Text 9062, 84 rader
Skriven 2006-12-20 10:17:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: sambal tasting 708
==========================
Wandered again around the Rundle Mall area, got some cakes
(and a most interesting, savory snack - wasabi macadamias)
from Ditters, and looked around the wine store at David
Jones: good selection, astronomical prices.

And we finally made it to Pondok Bali, where Greg and Dorothy
Mayman and Kevin JCJDS were awaiting us. Place looked pretty
forlorn, and in fact there were no other diners for lunch that
day. A pity; the service is friendly, the food good though
mild, the physical plant attractive in a Trader Vic sort of way.

For starters we had egg rolls, pretty standard; chicken
satay, likewise, but with a very savory dark brown peanut
sauce; and a prawn and cornbread fritter that Carol liked a
lot but I thought a bit hush-puppyish and bland for an
Indonesian dish. These are the same things that are on the
mixed appetizer, but if you order them separately, it's cheaper
(for a multiple order, which we needed).

Our mains were uniformly tasty but not nearly hot enough:
turmeric fish, dry beef rendang, Surabaya lamb curry, and
salt-pepper squid (which was a bit too literally salted
and peppered); with this we had a big dish of sayur urap,
vegetables tossed in toasted coconut, which I didn't care
for (I wanted gado-gado but was voted down).

Carol contented herself with a bowl of seafood laksa; I
took a taste: excellent.

The major defect of the meal was that we'd ordered the
dishes at various levels of hotness, and they came all
the same, i.e. fairly mild. Calls for sambal and then
sliced chile went out to the kitchen and the food was then
suitably rescued, in the palates of some of us at least.

Desserts included dadar gulung, pandan-flavored rolls
stuffed with coconut and palm sugar, and ketan hitang, a
black sticky rice with coconut, pandan leaf, and jackfruit.
Both were a bit much considering how much we'd eaten;
neither, thankfully, was too sweet.

The wine we chose for all of this was Hardy's Late Harvest
white, a pleasant enough mishmash of Rieslingy and Gewurzy
flavors, balanced and moderate levels of both sweetness and
acid, a pleasant floral-tropical aroma, and an apricotty
finish. We had several bottles of it.

=

That night we weren't up for much food, but rather opted for
snacks, which Glen and I turned into a tasting of sambals
from the Cap Ibu line (aided by various bits of proteinous
substances, mostly mettwurst).

Sambal hijau - muddy green, thick. Hot with bits of green
tomato; no hint of the supposed lemon listed in the
ingredients. Rather odd, an emptiness on the palate
followed by an odd hit of "umami"

Sambal balado - apparently meant as a sauce; you take
3 Tb of this, fry it in 8 Tb of oil, then add eggs, fish,
or shrimp. By itself I found it quite tomatoey, very
salty, medium hot

Sambal bajak - also strong tomato (Carol likened it to a
mixture of Thai chili paste and marinara sauce); quite hot
with a strange almost fishy aroma (perhaps some fermentation
as well). Long spicy aftertaste

Sambal cobek istimewa - medium hot, strong ketchupy-molasses
aroma and flavor. Rather sweet

Sambal kecap - medium hot, quite sweet, pleasant

Nasi goreng kecap - very salty, oniony, meant to be used for
cooking only

Sambal pemuda - very hot, tomato aroma, slight sweetness;
liked it a lot

Sambal jawa - shrimpy, salty, mildly hot.
___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
 * Origin: Try Our Web Based QWK: DOCSPLACE.ORG (1:123/140)