Food in Bandung
Last activity 26 September 2016 by Hansson
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Bandung is famous as a Culinary Paradise. The delicious Sundanese food, the large variety of different Sambals, and the enormous number of restaurants, cafes and food stalls that seem to line so many of the city's streets at night selling all kinds of foods from West Java as well as from all over Indonesia. Every weekend thousands of Jakartans drive to Bandung to enjoy it's amazing foods in the comfort of it's cool climate.
Through this thread I hope to show some of the wonderful foods that I have discovered in Bandung, with some personal recommendations.
Sedep Malem
The food at this restaurant is traditional Sundanese food and the place is famous for it's selection of sambals which they prepare themselves. We dined there for the first time last night together with our in-laws as well as our relatives from BSD City and Purwokerto and everyone enjoyed the food which was both delicious and affordable.
Sambal Sari Manis
Sambal Terasi
Sambal Tomat
Sambal Leunca
Sambal Kecap
Sambal Goang Super Pedas
Gurame Goreng
Gepuk
Kangkung
Karedok
Tempe Bacem & Tahu Goreng
Nasi Merah
Nasi Tutug Oncom
My own plate
A page from the menu
wow... they look amazing... once in bogor i ordered beef with that Sambal Super Pedas ( Iga rica-rica)... I really couldn't eat that coz it was so hot that almost burning the mouth.. Your post makes me feel Kangen with Indonesia, its people and its delicious food.. Bandung is really a nice, cold and beautiful city.. I have visited it 3 times during my stay in Indonesia..  May be one day I will visit it again...
Nasi Padang
This is my favourite Indonesian food due to it's delicious taste, variety of dishes and rich sauces. My mother in law is from Padang and cooks a great Rendang Daging which she drops off at our home sometimes. The sauces used in Padang cooking are rich with coconut milk so we try not to eat it more than once every couple of weeks.
Ayam Bakar (Grilled Chicken)
Gulai Nangka (Jackfruit and Cabbage Curry )
Rendang Daging (Beef Rendang)
Gulai Telur (Egg in Curry Sauce)
Ayam Goreng (Fried Chicken)
Terong Balado (Eggplant with Chili), Ayam Goreng & Telur Gulai
My Plate
Nasi Padang
You are very lucky that you have managed somehow to be able to live in the most beautiful place on this planet...
Talad Thai
In Bandung I sometimes crave for tasty foreign food. This Thai restaurant is far better than any other Thai food places that we have tried in the city. The food tastes authentic and is made with authentic ingredients and is really delicious and well presented while the decor of the restaurant while not very Thai looking is colourful and pleasant.
Kai Hor Bai Toey (Deep-fried Chicken Wrapped In Pandan Leaves)
Gaeng Keow Wan/Thai Green Curry
Thai Green Curry
Poh Peah Paak/Crispy Vegetarian Thai style spring rolls
Kai Hor Bai Toey (Deep-fried Chicken Wrapped In Pandan Leaves)
Thai Tea
Matcha Tea
Great thread Hansson. I think you’ve found your niche.Â
Your excellent photos are so enticing, I’m thinking of packing a bag and heading over to Bandung tomorrow! Â
Kue Ape
This lovely little snack is a popular street food in Indonesia. It is a kind of crepe with a soft center and crispy edge, made from flour, sugar, salt, coconut milk and a few other ingredients. Kue Ape gets it's green colour and taste from pandan leaves. As with much street food, Kue Ape is often found wherever there are lots of people. Sellers are commonly found near markets, restaurant areas and schools as it is very popular with children. My own my kids love it.
Mom's Bakery
Probably the best sandwich eatery in Bandung, and advertising a healthier kind of food. This place was recommended to us by local friends and I must admit that the food is absolutely delicious. For the sandwiches you can choose any of 7 or 9 different types of bread such as croissant, soft baguette, wholegrain etc, and choose the ingredients and dressing. They also sell salads and pizza. Everything is super fresh. In addition they sell a great selection of cakes, tarts and breads as well as great drinks. Mom's Bakery is located in Jalan Progo where many other excellent restaurants can be found, and walking distance from many of the famous factory outlets.
Roast Beef in Soft Baguette
Smoked Salmon in Croissant
Smoked Salmon Salad
Pizza with Mushrooms on the side
This was my slice of the pizza
Green Tea and Hazelnut Eclairs
Smoked Salmon in Soft Baguette
Roast Beef in Soft Baguette with Olives
really superb.... huge thanks.... Plz keep posting these beautiful pics of delicious foods and places....
