Linkafe, Tunjungan Plaza 2, Surabaya, Indonesia - my name is Food.

Linkafe, Tunjungan Plaza 2, Surabaya, Indonesia

February 23, 2014

May I start this review by saying that the next couple of reviews would be dishes from South East Asia which I have just travelled to during my summer holidays.. I will keep reviewing on the many Brisbane restaurants that I have not yet posted, but there will be a few non-Aussie restaurants posts coming.. My summer holiday trip included a trip from Bne-Bali, Bali-Surabaya, Surabaya-Jogja, Jogja-Solo, Solo-Jogja, Jogja-Surabaya, Surabaya-Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur-Surabaya, Surabaya-Bali, Bali-Surabaya, Surabaya-Jakarta, Jakarta-Singapore, Singapore-Jakarta, Jakarta-Surabaya, Surabaya-Bali, Bali-Bne.. Kinda just travelled the same places over and over again.. and so here I am back in Brissie, on the very last weekend before I go back to my uni life, where all I will do other than studying will be of course, "eating"..

Linkafe is a somewhat traditional Indonesian restaurant that has always been the place where I would have to go to when I go back to Indonesia for the summer hols.. It offers a wide range of Indonesian dishes, may it be rice dishes or noodle dishes or even just traditional iced desserts or some nibbles here and there.. Located in one of the largest shopping malls in Surabaya, it is on the Tunjungan Plaza 2 area on their top floor..

Started off with our drinks which we ordered 'Teh Tawar Hangat' which is Warm/Hot Tea without sugar, and also 'Es Kelapa Muda' which is Iced Young Coconut.. If you're wondering that the little green liquid is in that shot glass lookalike, it's sugar.. They usually give it to you like that if you tell them to seperate the sugar (which you can then control how sweet your drink is..).. For nibbles or for entrees or for side dishes, technically, no one really calls it that over here.. You just simply what you wanna order and they will just come out whenever they're ready, unless you tell them specifically what you wanted in order..
'Dadar Jagung' (Rp 22k = around AU$2.2) is basically deep fried corn with special sauce.. Sometimes the english can be abit off in most restaurants.. I've made this dish at home since I found it rather easy to make... Some like it filled with batter while some like it to have more corn in it with less batter.. It is deep fried corn fritters basically, yes.. that's what we call it here.. corn fritters.. But they're crispier than the ones you would get in restaurants here and bigger too...
'Asem Asem Iga' (Rp 43k = around AU$4.3) is ribs, tomato and chilli in a sour soup.. Though the ribs were quite small and broken down into little pieces, it was as soft as you would like your ribs to be.. The tomatoes were roughly chopped, and whole chillies were used but sliced into pieces.. The sourness of the soup comes from 'belimbing wuluh' which is Averrhoa bilimbi (also known as cucumber tree or sorrel or bilimbi).. I'm not too familiar with this fruit but that's what they used apparently.. The sourness was not too strong which allowed the tomato and the ribs to still have its original taste..
'Lontong Cap Gomeh' (Rp29k = AU$2.9) is rice cake served with seasoned chicken, chicken curry, egg in rich yellow curry sauce, bamboo shoot in coconut milk, poya (a mixture of soy and dried shrimp powder), serundeng (grated coconut).. The Indonesian rice cake seems to be my favourite when compared to the other Asian rice cake.. It is a compressed rice cake always wrapped in banana leaf, in the form of a cylinder.. In presentation, they usually cut it in slices as it is one of what you may call a replacement for rice..
Presentation of this dish may vary according to which restaurant you go to.. However, the toppings you will get are usually the basics and traditional.. What people know this dish to be is usually eaten during the Cap Gomeh celebration which is also know as the Lantern festival.. I've always liked this dish and I would eat it whenever I feel like it.. Just the combination of both the seasoned chicken, chicken curry and the rest of it just makes it yummy.. It might seem as if a whole heap of different dishes or it might not blend well with the other condiments.. But it does, and that's the beauty of it..
Some may eat it bit by bit, tasting it all one by one though sometimes I'd rather just mix it all together and eat it.. The grated coconut and the poya made the dish have that little bit of crunchyness at random times when you eat.. I usually can't finish the whole rice cake that they put in the dish, so I usually leave it behind and just finish off the meats..
One of the most popular Indonesian salad dishes, 'Gado Gado' (Rp24k = AU$2.4) is a combination of boiled vegetables of the day, potato, egg, rice cake, tofu, tempe topped with peanut sauce and mlinjo chips and crackers.. A simple dish but what makes it different is the peanut sauce.. A salad would have its usual baslamic or caesar or just a simple vinaigrette dressing, but this, is one of my favourite salad.. Again, the rice cake was too much for me so I couldn't eat it all..
 The combination of simple ingredients, like a salad would be, but without any meats in it.. All are purely just vegetables.. When you eat this, I do like to mix it all so the peanut sauce thoroughly covers all of the salad, though if you think this amount of sauce may be too much, then you can tell the waiter to lessen the sauce or even seperate it from the dish which will allow you to measure your own sauce with how much you want in your salad.. These vegetables are all boiled, so not fresh fresh like the garden salads we have here.. Even the lettuce are boiled too which gives them that extra softness, no crunch..
I'm not really a big fan of having potatoes in this but I know many do, though the tempe (soybean), boiled veges, egg and of course the mlinjo crackers just hit it off for me.. I prefer prawn crackers more than Mlinjo cracker because it's abit thicker and maybe because of that bittery flavour just doesn't really make me like it as much... Mlinjo crackers are a type of Indonesian chips made of melinjo nuts giving its that little bitterness.. 

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