RARE Indonesian Food YOU'VE NEVER SEEN!

This is called Padang food. It's basically like Indonesian top. Got means mix. I know. I know. Bahasa, man. My man. This is what a mom and pop shop really is like. 33 years and going. Still have about 14 more dishes to go. I don't know, man. I might stop here. The sweet goat. And that's why when you taste a fig cuz it's kind of like fleshy and it's kind of meaty and it's like feels very natural and organic. We should have said slav before we ate, right? Yeah. That's your fault. That's that's the American side of you. My bad. I love Indonesian food, but it's hard to find in New York. So, I link up with my friend Oliver, an Indonesian American working in Jakarta as an actor and host. He's a New York native, and we go to Brooklyn to find a style of Indo food that I have never seen in America, only in Jakarta. So, hit that like button and let's go. [Music] All right, we are in Park Slope, Brooklyn at Java Restaurant. I'm here with Oliver Pros, uh, Indonesian American representative. Man, we got to tell the quick story of why we're even outside of here. Okay, so I'm born and raised in New York City. I had no idea that this restaurant existed. Yeah, you're supposed to know all these things. I know. And there's not many Indonesians here. And the truth is, I saw this restaurant because my buddy Teddy on Instagram covered this and it went viral. And he's from Indonesia. He's from Indonesia. And this food looks like something similar that I ate in Jakarta. So guys, we're about to deep dive. Let's go. All right, everybody. Let's go back in the kitchen real quick. Oh, yeah. Very small. Wow. What do you call this? Okay. Hot grill, guys. This is a very, very small kitchen, but they're making it all happen here. This is what a mom and pop shop really is like. 33 years and going. Oh, thank you. All right, everybody. We're in Park Slow, Brooklyn at one of the most unique Indonesian restaurants in all of New York City. It's been going for 33 years. I'm here with Oliver Pros. Yo, Oliver, what is special about Java Indonesia restaurant? So, Java Indonesia is unlike other Indonesian restaurants in New York, as they serve predominantly Padang food, which is very famous in Indonesia. The thing that sets it apart is when you go to Indonesia and you eat padang, you have a little plates like tapas that you just grab and go. Here, it's served on a hot plate. So, the tapas are going to be hot and fresh. And not only that, guys, we are sitting with the lady herself, Auntie Rufia. Hey, hello. Are you going to join us for this meal? I think yes. Okay. There's going to be tapas flying out. This is actually the most unique salad food that I had. I had this before in Jakarta back in 2017. I've never seen it again in America. I think some other restaurants have tried to serve it, but this restaurant has been serving it for 33 years. So, shout out to Rufia. Okay, the All right, the tapas are flying out. Onto the hot plate. There's a little fire underneath here. As you guys can see, there's a fire going on here. And this is going to keep heating our what? Chicken saté. We have like renong. Not yet. Not yet. This is lamb kingor. This is renang. Okay. Oh, this is beef random. Yeah, your favorite, I think. Indonesia random. She already knows it's my favorite dish. She is my auntie. Thank you. I appreciate. All right. And then you have corn fritters. Corn fritters right here. You have, of course, nasi gorang special fried rice. All right. And then you have your pickled pickled uh fried rice. It's a little bit bl traditional Indonesian soup broth with some rice noodles, eggs, chicken, potatoes. It's good. This is the rice truffle. You have 15 dishes and the the first coming chicken soup sto madura and then the second coming the like gad salad with peanut sauce and then achar pickles and then the appetizer bakwan corn fritters the main course like white rice and then beef sate sate bali sate madura chicken sate bumu bali the cfish kaming gorang the lamb sambal gorang udang the shrimp reang is beef kar ayam chicken curry Sum is the festival. Let's enjoy. All the food here has arrived and this is called Padang food. It's basically like Indonesian tapas. And in Indonesia when I had it, it was not served on a hot plate as they do it here. Like this is this this metal thing is actually very hot if you touch it. But the first thing we have to eat is the sapam. Sapay sat ayam, which is a chicken soup. M. All right. So, this is just the appetizer, guys. There's 15 dishes here. $72. Come here. You've never had