RM Ikan Bakar Alam Indah I

Yesterday, we went to Cibodas with the usual group. Since it was Sunday, we were prepared to face massive traffic jam or such, so we left from home around 8.30 in the morning and arrived in destination at 11.30. After we finished our businesses there, we decided to look for lunch. The last time I went to Puncak area, it was like, 2-3 years ago, so I was surprised to see how much these areas have improved. There are many more hotels, villas, restaurants/cafes now, compared to before. However, we hoped to find something “traditional”, and better yet, if it provides parking space, too. Finally, we stopped by this restaurant for lunch because it was the first decent eating place that we passed by.

The big sign is hard to be missed.

The parking space is big, really convenient. And the restaurant is located upstairs. The stairs head to 2 opposite directions, the left and right wings, but I think it’s basically the same. We chose to be seated on the right wing. From there, we can enjoy the view and fresh wind while eating. The place itself has two different settings, one is the usual square dining table and chairs, and another one is the lesehan setting. Then they played Indonesian traditional instrumental music, I totally love the atmosphere of this place!

So, we proceeded to order our food. Since we were in this kind of place, what’s better than some grilled fishes? My first order was the mango fish (ikan Nila), which weighed about 0.5 kilograms/portion. They have a lot of choices too, from gurame, catfish (ikan lele), shark catfish (ikan patin), etc. It was actually good, they gave us like 3 small fishes on the tray. The meat wasn’t much, but it was so tender and very easy to eat.

Grilled Mango Fish – IDR 30.000 (0.5 kg)

Next one was the grilled chicken, what I like about traditional restaurants is, usually they still use charcoal and fan to grill everything. So there will be something unique about the color and smell, not mentioning the flavor. For a portion, we got 6 parts of chicken, which was not bad at all.

Grilled Chicken – IDR 30.000

Reading the menu, we decided to add one more grilled meat, which was the chicken satay 🙂 And boy, wasn’t that a great decision! The chicken satay easily won my vote to be my favorite. The chicken meat was chewy, crispy in some parts, and I totally loooveee the peanut sauce. It didn’t look too good at first, which I thought as being too watery, but it tasted good. And the chicken tasted even better when I dipped it in the sauce, even without sweet soy sauce like we usually put when eating satay.

Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce – IDR 25.000

Kangkung Cah Sapi– IDR 20.000

I guess there is nothing I can write about the water spinach as it tasted just like usual. The other vegetable that we ordered was Pencok Kacang, which I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s a food that is most familiar with Sundanese, actually tasted so weird. Someone told me this is like karedok, but it is NOT. This food’s ingredients are raw vegetables, which are long beans cut into small pieces, and mixed with chili peppers, shallots, etc. I was puzzled of how I should comment after I tried it, but let’s say, imagine yourself picking leaves from a tree and eat them on the spot. Or simply imagine eating grass. Yep, that was my feeling, it was just yuck.

Pencok Kacang – IDR 12.000

Fried Toufu – IDR 6.000

These are the chili paste and cuts that were given freely 🙂

For the drinks, I ordered the marquisa squash, which is quite popular in Indonesian restaurants. Honestly, I couldn’t recall when the last time I saw this drink on a menu list, because it seems that most all the restaurants nowadays don’t really serve this drink anymore. But maybe I am just wrong. Anyway, the squash was sweet and sour, but very refreshing because it was mixed with soda water. The other drink that we ordered was bandrek, a traditional Sundanese hot drink, made of ginger, lemongrass, palm sugar, cinnamon, and sometimes chili. I tried it a lot of times before, but my favorite would be the one I drank in the highland in Sukabumi, because it tasted even better when the weather was so cold.