My Trip to Malang #3 (Contributed by Ruben Juliarto)

This current publication is contributed by Ruben, one of our close friend at SBM-ITB. This is the third part of his trip to Malang. Enjoy!

Baso Bakar

Sunday, I had to return home from Malang. The time to leave was three o'clock afternoon so I could walk around Malang before the train leaves. The plan for that day was to visit Pecel Kawi and Baso Bakar.

Pecel Kawi place is located at Kawi Road, not far from Ijen Boulevard. Ijen Boulevard was the widest road at Malang, has two opposite-direction lanes, and also provides two wide pedestrian lanes where you can stroll around looking for Old Dutch house. I always thought that there is nothing more relaxing than strolling around at morning times.

Returning to our pecel (mixed vegetable with peanut sauce) trip story, we find that the place is simple as how warung tegal look. The waitresses are Ibu-Ibu, who is ready to help you preparing a pecel breakfast. One portion of pecel with rempeyek (peanut-based snack) costs around Rp 6.000. If I can describe it as short and simple, rempeyek is crunchy food, made from peanuts plus flour, and fried. You can also order Kopi Susu (coffee milk) to go along with it. There are many variation of pecel that I know, and this pecel with papaya leaves usually tasted a little bit bitter.

In case you come to Malang, it is fun to come to Pecel Kawi and try the delicious food there. The people, who come here varies, from low to middle to high rich class people. You should easily meet up new people there.

Next for lunch before we leave for Bandung is meat ball or Baso. Yup, I love meatball, and when I wrote up this story, immediately I want to go back there to order grilled meatball. One bowl of grilled meatball cost Rp 7.500 and you get five delicious meatballs. The colour was dark brown. I thought the meatballs was covered by kecap (soybean ketchup) then grilled. Those baso were taste sweet and very savory. After one bowl of baso bakar (grilled meatballs), still I felt hungry so I ordered one bowl noodle. The noodle was great with ayam suir (shredded chicken meat) at the top.

You will not find this baso bakar at other places than Malang, because the welcome greeting is written "Basone KERA NGALAM" which if the capitalized word are read backwards means: Basone Arek Malang (The meatballs are only owned by Malang people)