Indonesian food like this before. M nice and hearty. Good chicken soup. Mhm. I taste a little bit of like ginger lemongrass in there. I love that. This next dish is got familiar with this dish right here. Look at this. This peanut gate means mix. Mix. I know it. I know. Bahasa. My man. My man. Thank you, Rosetta Stone. M gutter is kind of like a sweet peanut flavor, right? Oh, it's peanut sauce that's drizzled over. It's a peanut sauce salad essentially. Here is the nasi gorang fried rice Indonesian style cracked egg on top. This is mixed in with some spicy sambar. Yep. Some sambbo karasi which is shrimp paste. Yes, particularly the shrimp paste style. Oh my gosh, look at this plate. Look at these big old shrimps here. And yes, this restaurant is halal. That's very good. You can you can taste the the spice, the sambar tarasi. The sambal tarasi is kicking in this one. Mhm. No. See, this is why everybody wants to do it indoor fried rice. At a lot of Chinese restaurants, particularly a lot of like Hong Kong cafes, they'll have something called Indonesian fried rice. Really? Mhm. M. So it's that popular overseas, man. Interesting. Wow. I learned something new. M. Oh, no. This is one of the best fried rices I've had actually like in a long time. You still have about 14 more dishes to go. I don't know, man. I might stop here. Peppery, shrimpy a little bit, but not too shrimpy. Five out of five on the nasi goring, man. Beef sauté. Mhm. Right here. The beef skewers and I believe this is peanut sauce. Yeah. But it has a little bit of sweetness in there. What is that? What is that dark sauce? That's ketchup mandis. That's actually what they use for the nasiang as well. M. Mhm. M. Great char flavor on that beef, though. M. Yo, the peanut sauce is good. Not bad. Not bad at all. This is They're on a hot plate. This is hot right now. What are we going for here? All right, let's let's go. Let's start with the world famous reundang. Rundam. That's just you can't go wrong with that. This one. Yes, that's that one. Yeah. This is cooked with coconut milk. I'm pretty sure like overnight. Yes. This is tender. This is one of my favorite Indonesian dishes of all time is randong. Consistently ranked by CNN and other publications as among the tastiest dishes in the world. Hell yeah. Top three. I mean, they would call me a boule or a blaster. Boule means blaster means kind of mixed mud. But it could mean it could mean like I'm Indonesian mixed with white or it could be like you know I could be mixed like you know I'm anony and and Javanese so that's technically a blast like a mix right so yeah you're going back to Jakarta to film a movie um I can't say that I can't I sound I can't really Wow secrecy I love it chicken curry guys it was kind of good off my hands it tastes or a fork eating off your fingers is tastes better than eating off of like a thing that tastes like metal. If you think about it, you know, and I do think porcelain tastes okay, but there is a taste to everything. Like you can't say you don't taste the spoon. And that's why when you taste a fig cuz it's kind of like fleshy and it's kind of meaty and it's like feels very natural and organic. We used to suck on your thumbs back when you were a kid, right? Sure. We're being so indoor right now. What What is like Indo phrase I could say right now? That would be like a real local. Uh we should have said salam makan before we ate. But uh yeah, that's your fault. That's that's the American side of you. My bad. We did it in the last. Yeah. Yeah. What? Salama makan, right? Uh like what? Milk welcome eating. Yeah, like um Yeah, I know. Yeah, like when the flavors here are really good. Mhm. Let's do a chicken sate. Chicken sate chicken skewers. I wonder if this is this is probably the same sauce as the as the beef, right? Yo, they have a really good char flavor here. I mean, yeah, I like it when it's not too peanuty. You know what I mean? Not too nutty. And this one hits a spot. The chicken is quite tender. Solid. Yeah, Indonesian culture is really not that popular in America. We're oftent times flying under the radar. And growing up, you know, most people assumed I was Filipino or they just kind of which there's nothing wrong with being Filipino even though they are kind of related. We are close in proximity for sure. Bahasa and Tagala, there is some shared uh words there. Sure. But no, not the same. Of course, not the same. And uh it's it's hilarious that no one knew anything about my culture growing up and that's starting to change. Like you and your brother, you know, you guys