Batam Food Discovery

Few days ago, we just had our annual school reunion. When it was time for dinner, we were confused in choosing a good eating place for ten of us. At one of our friends’ suggestion, we decided to have our dinner at a Korea restaurant which is located in Batam Centre, Sura Korea Restaurant. There are only few Korean restaurants in Batam, five restaurants at most. In Batam Centre area, there are two Korean restaurants, one sells common Korean food and the other one (Sura Korea Restaurant) specializes in barbequed or grilled food.

It is not very hard to find the location of this restaurant which is located at Ruko Rafflesia Business Centre (opposite BCA bank branch). It is easier to spot this restaurant at night because a projector is put on the 2^nd floor to project films onto a screen behind the glass wall, so that from outside we can watch the films they broadcast. At the time when we were there, a Korean singer’s concert was being showed on the big screen. Among all Korean restaurants, only Sura Restaurant has this kind of uniqueness.

Sura Korea Restaurant mainly sells Gui, a generic term to refer to grilled dishes. They offer a variety of set menus that you can choose from, like breakfast set, lunch set, and dinner set. For dinner set, there are 5 choices based on the type of meat for grilling, which comprises of chicken , spicy chicken, pork, beef, and pork skin. If the set menus do not appeal to you, they also have many else that may suit your taste better, just like Kimchi, Kimbab, etc. There is a kind of drink there that caught our eye then , that is Soju (the label on its bottle are all Korean alphabets, maybe it is imported from Korea ), a kind of alcoholic drink which is quite well-known. It is rather pricey though, a bottle of Jinro brand Soju 360ml is sold at 120.000 Rupiah.

When having meal in a Korean restaurant, we always think that the owner must be a Korean. Much to our surprise, the owner apparently is an Indonesian, but the cook is of course a Korean. Their service is quite satisfying, the ambience and the food are also quite nice. It is suitable as a place for gathering with friends or just having meal with family.

Mie Pangsit (Dumpling Noodles) is a kind of food that is very common in here. Different restaurants or eating houses sell different versions of the dish, depending on the cultures or ethnic group of the owner of the eating house or restaurant. It goes without saying that there are many kinds of Mie Pangsit being sold in Batam.

And this time, the one that our food discovery team is going to introduce is Mie Pangsit Bagansiapiapi. And yeah, the owner of the eating house is originated from Bagansiapiapi, a town which is located at the delta of Rotan River, Riau Province, Indonesia. As a matter of fact, Chinese makes up the majority of Bagansiapiapi’s population and coincidentally the owner is a Chinese, so that certainly the noodles they sell is also in Chinese style. The eating house opens daily from 6.30 AM to 12.00 AM (operating 17.5-hour business instead of the typical 8-hour business hours... isn’t it incredible??). Anyway, this eating house is located at Marina Park residential complex.

The main menu of the eating house is of course Mie Pangsit. The noodles are great, however they are quite oily >.< . So, for girls who are on diet may be deterred, haha.

Other dishes on their menu are bee hoon (rice vermicelli), kwetiao (rice noodles), and fried rice. This eating house is kind of famous for their good service and they also provide delivery service. If you feel hungry at night and are lazy to go out, this may be the best choice.

If you are into Italian food then pasta shouldn’t be new for you anymore. Pasta actually is a generic term for Italian variants of noodles, food made from a dough of flour, water and/or eggs. The word can also denote dishes in which pasta products are the primary ingredient, served with sauce or seasonings. So, this time our food discovery team discovered a newly opened Italian restaurant in Batam, that is Warung Pasta. Warung Pasta is one of the eating houses which provides Italian food, wherein the food has been tailor-made to suit Indonesians’ taste and so has been the name of the food. Warung Pasta can also be found in major cities in Indonesia like South Jakarta and Bandung. And the one in Batam is their fourth branch which was just established on 17th April this year.