Cafe Bali
Located along the famous Jalan RE Martadinata (Jalan Riau) is Cafe Bali. The place is really big with different sections for à la carte food, a canteen style choose-yourself section, and a small coffee shop with some nicely decorated private rooms. The place has gardens, fish ponds and rustic looking furniture and serves some absolutely delicious food with plenty of dishes to choose from. However, despite having a fairly large car park, it is a very popular place to eat and is busy everyday from 11am onward so you may need to hand the keys of your car to the valet, or find a parking place at one of the factory outlets opposite. We usually eat here about once a week and these are some of their dishes.
Ikan Pesmol
Udang Balado
Ikan Kuning
Rujak Buah
Opor Ayam
Terong Balado
Udang Crispy
Tahu Tauco
Our plates
Our plates
Our plates
Dakken
This is one of my favourite restaurants in Bandung as it offers wonderful quality food, both Asian and Western, with an excellent service and reasonable prices. The restaurant is located inside an old dutch bungalow, on the famous Jalan RE Martadinata (Jalan Riau) directly beside Cascade and The Heritage factory outlets in the heart of Bandung City. The decor of the restaurant is tasteful with a mixture of old and new furniture and objets d'art in a modern eclectic style. I have included lots of pictures of the interior of the restaurant as I find it quite beautiful.
I've tried very many of the dishes on the menu and there is nothing that I didn't like so far. Even the appetizers are all absolutely delicious. And we always finish the meal with a perfect latte.
A lot of restaurants in Bandung are found in old colonial bungalows with gardens with outdoor seating and rarely have airconditioning inside as the climate is so cool. Dakken is typical, with lots of outdoor seating areas as can be seen in the pictures. It continues to be a restaurant where I will often dine with my wife, bring family, friends or hold events.
Iced Lychee Tea
Potato "Gaufrette"
Grilled Chicken Steak
Healthy Green Curry Chicken
My plate - Green Curry Chicken
White Rice with Emping
Ayam Bakar (Grilled Chicken)
Sate
Sate can be found all over Indonesia, in restaurants, in stalls and on the side of the road. The quality differs enormously so once I find a good seller then I will tend to stick with them. Sate can use a whole variety of different meats, such as chicken, beef, mutton, rabbit, horse, snake, frog, chicken intestines, chicken hearts, quail eggs, shrimp, squid and many others. I tend to stick with chicken and will only occasionally eat beef sate. Even with chicken sate, I'll usually skip the places that insert pieces of chicken skin between each piece of meat.
The sate is generally grilled over hot charcoals and fanned to generate more heat. The sauce that accompanies the sate is nearly always Bumbu Kacang (peanut sauce) sometimes slightly spicy. However, in Padang in West Sumatra they use a curry sauce instead of the usual peanut sauce that most of us are familiar with.
Many sate vendors serve sate with Lontong, which is half-cooked rice wrapped in a banana leaf and boiled for a period of time and served in slices or cubes. Some also serve it with Kecap Manis (sweet soy sauce) together with the peanut sauce.
For me, the best sate is from the guy who pushes his cart around the houses where I live, followed by a place on the side of the road behind the Sate Building in downtown Bandung.
Chicken Sate with Lontong from the seller near our home
Chicken Sate from the roadside behind the Sate Building
Cooking chicken and beef sate
Fanning the charcoal
Chicken Sate with Lontong, Peanut Sauce and Kecap Manis
The Sate vendor sells alongside vendors of other foods near government offices.
These sellers on Jalan Martadinata concentrate on quantity. After trying their sate once we decided not to come back, not least because of the huge amount of smoke that keeps wafting over you when you are trying to eat.
Sari Sari
Sari Sari is a gem of a place, located downtown, nearby one of our favorite fresh fruit stores with imported grocery products and just 5 minutes walk from where we take our weekly massage. It specializes in all kinds of traditional foods known locally as jajanan pasar (market snacks), traditional hot and cold snacks and traditional desserts and is housed in one of the many old colonial bungalows in Bandung.
This place is most busy in the mornings, as locals like to have breakfast here with local coffee or tea. By lunchtime, many of the meals are already sold out so people come here to eat delicious cakes and snacks and to drink tea or coffee. We were introduced to this place by my wife’s parents who like many locals often come here for a light and healthy snack.
