Roadside stalls are something that always interest me when I’m on trips. When I’m checked into a hotel, it’s not the bed or the bathtub that I’ll be eager checking out but those sporadic roadside food stalls located near or opposite the hotel I’m staying.

I don’t know why but food from roadside food stalls always seems to be more authentic than say a stall at the foodcourt to me. Ok I know food cooked under those conditions are usually not as hygienic as compared to a proper food stall, like usually they’ll recycle the water again and again or the chairs and tables are placed beside the smelly drains which might have dead rats and all but really can anyone tell me why most of the time food sold under these conditions are sheer heaven?

For me one of those things I really enjoy doing when I’m in a foreign land is to eat food that what the locals eat. I mean it’s like if you were to go to say Thailand then you must try the real Tom Yum and of course the real ones are usually not found in a fanciful restaurant, agree? It’s just like if a foreign friend wants to taste the real Char Kway Teow in Singapore, would you bring him to Tung Lok or Crystal Jade?

It’s for this reason that normally I don’t like to join guided tours because more often than not, you’ll find that the arranged meals are in some kind of restaurant serving unauthentic Chinese food even if you’re touring India!

Ok now put the wait-you-get-diarrhoea kind of theory aside, it’s really these exciting and adventurous experiences that I live for when I’m on trips and my mission will be to secure the ‘once in a long long time’ opportunity to try the really really authentic local food.

We were at Bandung to see the Mount Tangkuban Perahu which is an active volcano. Now the last thing we want is to spend more than necessary time to be so near to an active volcano so during the ONLY NIGHT we spent there, I die die must take the opportunity to check out the roadside food stalls.

Though Bandung is only about 120km away from Jakarta, I can already see the distinct differences in the roadside food that’s been sold. Here clearly the chicken are better fed and the fried chicken looked a lot more tastier than those ‘chicken bones’ I had so far in my trip.

Fried Chicken: 8/10  

It cost only Rp3500(SGD$0.50) per piece and after trying a piece, I really wonder whether did the old man at the stall used to work for KFC. The taste was uncannily similiar to the KFC crispy chicken.

The next on the cards were satays. In my opinion, Indonesian satays always gives more value for money because they are much bigger. Being bigger they’re usually also much more juicier because while the outside get charred, the inside can still have enough volumn to hold the juices while ours in Singapore are usually either a little too dry or a little too uncooked.

Road side satay stall in Bandung

I have only ever tried eating Indonesian satays in restaurants. I’m not sure if it’s a luxury food to them but even in Jakarta I hardly see any satay stalls by the road. So this stall that I saw undoubtedly became a gem in my eyes and I couldn’t resist making myself taking a seat there.

Satay grilling

And later as I were to observe, this should be quite a famous roadside satay stall because while seating and watching him grilling the satays, there must had been like 10 customers came by to order in just around 10mins. 1 customer a minute is quite a feat for any kind of food stall, agree?

Satay: 8/10  

The satays here were extraordinarily grilled. It had that fantastic sweet fragrance permeating through every inch of the meat. The gravy once again were put onto the satay and then topped with some sweet soy sauce(again!). Well I definitely didn’t like this way of serving because I had to lick the satay clean to actually taste the real flavour of the meat.

For Rp600(SGD$0.08) each, I think there can be no complains for any quality but yet this can really put many of those satay stalls at Lau Pat Sat to shame.

Butterfly Bread aka Hum Ji Peng: 8/10  

This is what we called Butterfly Bun in Singapore though this came without the sesame seeds and of course it didn’t looked like a butterfly here, but nonetheless was quite good. That’s all that attracted us on that road and if you wonder why we had so little food here, it’s because it’s dinner time and we were to head to some great place for dinner nearby.

Price: SGD$0.08 to $0.50

Recommendation: Satay

Conclusion: These are food you can find in Singapore easily but not with the kind of authentic flavour. Fueled by the extraordinary low prices, I think it’s hard to find food of equal value.

Likes: Satay

Dislikes: Nothing.

Address		Overall Rating
Roadside stalls in Bandung		Food: 8/10   Value: 10/10   Service: 7/10   Ambience: 5/10   Cleanliness: 5/10   Overall: 7/10