Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Hungry for cyberspace?

This is a typical warung: a roofed metal frame with sheets hung on the outside. The fabric serves the double purpose of advertising the menu and giving diners a modicum of privacy.


This place lists "Internet" at the top of its menu, along with roasted bananas, boiled noodles, fried noodles, and soft-boiled eggs. I initially wrote that there must be a computer place behind the warung, but in fact, as Treespotter astutely points out in the comment section, this is actually an abbreviation for noodles with an egg and corned beef (Indomie, Telur, Kornet). They also offer an assortment of juices, from avocado to guava, and other drinks including milk with raw egg, honey and ginger (Susu Telur Madu Jahe, abbreviated STMJ).

Last but not least, there's kopi susu, probably made with half as much coffee and twice as much condensed milk as I use at home.

Warungs are where most people eat most of the time, since they're fast and cheap. You can also get food from the carts that make the rounds of all the streets, but there's only a few kinds of carts: they'll usually offer fried rice or meatballs-and-noodles or chicken-and-noodles. In Jakarta they'll also have ketoprak, which is tofu and bean sprouts with peanut sauce, especially in the morning. But if you want more variety you go to a warung.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

LOL, for those warungs, 'Internet' stands for Indomie, Telor, Kornet (which is Indomie + Egg + Corned Beef - they just call it kornet).

I wish they do have real internet connection, it'll be fun...

Trish said...

You're kidding! That's so much more fun than my wrong explanation.

Anonymous said...

how about ordering some 'Intel', which stands for Indomie Telor.

Anonymous said...

Yup, Internet is definitely Indomie Telor Kornet. Sounds pretty simple with the most basic ingredients, but somehow they just never taste the same when you try to make it at home. ever. As is the case for most of Jakarta street food anyway. Some people say the secret ingredient is the sellers'... sweat, which due to serious lack of sanitary protections, is bound to drip around. Which, ew but a good meal is a good meal and at least they're organic :P.

Trish said...

I've heard the secret to great fried rice is the pollution the kaki limas absorb on their daily walk through the streets ... definitely not organic but maybe slightly less icky??

Makes me want to try internet right now ... but I'm in Surabaya so I think I'll go look for some lontong balap instead.

Anonymous said...

If you are a daring person, which I believe you are. Surabaya is famous for their rujak cingur, which is made out of.... hidung sapi.

I leave it to you to translate that :)

Trish said...

Mmmmm ... cow nose! I have actually considered trying this, because I'm crazy about rujak (spicy fruit salad). Do you dare me??