friend wrote:
Aha. Oops. There are some genuinely delicious Padang places in Indonesia, and the Indonesians seem to treat Padang food as the most natural thing to eat in restaurants, even versus the Javanese and Balinese cuisines amply represented in the larger cities, or Chinese food. This is mysterious to me because Padang food here is normally arranged on plates and bowls in the restaurant window; it sits there cold all day attracting flies. Sometimes it's warmed up when served, sometimes not, and except in the very best places, it's nothing special. Nothing special. (In fact, sometimes it's downright disgusting.) In Padang itself, I know of several simple places where the Padang food is indeed good. The idea that Padang food is the world's spiciest is puzzling; some is spicy, some less so, but it doesn't hold a candle to the fire of roadside tandoori food outside of Bombay in my memory. All of Indonesian culture, including cuisine, bears the imprint of nearby India, and a glance at the map one day showed me this place Indonesia is geographically nothing more than the continuation of the Indian geographical features that run down under the Indian Ocean popping up now and then to become the Andaman and Nicobar Islands til they emerge again as Sumatra. Which means the food smells and tastes something like Indian food, especially the food of south India (particularly the Karnataka-Kerala southwest coast, with its heavy use of coconut, oils, chile pepper, and fragrant spices. It doesn't resemble Tamil cuisine much at all.) The great revelation in Padang is a little joint which serves a terrific ikan bakar (baked fish) which has a tandoori-ish sauce. In fact, it reminds me of the fish tandoori places in Khar, the Punjabi area in Bombay (if it hasn't changed since I left in 1985.) (Nothing like a Friday night visit to the Hazara Hotel in Khar, passing blocks of stands red with hanging tandoori fish. Kebabs are the thing at the Hazara Hotel, if it's still there, and the toilet in the tiny, cheap place is probably still the most frighteningly vermin-infested I've seen in a career of unsanitary toilets.) What a disappointment after my first visit to Padang, coming back to try a recommended ikan bakar stall in Medan where the fish was bland, bony and unappealing. Now that I'm off Atkins, I can do martabak without guilt. Which, now that you mention it, is what New York needs next; a good martabak joint. (Now that Mexican boys are selling fresh churros on the lower steps of the IRT at Grand Central Station, why not, finally, some hot fresh martabak down there, where the culinary need is so great?) Perhaps some young Palembang entrepreneurs would be willing to move to the U.S.
Ask the lady what she thinks about martabak (MAR-tuh-bock.) Maybe there's already a place to get it in Queens?
mister_fresh wrote:
Oh yessir I knew that's what you meant. What I wanted to ascertain was whether the Indonesian laundry lady knew of Padang places that we'd not heard of. It seems although she thought she had, in actuality she had not. In other words, she did not wish to say she did not know, which of course, she didn't.
