I was in one of those sleepy moments just after take off and the captain tells you its okay to unfasten your seat belt and I barely, in my sleepy stupor, noticed the crew preparing to rush down the aisle with the brunch trolley. This national airline crew are known to be well trained, groomed and polished.

“Ma’am, we’re serving nasi loma and bay cakes today, what would you like to have.”, the stewardess boomed across me with their signature smile to the old British couple next to me. After explaining that nasi loma is actually coconut rice (I call it nasi lemak), the old lady strained her eye brows and inched closer for a clarification on “bay cakes”. Me too, and through the corner of my eye, I noticed two eggs on the platter of the chap across the aisle. It was “baked eggs”. She chose “nasi loma, please.”, something I sense the old couple was clueless about and sounded exciting, which is part of her Asian experience, I suppose.

In many ways, I count my blessings that I have been landed with this opportunity to eat and tell stories about the regional food culture. It does help me appreciate that much more each next dish I devour. The research I embark on in the region for my publications confirms one thing- that information is like an island of knowledge, the bigger it is, the longer the her shores of curiosity. The more you know, the more there is to know.

Which, brings me to rojak and the oversized island of Indonesia (which is a collection of many islands). The name has come to be a term used here to describe chaos, mess, disorder and as an attempt to describe the unfathomable culture that Singapore has with her colourful imported heritage. Toss toasted yu cha kway, turnip slices, pineapples, mangoes, tau pok or dried sponge tofu, century eggs, bean sprouts with a baffling sauce of prawn paste, sugar, tamarind juice, lime peel and chilli paste and you get this national dish of ours, sprinkle torch ginger flower (rojak flower) bits with crushed roasted peanuts, and it becomes a damn good one. It is only half true if you say it is one of those ridiculously addictive dish that some whacko cook came up with here.

Rujak Cingur

In Indonesia, long before Stamford Raffles folded his arms for the sculpture session, peasants and farmers there were already tearing into rujak cingur, the mother of our rojak except they have a very distinct ingredient not found, and unthinkable, in ours- cuts and slices of a cow’s nose. It’s like having chips of blackened and hard sotong pieces in our rojak. Their sauce is similarly thick, spicy and peanut-ty ( I swear I tasted no cow snort in the many times I have had rujak cingur there) although it lacks that distinct tamarind tang. They make theirs with kangkong, turnips, tempeh (fermented soy bean cakes), tofu, bean sprouts, lontong (rice cakes) and of course, bull’s nose. They don’t sprinkle crushed peanuts and it is served with crispies like belinjo or fish crackers.

Then there is ketoprak, a very simple traditional Indonesian dish of spicy peanut sauce with tofu, beehon and fried shallots. In Jakarta, there is one little unnamed stall that is so synonymous with this dish they named it after the location the stall is sited at. Ketoprak Ciragil is a hole in the wall street side stall that greets you with a huge pestle and mortar which the cooks labour over to make their signature peanut sauce which is lifted with kecap manis (sweet black sauce), chilli paste, spices and fried shallots. They toss it with beehoon, tofu and top it with crackers.

The medical side effects of affluence here made our cooks go berserk and top ketoprak with pork, prawns, sotong, bean sprouts and taupok. It became our endearing satay beehon and of course cost ten times more than what ketoprak does there.

If you are hungry and clueless in Jakarta…

Try Rujak Cingur at
Soto Madura Pak Hadi Surabaya Restaurant
Pintu Ayer Street (in Kota)
Opposite the Istiqlal Mosque.
(lunch and dinner daily)

Ketoprak Ciragil at
Jalan Ciragil
Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta Selatan
(opens from 9am and sells out by 4pm daily)