Junk food of the week: Es Mr. Baso

I tried to go to a museum last weekend, but it was closed, and somehow I ended up at a mall. How do these things happen? Maybe fate, maybe supernatural forces; there's plenty of both to go around in Central Java. Anyway, once there I was struck by the need for an Es Teler. But Es Teler was jammed so I went directly to their competitor, Mr. Baso (Mr. Meatball). I brought along a teen novel for company.


Es Mr. Baso is topped with passionfruit, which always looks like something that crawled onto your drink and died. The seeds add a nice crunch, though.


Underneath were jackfruit, red beans, squares of red gelatin and long wormy pieces of green gelatine, slathered with a generous pour of coconut milk. Mighty tasty, especially if you can suspend the notion that red beans belong in a pot of chili.

The book was a little disappointing, though. I think I may finally be ready to graduate from "teen lit" to full-blown "chick lit" ...

Rewarded for good behavior

We felt pretty sorry for ourselves when we had to leave Jakarta in the middle of the film festival last week, but it was the only time we could both get away, and language school seemed more important. So it felt like validation when we stumbled onto a documentary film fest inYogya after our classes on Friday.

Left: Larry Weinstein tries to wrap it all up

We saw most of Beethoven's Hair and all of Mozartballs, and director Larry Weinstein was even on hand to take questions. One audience member asked, "I didn't really understand the movie. What was it about?" That seemed to leave him at a bit of a loss.

We went back the next day to catch some movies at a cafe, and struck up a conversation with a bunch of students. They turned out to be members of a group blog called Cah Andong, named after a traditional horse cart used in Yogyakarta. The blog is about "exploring the exoticism of Yogya," and part of its mission is to help draw visitors back to the city after the earthquake of late May.

Alex discusses the philosophical underpinnings of "Smallville"

After watching a bunch of docs, we went to a nearby EsTeler 77 and got some noodles and of course es teler, a syrupy concoction of ice, coconut milk, jackfruit and avocado. Everybody talked in a mixture of English and Indonesian about Yogya, movies, TV, and the relative merits of various Indonesian sci-fi soap operas.

Alma tackles a plate of dumplings

They were an impressive bunch. I sat across from Alma, who's studying engineering. Next to her was Alex, who majors in Informatics, a discipline so new that Indiana University recently established an entire department just to figure out what the heck Informatics means. But they were cool and didn't try to explain any math to us, which would have been hopeless in any language. We parted with promises to keep up with each other's blogs and try to get together again.

Junk food of the week: Pangsit goreng

A pangsit goreng is a huge deep-fried wonton. Almost lost in its expanse of crunchy-crumbly dough is a tiny ball of chopped chicken.

I don't think there can be any nutritional value in a pangsit goreng, other than whatever protein there is in the chicken. Luckily for my arteries, I don't really find them all that alluring, but if you get them at Es Teler 77, my current favorite fast-food place, it's kind of fun to make big puddles of sweet soy sauce (kecap manis) and chili sauce and use the pangsit as a vehicle to eat immoderate amounts of both.