Friday, March 7, 2008

The Best "Soto Ayam"

Meet "Soto", a type of Indonesian (usually) chicken soup. There are many types of Soto, depending on the part of the country you're coming from, but usually contains chicken, hard boiled eggs, vermicelli, and some veggies. The most famous of these are probably "Soto ayam" or chicken soto, and the best soto ayam is undoubtedly Soto Ambengan.

In Surabaya, the best one is Soto Ambengan Pak Sadi Asli ("Asli" means original, or real, Pak Sadi being the name of the person who originally made the soto). You have a choice between chicken meat, chicken skin, eggs or no eggs, and various other parts of the chicken to put in your soup.
The soup is yellow from the turmeric in it, and most people put lots and lots of the peanut/koya toppings on top, making the soup richer. The multiple herbs and spices make the soup very flavorful and memorable. Now Pak Sadi has various locations around town, but the best one is still the original location on Jl. Ambengan (I'll find the complete address later, but really, if you hop on the cab and say "Soto Ambengan Pak Sadi" on "Jalan Ambengan" they should all know how to get there).

These pictures are taken at a mall food court location. (I had gone to the mall shortly after arriving and I didn't really want to eat anything else at the mall, so Soto it was). Not as good as the original, but still better than most other mall options.

I had a traditional Indonesian drink, "Es Dawet" also known as "Es Cendol" to go with it.
The green stuff is made of flour, basically, and the thickness of the liquid comes from coconut milk.

Rich and sweet.

No comments: