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FOOD | Dec 22, 2009

As Sun Sets, Solo’s Street Food Starts To Shine

Travelers with a penchant for street food should visit Solo at least once to experience the city’s unrivaled culinary pleasures.

This sensuous urban sprawl in Central Java has long been known as a center of Javanese culture, where traditional practices are still very much alive and not solely preserved by the royal family alone. But Solo is no less popular for its fascinating food dishes than for its Javanese art.

The city seems to house countless purveyors of food waiting to be discovered at any time of day. But it is the evenings that Solo’s food scene truly comes alive.

As night engulfs the city, its upmarket eateries, which number only in the dozens, must take a backseat, at least occupancy-wise, to Solo’s street food stalls.

They find it pointless to compete with the throng of food hawkers that open shop and take center stage at every exposed corner, on virtually every empty piece of sidewalk.

It doesn’t matter if you’re exploring the quaint downtown or immersing yourself in kampung life on the city’s outskirts, these street food vendors are guaranteed to be within walking distance from wherever you’re at.

Ranging from smaller eateries that can seat only three people at a time, to those with enough space to accommodate a crowd of 50, these roadside eateries are lumped together in a category simply and affectionately dubbed “HIK” — an acronym for Hidangan Istimewa Kampung, which roughly translates as special delicacies from the rural area.

A note of caution: These “special” delicacies are far from anyone’s fancy ideas about sophisticated food.

Here to be savored is a hodgepodge of delicious, though cholesterol-rich, foods.

These include the terribly popular chicken intestines and gizzard on skewers, tofu and tempe (soybean cake), hard-boiled quail eggs in sweet soy sauce, fried potato cakes and a variety of fritters and rolls.

All this is usually enjoyed with prewrapped steamed rice, filled with a morsel of salted bandeng (milk fish) or teri (anchovies).

The rice is oddly known as nasi kucing (literally, cat rice), a moniker that offers a clue about the portion size.

“Why the name? Just look at the size, it’s pretty self-explanatory,” says one man waiting on customers at HIK Mbah Ribut on Jalan Jagalan.

No bigger than a kid’s palm, nasi kucing is indeed “a foodstuff more fitting for cats than for humans. Single servings, therefore, are hardly satisfying,” he says.

For the residents of Solo, however, HIKs are not just places where you eat, pay and leave. They serve a much more social place for the people of the city.

Young and old flock to HIKs and chatter through the night in the low light from tiny tungsten bulbs or kerosene lamps, braving the mosquitoes to catch up with old acquaintances and make new friends.

For the residents of Solo, HIKs are the ultimate place where they can socialize. Metaphorically, HIKs constitute the bulging underbelly of the city, where one can stay up late to engage in lively discussions.

Nowhere else can the voice of society, particularly the lower classes, be heard more clearly — and outrightly — than at any of these HIKs, whose patrons show almost no restraint in spilling out their diverse perspectives on recent issues.

Conversations cover everything from the conduct of celebrities to the more serious topics of the latest political and business happenings in the country.

Nothing, in fact, seems to escape comment during these late-night talk sessions over plates of street food.

“Depending on the day, the month or the season, you can find us talking about the floods, this afternoon’s motorbike theft or some rotten government official,” says Rahman, a bookish student who frequents the HIKs near the Universitas Negeri Surakarta campus.

What keeps these “forum members” wide awake all night long, aside from the endless chatter, is sweet, hot coffee, or wedang jahe (ginger-based beverage), served by the glass. Of all the eateries that have mushroomed in Solo, at least four are worthy of note.

HIK Pak Kumis in the Manahan area, close to the city’s stadium, is famous among the more genteel members of society. Many of the patrons also claim that Pak Kumis serves the best pisang owe l (flamed banana topped with cheddar cheese and condensed sweet milk) in town.

Minutes away on Jalan Adisucipto, HIK Pak Gerok prides itself on its grilled quail and a slightly larger portions of warm nasi kucing. Enjoy the meal while it’s warm, and don’t hesitate to ask them to re-grill or re-fry any dishes that happen to go cold over the course of the conversation.

To try the most potent and aromatic wedang jahe and lemongrass drink, head to HIK Mbah Ribut. You might as well get your hands on some sate bekicot (snail meat satay), another local favorite, while you’re at it.

HIK Pak Di, a much smaller stall on Jalan Widuran, is the place to go for pork satay, which is available at an unbelievably low price.

The history of the HIKs in Solo dates back to an era when the country had just gained independence.

It has been generally established by the locals — at least those who have lived long enough to tell the tale — that a certain Mbah Pairo from Klaten, then a minor village along the Yogyakarta-Solo road, circa the 1950s was the person who first took up a wooden yoke loaded with a sundry of edibles on his shoulders, and peddled them in front of Yogyakarta’s Tugu train station, among other locations.

In doing so, Mbah Pairo single-handedly but unwittingly originated the concept of angkringan (food stall) , which is now ubiquitous not only in its place of origin in Solo and Yogyakarta, but is also widespread on the neighboring islands. So popular is this kind of eatery that it’s impossible to divorce Yogyakarta from its hundreds of angkringan venues, or Solo from its raucous HIKs.

These roadside vendors have also, over the decades, firmly fixed in the public’s imagination the image of “cheap, tasty foods” for which both cities are today rightly famous.

One only needs to ask any travel foodie who’s well-versed in the Indonesian culinary scene where to go for great dishes with low prices. It won’t be surprising if they’ll point to Central Java without having to think about it for too long.

Solo of late has been busy building its image on the Indonesian tourism map.

From holding large-scale events like the annual Solo Batik Carnival or the less ambitious Solo Jazz Festival, to promoting its timeless gamelan and wayang heritage, such undertakings have so far proved successful.

After all, these cultural activities topped with a fantastic night food scene, can only mean that Solo is on its way toward becoming a major contender as the region’s top destination.

Source: Jakarta Globe

Indonesian Lifestyle 2008