Our team found this restaurant when they were passed through a residential complex and saw their shop sign which looks very interesting in the design. You will recognize it next time when you drive by around there, their shop sign is black for the background color and there is a cartoon character holding up his thumb while hugging “warung pasta” name. Anyway, the restaurant is divided into 2 areas, which are the outdoor and indoor area. And without second thought, we directly headed to the outdoor area when we visited there. Their outdoor area seems to be more relaxing and cozy as it is an open place so that we can have a look at the city view or even the sky hoping to see the stars ^^. It’s also a place that is suitable for gathering (especially reunion) and a leisure chat with friends until you forget the time. You will find it pretty nice as a gathering place, provided that it isn’t raining though :P Besides that, You will also see many torches around serve as decoration, or maybe as mosquito repellent at the same time ^^

The main dish at Warung Pasta naturally is pasta. Just that they offers five different shapes of pasta for all their pasta menu for us to choose from, and they are served with varieties of sauce like spicy sauce, cheesy sauce, chicken meat sauce, etc. In fact, there are approximately 350 different shapes of pasta in this world. Besides pasta, They also have pizza, salad, fried chicken and many else on their menu. Don’t forget their unique drink too when you want to make an order.

Apart from the public in general, Warung Pasta hopes to attract undergraduates in particular. Hence, the price they offer for all kinds of food and drink is pretty reasonable. So, don’t forget to go and have a visit at this restaurant next time when you crave for some Italian food. It’s pretty much worth trying ^^

One friend of mine introduced me a stall which sells roast chicken with special rujak flavour. It is so special since I have never eaten chicken that has rujak spice before. Do you like rujak? It is a food where fruits and vegetables like pineaple, mango, cucumber and etc mixed with special spicy peanut sauce. If you do like the spicy — like taste of rujak then the food might just suit your taste. The Rice is not ordinary rice, but they used uduk rice (Indonesian: "nasi uduk"; according to wikipedia.org it is an Indonesian style steamed rice) to make the food even more tasty. The sambal sauce is made not so spicy, so that for those who can’t take the hot spice can enjoy eating the food. The food also have extra kerupuk (something like crackers) which make the food complete.

Beside this dish, the stall also have another menu, that is roast chicken with rica — rica flavour. It has a different taste from the rujak flavour because it is sweet. You can try this one if you donrsquo;t like the rujak flavour spice. I can say the food is quite nice so why not go and try it yourself? :P

The place is located at the rear part of DC Mall. It has a nice and cozy ambience. It is a must try food stall.

Okay, enough talking. It’s time to indulge the food. :) Stone said, "The rujak sauce smell really good, and the chicken cooked well because the meat is tender." That is all today. Thank you.

My Mie, an eating house that specially sells hand-made noodles, which is located in Nagoya, precisely at the corner of Nagoya Permai residential complex (opposite to Windsor complex). It is not hard at all to locate it as the building is very eye-catching in design and color, you will even recognize it at first glance when you drive by.

Its interior design is kind of simple yet you can clearly see their creativity as it is all shown in the decoration. It isn’t easy to find an eating house around Nagoya that considers design as an important aspect, therefore it is also one of their uniqueness. Besides that, My Mie also provides air-conditioned rooms wherein it is hard to get this facility in this kind of eating house. This facility offers an extra choice to customers who want a different eating atmosphere.

My Mie offers a range of choices, from My Mie (noodles), rice vermicelli, fried chicken, fried rice, usual drinks to special concocted drinks and many more. "My Mie Ayam" is their signature dish, it’s a kind of noodles which is very much alike to "mee pok" (a kind of Chinese noodles) but smaller in size and rather thin. When served, we need to add some special chili paste to the dried noodles so as to get a more delicious taste. Apart from "My Mie Ayam", My Mie is also served in various forms, like "My Fu Mie Ayam", "My Mie G Ayam"(G stands for Goreng which is literally translated as fried), "My Fu Mie Seafood", "My Mie Bakso", "My Mie Jumbo" and many more. My Mie also has some side dishes for you to choose from, one of them that’s quite unique is "Tahu Isi Kuah". This dish consists of two pieces of bean curd, each one is stuffed with chicken meat. It tastes quite special and the taste of the soup matches well with the stuffed bean curd. It can be a nice option if you want a dessert after your meal.

Furthermore, what caught our attention besides nice ambience and delicious food is the price. The average price of their food is rather economical, not even one of their food items is more than 20.000 Rupiah. This way, My Mie has become one of the eating houses that provides good food at an economical price. We also get another good news from My Mie, that is they are going to open a new branch on the top floor of Nagoya Hill Shopping Mall (around Studio 21 cinema), and for sure, the price will still remain competitive and inexpensive.