Jogja food is sweet, but Madurese food is Sedap!

 

Palmer 'gave' me a mission yesterday: to find interesting food to try in Malang.  Now that I think about it, all of our culinary adventure is basically Palmer's obsession, while I'm the one who nods and shakes with his ideas.  Now that he's doing his old musical journey in Lumajang, I'm alone in Malang and it is me who's in charge of trying East Javanese food. 

This morning after doing Zumba I was in my original mission to hunt for Nasi Punel; a type of sticky rice from Bangil city in Pasuruan.  A stall is listed on google maps, so I drove down there, but unfortunately the place is closed, or possibly nonexistent.  Since I was quite tired from the zumba, I decided to loop back and on the way home, I saw a small stall with a sign read 'Nasi Bhuk Madura'.  At first I kept going, thinking I should be able to find Nasi Bhuk at other places.  Then I stopped, because I'm too lazy to search more places on google maps.

I asked the lady what kind of options I have: Nasi with empal (beef chunks that are slowly cooked then smashed), with jeroan (medley of beef innards, yum), or ayam goreng (deep fried chicken).  Jeroan is out of the list, of course, and ayam seems boring, so I went with empal. 

The lady seemed to know that I never had Nasi Bhuk before, so she asked where I'm from.  When I said that I'm from Jogja, she said, "Jogja food is sweet, ..... while Madurese food is delicious!" - I get it.  I know, I'm not that proud with my hometown culinary heritage as well, lady.

One interesting thing I ate from this plate is peyek kelapa; a sort of coconut chip that's a little bit sweet and savory.  The texture is surprisingly crispy, but soft.  It's so good, but I think I won't find it again.