Drink lots of fluids. The equatorial
sun takes out a lot from you and dehydration can be a serious
problem. Symptoms are infrequent urination, deep yellow/orange
urine, head aches.
Tap water in Indonesia is not potable and it should be brought
to a full boil for ten minutes before being considered safe. Indonesians
are themselves fussy about drinking water, so if you're offered
a drink it is almost certainly safe.
Most Indonesians do not feel they have eaten until they have eaten
rice. This is accompanied by side dishes, often just a little
piece of meat and some vegetables with a spicy sauce. Other common
items include tahu (tofu), tempe (soybean cake) and salted fish.
Crispy fried tapioca crackers flavored with prawns and spices
(krupuk) usually accompany a meal.
No meal is complete without sambal a fiery paste of ground chili
peppers with garlic, shallots, sugar, and sometimes soy sauce
or fish paste. Fruit, especially pineapple and papaya provide
quick relief for a chili-burned mouth.
Cooking styles vary greatly from one region to another. The Sundanese
of West Java is fond of raw vegetables, eaten with chili and fermented
prawn paste (lalab / sambal trasi). Minihasan food in North Sulawesi
is very spicy, and includes some interesting specialties: fruit
bat wings in coconut milk, sambal rat, and dog. In the more isolated
parts of the archipelago, the food can be quite plain.
In most Indonesian restaurants there is a standard menu of sate
(skewered barbequed meat)--most common are ayam (chicken) and
kambing (goat), gado-gado or pecel (boiled vegetables with spicy
peanut sauce) and soto (vegetable soup with or without meat).
Also common are Chinese dishes like bakmie goreng (firied noodles),
bakmie kuah (noodle soup) and cap cay (stir-fried vegetables).
In larger towns you can also find a number of Chinese restaurants
on the main street. Some have menus with Chinese writing, but
usually the cuisine is very much assimilated to local tastes.
Standard dishes, in addition to the bakmie and cap cay mentioned
above, are sweet and sour whole fish (gurame asem manis), beef
with Chinese greens (kailan / caisim ca sapi), and prawns sautéed
in butter (udang goreng mentega).
Indonesian fried chicken (ayarn goreng) is common and usually
very tasty-although the local -grown chicken can be a bit stringy.
Then there is the ubiquitous nasi goreng (fried doe); the special
(istimewa) comes with an egg on top and is often served for breakfast.
There are restaurants everywhere in Indonesia that specialize
in food from Padang, West Sumatra. This spicy, and very tasty
cuisine has a distinctive way of being served. As many as 15-20
different dishes are displayed in the glass case in front of the
restaurant. You tell the waiter what you want and he sets a whole
stack of the little dishes in front of you. At the end of the
meal, you are charged for what you have eaten and any untouched
plates are put back in the case.
As tempting as fresh vegetables may be, avoid eating garnishes
or raw salads unless the vegetables are air-flown/imported.
The beers available in Indonesia are Bintang and Anker, both brewed
under Dutch supervision and rather light (perhaps appropriately
for the tropics). With electricity such a precious commodity,
however, in out-of-the-way places the only way to quaff it cold
is to pour it over ice.
Balinese Specialties
Balinese specialties include roast pork (babi guling) in which
the pork is rubbed with turmeric, stuffed with spices and roasted
over a spit, and roast duck (bebek betutu), where the duck is
stuffed with vegetables and spices, wrapped in banana leaf and
either smoked or steamed.
Balinese brews include tuak (palm beer), arak (palm brandy) and
brem (sweet rice wine).
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