So, my sister said the way I did my Transportation in Medan post was very abrupt. She said I should have published a post before publishing that transportation post so that people knew what I was talking about. See..? The joys of having a storyteller journalist sister :)
OK, so I went to Medan, Sumatera on July 30th for a work-related mission, and that mission is obviously not bloggable stuff. We spent a few days working, traveling from a place to another place a few hours away, and before we knew it, work was done! And we had an extra 4 days before our scheduled flight back to Malaysia. So we quickly planned a cheap getaway to Lake Toba and the Gunung Leuser National Park so that we had something to do in those 4 days. Plus, there wasn’t really a lot to do in Medan.
Food in Medan is pretty much like food in Malaysia. They had the ayam goreng, ayam gulai, ikan gulai, etc. But unlike in Malaysia, the dishes were served in saucers and placed on the table. At the end of the meal, we only paid for whatever we had eaten. In Malaysia, you pick whatever you want to eat, and you either place the food in saucers or on your plate of rice. And in Medan, you don’t get a lot of vegetables. I’m not very much a vege fan myself, but I found myself not eating any vege at all because all they served was cucumber. And eggplant. ARGHHH…
Lontong in Medan was pretty much like lontong in Malaysia.
And nasi lemak in Medan was also very much like nasi lemak in Malaysia, except that the rice wasn’t as fragrant :)
We also had the opportunity to try their ayam penyet, which, unfortunately, wasn’t penyet (flattened), LOL. Ayam penyet was actually fried chicken, and if you ordered ayam penyet komplit (complete flattened chicken, LOL), the fried chicken would come with 2 pieces of taufu (beancurd) and terung (eggplant).
In Samosir Island on Lake Toba, we had a homemade pizza with slices of pineapples and chicken as topping, and it was gooood. And considering it was from a small Batak local community, the pizza was fantastic.
I also had this banana pancake for breakfast one morning in Lake Toba. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but it tasted great nonetheless :)
At the Gunung Leuser National Park, we spent a night at the EcoLodge Cottages, and our complimentary breakfast consisted of an American breakfast, with our choice of coffee or tea. Even the breakfast looked great :)
You may view the rest of the pictures (and some video clips) here: Sumatera, Indonesia 2009.
Pizza has invaded the world.
You make my mouth water with those delicious photographs!
The banana pancake looks creative, banana on top of the pancake…haha
Feel like want to taste it :D
The sliced bananas were actually inside the pancake. I opened it up so that you can see that there were sliced bananas in the pancake. Oh yes, it was delicious :)
Ohhh…I am hungry now when visiting your reply. Don’t think we can get any banana pancake here :p
I’d love to try the pizza and banana pancake. They look delicious. BTW, at one glance, the margarine looks like your extra egg yolk. muahaha… (=
Don’t know why but I was instantly attracted to the star-spangled fork on the second picture. And also the mini-dome-butter. LOL.
The food there looked great (esp the pizza)! And I saw ayam penyet being sold in Sunway Pyramid too but didn’t manage try it out. Could have compared ‘notes’ to see if they are made the same way :)
And you know what? I didn’t even notice the star-spangled fork! LOL.
LOL! Goes to show that we are both wired differently in our visual senses :D
A very nice presentation and review of Indonesian cuisine. I remember going there last may. I loved the food too! It’s not similar to the Philippines’ cuisines but it really was a tastebud adventure.
Very tantalizing and mouth watering pictures. Ooh, the banana pancake looks absolutely scrumptious.
Thanks for getting my taste buds going!
Yes, the food in Medan looks much more attractive than transport. After your article, I wanted to eat…..:-)
Wow, it all looks so good! Makes what I eat seem really boring in comparison, although I do eat Pizza with pineapples fairly often :)
Wow! Reading this post and seeing those pictures above make me crave for food! I’m on a diet and this post is not helping me… hehehe…. I’ve been to Malaysia but I haven’t seen/tried those food there. :(