Padang Dinner

We felt our guts were strong enough to endure the food challenge of Padang. To be honest, it wasn’t as spicy as I thought it would be and the food not as cold.

About 10-15 dishes were instantly set down in front of us, each featuring a typical Indonesian spice and meat combination. The rules are that you get to eat as much or little as you want and the leftovers are saved for the next customer.

Would I do it again? Maybe for lunch, when the food is a bit fresher. But in the end, the flavor (especially the grilled coconut prawns and beef rendang) was pretty amazing.

Traditional Night Market

Shoot back a Nescafé after dinner and find a 10 year old babysitter to watch your kid, cause we’re going to the traditional market. It starts at 10:00pm.

Every exotic fruit and vegetable you can think of. Salted fish, tofu and chicken carcasses line the street. Merchants lay next to their goods and passively sell you a kilo of cucumbers for 5,000 rupiah. That’s about 6 fresh organic cucumbers for $.50, my friend.

We walked away with a kilo of cucumbers, carrots, celery, onions, mangos, some “sweet cucumber” surprise, and a watermelon for Elles. All for about $5 total. Pretty rad.

“Back to School” Shopping and Food

I’d love to present you an eloquently written update regarding our life in Bogor. However, I’m exhausted from writing my lesson plans for the last 7 hours. It’s only 3:00pm, but I’m drenched in sweat (no A/C downstairs) and my jaw is killing me from clenching it under stress.

On the upside: I finally feel ready for tomorrow.

We did our “Back to School” shopping yesterday at the mall. It was about this same time that I realized we had forgotten to eat lunch and were all shutting down. We found a sushi restaurant and inhaled the amazing flavors we know so well. (Sorry, but we’ve already grown sick of the 4 meals you can get in this country, most of which are fried.) We’ve also realized that it’s pointless to cook an Indonesian meal at home when it’s a fraction of the price to have a much better version of it delivered. (Like the gado gado from Cafe Tropical = OMG amazing.)

Gado Gado – The only meal with actual vegetables!

The creature comforts of making mashed potatoes and mustard and salami sandwiches have saved the day on many occasions. It only took us two weeks to realize we needed that. It’s the little things at this point. Thankfully.

Snack

Ever had ketchup seaweed snacks?

As Ellie would say… “Hm, not bad.”

Bakakak Ayam

Sorry veggie friends, but the fried chicken (and duck) in Indonesian is out of this world. We are so very much looking forward to the flavors and accessibility to amazing food like this again. And hello, do you see the heart cucumber? Love.

I found this picture on bogist.com, which is a PR site for the city of Bogor. I love their pictures. For more, check them out!