Nasi Liwet Ayam
Nasi Pecel Beras Merah
Orek Tempe
Lontong Sayur
Nasi Tutug Oncom
Nasi Rolade Ayam
Nasi Langgi Solo
Ali Agrem, Lontong Kari Ayam, Tahu Goreng & Risol
Tahu Crispy Barokah
I have never been a big fan of Tofu, but these two guys turn up with their gerobak every afternoon, just 5 minutes walk from my home, and do a wonderful crispy deep fried tofu that is really delicious. I'm not sure what they paid for the franchise, but their business seems pretty successful. The cost is just Rp5,000 for a packet or Rp10,000 for a box. We all like it, family, friends and relatives, so it's perfect to buy a couple of boxes when people are visiting.
Tahu Tiidur
This restaurant is very popular with tour groups from Malaysia and Jakarta but now more recently has become popular with the locals as the variety of food is huge, including Korean and Japanese as well as Indonesian and western. The place is packed in the evenings because of the reasonable prices. We've eaten here about three times and always enjoyed the food despite the decor being unattractive.
Deep Fried Tofu
Sweet & Sour Fish
Broccoli in Oyster Sauce
Ayam Cabe
Broccoli, Beef & Mushrooms in Oyster Sauce
Mie Goreng
Sweet & Sour Chicken
Tahu Sutera
My Plate
Teh Botol
Cafe Bali Coffee Shop
This place is actually part of the larger Cafe Bali but set aside in a corner, and perfect for having a coffee or dessert after a delicious meal. I took an Affogato which is a coffee with ice cream and chocolate shavings, and banana fritters with grated cheese. My kids actually ate most of the banana fritters.
An amazing delicious Affogato
Banana Fritters
Dapoer Pandan Wangi
This popular restaurant is very close to my place, but it tends to get crowded most lunchtimes with people from Bandung as well as from Jakarta. Fortunately yesterday wasn’t too crowded.
The food is Sundanese and totally delicious and served very quickly. The setting is in a wooden house joined to a brick house with a small garden. The signature dish seems to be the Terong Raos (Delicious Aubergine) but is basically an amazing deep fried aubergine in batter with chili on top. It seems that almost everyone orders this dish and my in-laws commonly order takeaway of just this item. Excellent too is the authentic Jus Alpukat or Avocado Juice with Coffee syrup which is also really is delicious.
Jus Alpukat
Jus Kedondong
Warunk Upnormal
Warunk Upnormal is a coffee shop and eatery, specializing in variations of Indonesia's favourite instant noodles, Indomie, in a casual environment. The price is cheap and the restaurants in Bandung are packed in the evenings as Upnormal is a cool place for the young to hang out. The cafe has table soccer and many board games including Scrabble, Monopoly. Othello, Chess and Draughts.
On the menu are a large section of indomie dishes and other Indonesian snacks like fried rice, toast with different toppings, fruit and ice cream, snacks, desserts and lots of different drinks.
As for a verdict on the food, well, we found it alright and nothing more than that. However, the concept of taking a food that everyone can afford and which much of the population in Indonesia eats daily, and adding a "homemade" twist to it, is novel and interesting.
Originating in Bandung, Warunk Upnormal now has branches in Jakarta, Cimahi, Tangerang and Tasikmalaya.
Indomie Goreng Tongkol Balado
Nasi Goreng
Bananas with palm sugar, cheese and condensed milk
Expresso with Ice Cream
Prima Rasa
Prima Rasa is a very famous Bandung bakery that sells really delicious cakes, pies, snacks and pastries including many local delights. It is very popular with both Jakarta folk and locals from Bandung. I'm not sure how many stores they have but we usually buy from the one in Jln. Kamuning and occasionally the one at Jln. Buah Batu. The one at Jalan Kamuning is pretty popular and bigger and there is a better selection to choose from.
What the folk from Jakarta do is before setting off back home, they stop off at Prima Rasa and buy lots and lots of cakes and snacks. So, if you happen to visit the place on a weekend or public holiday you will find it very crowded with long queues at the cashier and may need to wait to get a parking space.
It is such a popular shop that vendors of all kinds of food and snacks park their grobaks or carts nearby hoping to catch some of Prima Rasa's customers which they usually do.
