I met up with Carol for lunch at Bali Nusa Indah Bali Nusa Indah, where we got the window seat, looking onto the not so sexy Ninth Avenue. We were both excited, since Indonesian food is still a rarity. I have very little experience with the cuisine, but Carol took a course on Indonesian cooking, so she guided me through. Finally narrowing it down to three lunch specials for the two of us, we were ready with forks.

We started with a wonderful chicken soup (part of lunch special), a nice traditional broth with bean sprouts, and the aromatic fried shallots. The cellophane noodles were perfect, added to serve, instead of sitting there getting mushy.

chicken soup

You can see that the Gado Gado Salad (also part of lunch special) was severely over-dressed, but it was very flavorful, rich with coconut, peanuts, and lemon grass.

gado gado

When the main dishes arrived, we were a bit surprised at the small portions, and now relieved that we had ordered for three. The Chicken Curry was pretty nice and tender for white meat, had a decent coconut curry flavor, but not interesting enough to take seconds.

chicken curry

The Sambal Goreng Udang Buncis (shrimp and string bean in chili sauce) was disappointingly not spicy. The creamy coconut flavor was still the predominant flavor which the shrimp did not really take on. The thin tender green beans were better, but again, forgettable.

shrimp sambal

The Nasi Goreng with Beef was a tad more interesting, or different. The dry-ish but flavorful shreds of beef reminded me of pork floss.

nasi goreng

Overall, the main course lacked appeal, but I did like the spring rolls. They were standards skins, with a filling very similar to the Vietnamese Cha Gio. At these prices (lunch specials range from $7-$9), I can’t complain. It was decent.

posted by jessica at 05:56 PM Filed under Asian, Restaurants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.