What We Cook Today : Nasi Lengko (Lengko Rice)

When you are far-far away from your country, one think for sure, you'll miss the cuisine of your country. Maybe for those who came from world-wide-well-known-food country such as china (does anyone here haven't heard about chinese food?) , United States (KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut etc) , Italia (Pizza, Spaghetti, etc) India (Curry etc) and others won't feel that desperate as i am. I come from Indonesia, of course we have a lot of delicious food in my country, but there's not many place overseas put Indonesian food on their menu book.

Let say Malaysia, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Hongkong, and Australia are list of countries that sold or had Indonesia food there. Why ? Because a lot of Indonesian people there, for example in Hongkong, many household servant and store keeper are from Indonesia, and in Austaralia many student from Indonesia studied there. But here, in China, especially in Qingdao, there's not many Indonesian people lives here, and most of them (including me) are students, so we don't have enough money to run a restaurant business here.

Back to our topic, the one and only way to cure you from homesick-in-national-food is cooking by yourself. In my case, i really missed my hometown (i came from Cirebon, a city in West Java Province, Indonesia) cuisine called Nasi Lengko or Lengko Rice. The explanation about Lengko Rice was taken from Wikipedia :

"Sega Lengko (Nasi lengko in Indonesian, Lengko rice in English) is a typical cirebonese dish in Cirebon, Indramayu, Brebes, Tegal and surrounding areas.

The ingredients are white rice (better hot), fried tempeh, fried tofu, cucumbers (fresh raw, chopped), bean sprouts (boiled), leaves of chives (cut into small pieces), fried onions, peanut sauce (such as salad seasoning, spicy or not, depending on taste), and a thin soy sauce poured over the top.

Fried tempeh and tofu are cut into small pieces and placed on a plate of rice. Chopped cucumber is sprinkled on top. Well-cooked bean sprouts and peanut sauce are poured over it, with pieces of spring onion leaves. After this it is given a taste of soy sauce until browned, and sprinkled with fried onions. Aci crackers and a piece of white, round or square kondimennya. Kerupuknya smeared with ketchup is a popular appetizer.

This food is usually served with 5 or 10 satay in another dish."

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_lengko

This is the visualization of Nasi lengko

 

So, me and my girlfriend are planning to make our own way Nasi Lengko. We are trying to make it as close as possible in taste compare the "real" Nasi Lengko in Cirebon. Anyway, my girlfriend also came from Cirebon, therefor we know exactly how does it taste because we already ate Nasi Lengko since we were child.
In china, you will hard to find specific ingredient like :

TEMPE :
this one is raw                                               this one is fried
 
taste almost same with tofu (they all made from soybean), but tempe need to be fermented first.


KECAP (Sweet Soy Sauce) :

in China, i can't find sweet soy sauce, they only have soy sauce and it taste salty. Fortunately i bring a lot of sweet soy sauce from Indonesia :)

FRIED ONION (Red Onion) :

This one is raw.                                                  This one is fried.
         
in China, i can't find red onion just like in Indonesia, so this one was replaced by fried white onion (maybe some of you more familiar with garlic, as shown picture below)

    



 *
**

Finally, after dealing with all constraint, our own version of Nasi Lengko was served.
I'll show you our dish :

It taste very similar..

It cure some part of my homesickness..

Every single bite remind me of my childhood (hyperbole hehe)..

Thanks Selly Kartika :)

Jason's Supermarket : A Brief Observation

I want to share my presentation about Jason's Supermarket. One day on may 2013, when i was working for PT. Mandom Indonesia Tbk, my boss gave me an assignment to observe the new supermarket named Jason's. He told me to go there and doing market visit, find out the layout, concept, segmentation and our product positioning there. So, i went to Jason's Residence 8, and enjoy the slides !

 

 

As i know, it's hard to find Jasons data, because it's not big 5 supermarket in Indonesia and relatively new brand. I think this one can help you guys know the store ambiance and real situation , not only based on Internet and google.

Don't use this for your commercial purposes, and respect the copyright , xiexie :D !

QINGDAO TOURISM SPOT : Qingdao City Art Museum

Berhubung lagi liburan "National Day" di China selama 1 minggu, gw sama Selly (pacar,red) merencanakan jalan-jalan ke kampus Ocean University of China yang di Yushan sekalian main ke Lab nya Selly. Dari dorm, kami harus jalan ke depan kampus untuk naik bis umum, nomer bis nya 321, ini bis yang gak pernah sepi karena rutenya melewati daerah pusat kota dan stasiun kereta api. Penampakan bisnya kurang lebih seperti gambar dibawah ini, hanya nomor dan tipe bis nya saja yang berbeda, yang dibawah merupakan bis listrik di Qingdao.