We usually buy the apple pie, the banana cheesecake and the chocolate brownie cake for the children, and the klappertart for me as well as several of the small local snacks.
The Prima Rasa bakery on Jln. Buah Batu
The Prima Rasa bakery on Jln. Kamuning
Aahhh...my favourite.....delicious with homemade custard....
These vendors with their grobaks sell snacks just across the road
Sambal Khas Karmila
Sambal Khas Karmila is a new Sundanese restaurant in Bandung offering chicken and duck dishes with a choice of 12 different sambals. Like many new restaurants in Bandung it offers great food, a friendly service and reasonable prices. The supervisor who spoke pretty good English kindly helped to take some snapshots of some of the sambals in the kitchen as I wasn't allowed in. The restaurant which seems very popular already has two branches in Bandung and I'm sure will do well as the food was delicious.
Sayur Lodeh
Perkedel Jagung Goreng
Tempe Goreng
Ayam Goreng & Ayam Bakar
Twogether
Twogether is a new restaurant that just opened in Bandung and follows a trend of being based on Indonesia's favourite food, "mie goreng" with lots of variations of toppings and ingrediants. They also offer rice dishes, again with lots of varieties as well as delicious desserts. This place is still in its soft opening stage and offering a 30% discount so we thought we’d give it a try for lunch today. The restaurant is in Lodaya district which is famous for food and it replaces an old worn out looking restaurant so is definitely less of an eyesore than the old one.
As for the food we quite enjoyed it, as did the children. It really wasn’t bad for the price. The same goes for the drinks.
There were tourists from Jakarta eating here too
And more came while we were there, those are the number plates beginning with a "B"
Strawberry Mojito
Thai Tea Milk
Nasi Twogether Nendang Tuna
Nasi Chikcen Cubana...a delicious but strange combination of chicken with banana
Cheese Milo Milk Bread
Green Tea Ice Cream with Jelly
Murals are becoming very common in restaurants these days
Outdoor smoking area
Paviliun Sunda
Pavilium Sunda is a well know Sundanese restaurant on Jalan Martadinata. The restaurant is pretty big and the architecture and interior is authentic looking with different areas within and quite a big selection of local food. However, as far as Sundanese food goes, it isn’t my favourite. But it is a very popular restaurant with locals in Bandung and Jakartans. On weekends you can often see large tour buses from Jakarta parked outside.
Gurame Asam Manis (Sweet & Sour Fish)
Ayam Goreng (Fried Chicken)
Terong Balado (Aubergine with Chili)
Tempe Bacem & Tempe Goreng with Tahu Goreng (Fried Tempe & Tofu)
Hot Plate Kangkung Ayam
Es Jeruk Kelapa (Orange Juice with Coconut)
Lekker 188 Coffee & Food Hub
Lekker 188 is set in an old Dutch building directly in front of the clock tower on Jalan Asia Afrika. My wife kept suggesting that we try it out as we heard it was quite popular and not very expensive. So we parked the car in an office building opposite and walked across to this coffee and food place.
First impressions are that the place was alright, quite nice really, with old Dutch style ceramic tiles set in a polished cement floor and a relaxed look with young people snacking and drinking and some people there for their lunch break or business meeting. The menu was pretty extensive, and not expensive.
I chose the Chicken Katsu with Black Pepper Sauce, and my wife chose the Sop Buntut which is a kind of ox-tail stew. We also ordered the Ikan Dori Fillet (fish) with wedges and an order of French Fries with Bolognaise sauce for the kids along with some toast with ice cream and topping. We also ordered some drinks including a vanilla milkshake with chocolate topping for the kids.
As for the verdict on the food, we found some of it a bit disappointing, especially the Sop Buntut which resembled something from the school canteen during my teens. The fries were fine as was the Chicken Katsu and the drinks were all fine but nothing special. As for the price, it wasn't expensive. The place is probably more suitable for snacks and drinks, hence the small portions and price. Perhaps we'll visit here again, but will choose something different as the menu really does have a lot of choice.
Lekker 188 Coffee & Food Hub
The Horse sculpture made entirely from bicycle parts
Upstairs seating
Chicken Katsu with Black Pepper Sauce
Sop Buntut (you should probably avoid this one)
French Fries with Bolognaise Sauce
Dory Fish with Wedges
Toast with Ice Cream and Topping
Vanilla Milkshake with Ice cream and Chocolate Topping
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