Give and take…

It will be officially declared open tomorrow – the 11th of November, this “authentic Indonesian restaurant“…

…that has outlets in other towns and cities in the country and also in Singapore and Hong Kong, if I am not wrong.

Located here (2.318561,111.832075) in the Sungai Antu vicinity across the road from the RTM building, right next door to this place that I had not been to for a long long time…

…it had its soft opening yesterday, Monday.

I guess everybody knows only too well that I am not really into franchise chains but nonetheless, I have a soft spot for our own ASEAN cuisines and that was why I could not wait to drop by to give it a try. One can opt to sit outside…

…if so desired, or inside…

…but like most, if not all, franchise places, the decor…

…and ambiance aren’t much to shout about and of course, comes nowhere near what they have here.

My missus had their ayam penyet plus rice (RM9.50)…

…which I thought was all right but I do prefer the ayam gurih here that comes with the three different types of very nice sambal dips.

However, I did think that the ayam bakar plus rice (RM10.50)…

…that I had was very nice, very tasty and very tender…

…and especially considering that what we had had at that other place the past few times had been way overdone, rendering the meat hard and dry and quite unpalatable, I would give the thumbs up to this one here and yes, it was nicer than what we had here as well. I would have loved it a lot more though if the chicken had been of the firmer type that my missus would buy home to cook – she would insist that it would be nicer than those that would usually be too soft for our liking (those that would disintegrate far too easily in soups, curries or stews) and I would agree with her on this.

The gado gado (RM6.50)…

…was very nice! The keropok on top tasted great too – nothing like the hopeless bland ones that we may get as one of the sides in those wanna-be western fusion restaurants here and it went absolutely well with the peanut sauce. Frankly, when it was served, I did not think it was going to be all that good, probably yet another disappointment like what we had here and never ever ordered again…but I was pleasantly surprised!

I always felt that our once-called Rojak Kassim is a variation of the Indonesian gado gado but of late, since that old Hj. Kassim moved to Kuching, it has not been easy to find really good ones here and other than that, it has become really expensive – RM3.00 for a little bit of the cucur (fried fritter), cucumber and tofu puff…and you may get a little bit of taugeh (bean sprouts) sometimes. Of course, this is more than double the regular price but there is so much more to enjoy and other than the keropok, the taugeh, cucumber, cabbage, fried tofu and tomato, it even had egg…

…and potatoes in it – things we had and loved a lot in Rojak Kassim a long long long time ago but we have not seen any since in any that we can buy in town these days. I certainly would love to order this again the next time I drop by here.

We also loved their sup tulang (beef bone soup), RM7.50…

…which was very much nicer than what we had here or here. The meat was not exactly fall-off-the-bone but it was tender enough for dear ol’ toothless me to enjoy without having to struggle over it.

This was the chili dip that came with the soup…

…and we did mention to the boss that they could have been a little bit more generous…with this and also the miserably-little bit of sambal by the side that came with the chicken dishes and he assured us that they were waiting for the special tray or something with which they would set up a special place or counter and customers could just go and help themselves, self-service. Now, that would be very nice as I often saw a lot of the three sambals at that other place left untouched and I thought that was such a waste. He also said that there would be chili as well that one could add to the sambal if one likes it a lot spicier – now, that is indeed a splendid idea and we sure are looking forward to that!

As for our drinks that day, I had the sirap Bandung (RM4.00) while my missus had their cincau (RM3.50)…

…and the total in our bill came up to RM41.50.

Yes, I did order a little bit too much for the two of us that day but I wanted to try as much as I could and all things considered, give and take a little here and there, I sure would not mind dropping by again sometime. Perhaps the next time around, we could order one rice to share (RM1.50), one chicken and the gado gado and soup…or perhaps a combination of some other items from their menu…and yes, they did seem to have everything listed unlike that other place where I would always get quite pissed off as they never had the tengirri nor the ox-tail nor the ayam pansoh…and dunno what else they had on theirs. If they never intend to serve those, then they should not have them on their menu – it’s as simple as that!