Setelah menunggu kurang lebih 7 menitan, datanglah bis yang ditunggu-tunggu, tarif bis untuk yang tidak ada AC nya adalah 1 yuan - 2 yuan (1 yuan = Rp 1900) , sedangkan untuk yang AC , flat 2 yuan.

Sesuai dugaan kami sebelumnya, tidak ada tempat duduk tersisa, jadi terpaksa kami harus berdiri.

Waktu yang ditempuh untuk ke Yushan dari dorm di Fushan kira-kira 45 menit. Setelah sampai, kami masih harus jalan ke kampus kurang lebih 15 menitan (di China, kalian harus biasa jalan kaki, 30 menit jalan kaki = not so far).

Sebelum sampai gerbang kampus, kami pasti melalui sebuah museum seni, dari dulu mau kesini sih, tapi gak pernah jadi.. akhirnya, entah ada setan apa, hari itu kami masuk ke dalam museum tersebut. GOOD NEWS, its free, hehe .. keadaan perekonomian sedang diguncang resesi soalnya :D

Seni, khususnya lukisan, jujur saja gak begitu menarik untuk kaum muda nan ganteng macam gw, tapi karena ini gratis, gak ada salahnya dicoba masuk dan, gw jadi excited untuk melihat seni lukis.

Mungkin ini yang harus dilakukan pemerintah Indonesia untuk menumbuhkan gairah seni dan kecintaanya pada sejarah-sejarah Indonesia,GRATISKAN!

Anyway, museum tersebut dibagi-bagi ke dalam beberapa Hall, seperti Roman Hall, Main Hall dan Muslim Hall, see Map below :

Hall pertama yang kami kunjungi adalah Roman Hall, letaknya disebelah kiri dari gerbang utama.

Bentuk bangunan hall ini memang seperti bangunan tua eropa, terdiri dari 3 lantai, gw akan share sebanyak mungkin foto, biar foto yang berbicara hehe.. (malas ngetik,red).

                             

Ini penampakan Roman Hall, di tengahnya terdapat Big Banner.
Foto-foto berikutnya bakalan banyak nampilin foto gw dan selly, so don't expect too much that i will show you the painting only hehe .. this is  my blog, my rule, get used to it :p

Lukisan-lukisan favorite gw disini adalah :

My Quote : "mudah dipahami dan indah.." (sambil dijitak selly)

 My Quote : "saya paham maksud pelukisnya apa.." (kali ini dicubit sama selly)

Karakter lukisan ini kuat, lo kayak bisa ngebaca perasaan dari mukanya. Tapi tetep, perempuan yang disebelah lukisan cewe itu lebih indah dibandingkan dengan lukisan manapun :*

This one is awesome! Lo kayak ngeliat layar TV, so real, and so live.

 Keren ye fotonya ? siapa dulu yang motoin nya hehe !

 

Kalau ini dua favorite nya si pacar, dia lamaa banget liat lukisan ini, gw sih curiganya dia mencoba memahami  maksud lukisanya tapi GAGAL hhehe .. atau , cuma biar berkesan ngerti seni , makanya lama ngeliatin lukisanya :D

MAIN HALL

Puas foto-foto di Roman Hall, kami pun pergi ke Main Hall, mostly mereka cuma nyajiin lukisan kaligrafi china, gw share foto-foto bangunanya aja, soalnya lebih bagus dan menarik, and no much to tell in this Main Hall except the beauty of the landmark. Enjoy!

MUSLIM HALL :

Nothing to tell you because the Hall was close, so i'll show you the building only, with me inside of course hehe ..

CONCLUSION :

• China is a beautiful country, especially in Qingdao, it has a lot of tourism spot such as beach, museum, old historical building, Landmark etc. Some of them was free of charge, so if you are describe as not-so-rich-student-who-lived-based-on-scholarship-money-only just like me, Qingdao offer you anything!
• The transportation system is supporting us to reach every single place in Qingdao and it's relatively cheap and also relatively comfortable compare to my country (Indonesia).
• This art museum offer you experienced and even though it's free, but it's not a cheapy museum, you can gain a lot of knowledge from here.
• I, personally highly recommended this place to everyone who wants to fulfill their desires about painting, architecture, and have minimum budget :p
• Warm greeting from us, and Enjoy Qingdao !