food than just hotdogs and sausages — or so I heard). In Indonesia we have lots of street vendors with “shops” on the side of the street (literally) or going around pushing/pulling/carrying their carts/stuff or on a bike (we just call/stop them in front of our house if we want to buy the food ) .. and there are some really good ones (nasi goreng kambing, nasi goreng pete, siomai, singkong, combro, bubur ayam, martabak, etc — Gosh, now I’m hungry). One note though, if you’re a picky eater, not adventurous in eating, or have a weak stomach, don’t try it. For me, I love it.
The last two pics were taken back home about 3 years ago.
Last Sunday we had an “Indonesian food day” gathering at ES' place (the only place where we can do BBQ in the “terrace” ).
Took a lot of time to prepare the food (marinade, skewer, etc.).
Took a while to BBQ the satay (yes, we used charcoal).
But it took only a few minutes to gorge most of them. LOL! Yeah, we're a hungry bunch (apparently, always). Even the smallest person in the bunch could eat a lot (and fast too ) .. don't be fooled by the appearance now, eh, JD? Hahaha!
Here are the tons of food … let's see .. there's the satay (some of them … OH YEAH!! YUMM!!) and lontong (made from rice), martabak (bottom left) plus the acar (pickled cucumber), somay bandung (bottom right — Indonesian version of the chinese shumai — regular shumai, tofu, potato, cabbage .. no bittermelon though this time) and rujak pengantin (top right — some kind of Indonesian salad). And the peanut sauce (one for the satay and one for the somay) .. OOOHHH!!
And here are the dessert .. chocolate chips cookies, pandan cake (the green one at the bottom), some mango/pomelo stuff (the orange stuff) and es teler (the colourful one — lots of good stuff in there: avocado, coconut, jackfruit, some red stuff, some white stuff .. some other stuff .. LOL!).
I drool just by looking at the satay pic …..
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