Nasi lemak 'komplit' is a complete lunch.Christopher PearceWant to know if you've found a legit Indonesian restaurant? Check the tip jar. Here on this little corner where Strawberry meets Surry Hills,it's a silver dish filled with Australian and Singaporean dollars. I take this as a very good sign.
And on every table,it's either off-duty taxi-drivers still in their uniforms or nearby office workers stopping in for the restaurant's impressive nasi lemak.
Here,it's the"komplit"version – everything you could hope for on one plate,with a side order of blocked arteries,starting with coconut rice and dry,salty little ikan bilis. Those are the tiny crisp fish flavour bombs that you mix up with red peanuts,when ordering a dish of fat rice.
Medan Ciak is a legit Indonesian restaurant.Dominic LorrimerA deep-fried chicken leg,the skin tight against the flesh,falls away from the bone on impact. A perfect dry chicken curry,rich and nutty,sits next to a single boiled egg half,refreshed with rounds of cucumber. It really is a complete lunch.
The char kway teow shimmers with pork fat – the noodles a little paler and less wok-smoky,the sauce not all that tamarind-heavy than the stir-fried noodle dish you might be used to.
But what sets it apart is the fact that pork fat deeply flavours the noodles,giving them a light musky flavour,bolstered by thin slices of fish cake,shreds of omelette and whole prawns,lifted with slices of green onion. Add a little sambal at your own risk/taste.
Like much of the menu,the char kway teow is cooked in pork fat.Christopher Pearce But probably,to get a very decent idea of what this little canteen is all about,look to the mie pangsit medan – an"everything but the kitchen sink"dish combining thin egg noodles,sweet pieces of caramelised pork and bits of pork crackling topped with green onions and a soy sauce-soaked boiled egg.
Off to the side,you'll find a little dish of sambal,raw chilli and raw garlic. And then,the final razzle amongst all that dazzle,a little bowl filled with chicken soup holding a single wonton and a single pearlescent fish cake. It's the dish of funk,spice and push-me-pull-you flavour.
If you've been idly thinking"gee,there's a lot of pork fat on this Indonesian menu – what's going on?",you're not wrong. This is Batak food from Medan,where the population is mostly Christian rather than Muslim.
Go-to dish:Mie pangsit medan.Christopher PearceSo it's a celebration of all things porcine,which seems to mainly come courtesy of a massive hot box at the front of the (otherwise very basic) dining room.
Best of all,nothing here tips over the $14 mark (that's the steamed rice served with barbecue and roast pork),so you can eat here with change from a twenty.
And in a city where a single dumpling can cost more than a week's worth of milk,that's a refreshingly delicious piece of news.