Meal #03: Indonesia

Last week, we visited Rasa Khas, an Indonesian restaurant at Sukhumvit 23. Rasa Khas is the first name that turns up when looking for Indonesian food in the City of Angels, and it is located in a house that has been converted into a restaurant.

This meal's food explorers were myself, Alex, Olivia, Bank, Joe, Kim, Maria and YY - a varied bunch from Russia, USA, Thailand, Switzerland, Japan and Singapore.

Indonesia's a pretty big place and so there are many culinary signature dishes from different regions. I'm not sure how representative Rasa Khas' menu is, but there were many classic dishes that one would expect to find. We got to try many of them: gado gado (vegetable salad with peanut sauce), nasi ayam bakar bumbu bali (Balinese style grilled chicken with rice), perkedel (potato and corn fritters), soto ayam (chicken soup), nasi ayam padang (A Sumatran curry chicken with rice).

Gado Gado is a unique Indonesian salad made up of tofu, rice cakes and blanched vegetables covered in a spicy peanut sauce. The prawn crackers add a little crunch to the mix.

A few of us ordered the nasi ayam bakar bumbu Bali - a chargrilled chicken marinated with a sweet sauce, accompanied with spicy chili sauce and tempeh, a soybean cake. Bakar means black, and this type of grilling is typical of Balinese food.

The nasi ayam padang - rice with a chicken curry, named after the town of Padang in Sumatra.

Because this was a Christmas meal, Maria brought chocolates for everyone, and we had an exchange of gifts at the end of the meal. Some of us stayed on for coffee afterward too.

Thanks Maria for the Santa chocolates!

We collected B460 for the Apopo Rat fund, bringing the current total to B760.