have expressed many times uh both in your content as well as our private conversations how much you enjoy Indonesian food and culture. In private conversation, by the way, this is the fish. M. What is this? Oh, that actually kills that. That that that marked it. I'm actually going to grab a scoop of Nasi Gorang. I'm getting nasty with it. I don't want to say nasty. I'm just getting real uh getting real open. I'm getting real open with it. Let's go. You thought about it. You're like, I just saw him dig his fingers into it. Oh, dude. To be honest, but it's funny cuz like I've been eating off my finger. So it's essentially like sticking my spoon all over it. Same thing. No. Family style. Mhm. Get close to someone, share food by hand. For sure. I mean, how often do you get that kind of experience even in such a diverse place like New York? How often do you eat with a friend with your hands? I had to come to Brooklyn, you know? I mean, outside of eating like hamburger, right? Here we have uh more beef. Um obviously they don't serve pork here, but all good. Don't need it when you got beef and chicken and fish. No, no, that's not beef. That is goat. Oh, goat. You're right. When it hit the tongue, I was like, "Okay, a little bit more gy, but still good." Great flavor. That's a deep sweet. So, what do you hope uh about Indonesian like culture, I guess? What do you think is has the potential to get um more popular than from Indonesia? There's fritters, by the way. I will say, you know, can't go wrong with food. Food unites cultures of of and differenting people can unite over. This is corn fritters, by the way. I'm actually going to dip it into this sauce. you know. Oh, dip it. Good. Dip it. Mac. Oh, those corn fritters almost got like a almost like a sweet vibe to them a bit cuz the corn wasn't hungry, but then I started eating this food. What are some Indonesian things that can get more popular? Go food. Okay. Um, I want to say even our entertainment, a lot of our entertainment, a lot of our movies are actually penetrating some of the American zeitgeist like it has in the past, like the raid redemption. Mhm. Right. Lots of movies like even like there's this one that was a really big hit all over Netflix. Cigarette girl. Cigarette girl. I got I got to check that out. I think that's what it's called uh in in Indonesia. I believe it's called Kate Gabby. Something like that. Cigarette girl. This prawn was fire. It was a fried prawn and some curry right here. This was This was great. You guys got to get this. This was a huge thing. I almost ate the tail shrimp, right? You almost ate the tail, man. Have you tried the the Let me just eat the tail. Have you tried the tofu that comes with it? No, I didn't actually. I missed the tofu. This is the Chinese influence to eat the tofu. Mhm. We got to talk about also chindos too because that's that's actually most people's uh probably exposure in America often times is like a a chindo, a Chinese Indonesian person, a person, you know, college or whatever. They that's who I met a lot of. Obviously, that is just one small population in in Indonesia, but it is true that they they do a lot of business. A lot of the people from 88 Rising actually are of Chinese Indonesian. Like Nikki and I'm not sure actually. I'm not sure about Nikki, but definitely uh Rich Brian, I think. I think Nikki's part Chinese. I I've heard Rich Brian. No, I've had Padang food late at night before. Oh, yeah, for sure. They're opening late at night. Yeah. Like when I was partying out in Jakarta, it was like 2:00 a.m. and we went to go get Padang food, which is basically Indonesian tapas. Yeah, man. And it's great. It's It's an experience. Like um whether at night or even for brunch, it's an experience. And I can definitely understand how it can be a little bit I guess intimidating for someone who's never had that, right? Because in Indonesia right now, we have about 15 dishes laid out in front of us. But in Jakarta, they can have like 20 to 30 to 40 dishes placed in front of you. If you're not aware of how the system works, you might find yourself asking like, "What do I do? What do I mix? I didn't touch that. Do I pay for that? Like, I only had one portion of this. Do I pay for the whole thing?" A lot of different things to think about, but it's an experience I highly recommend for anyone visiting Indonesia. Hear this crack. Wo! Yeah, the fritter. About to dip this fur in some coconut coconut curry. And Indonesia, man. He a lot of great fans out in Indonesia. Oh, for sure, man. Like, uh, it's funny being a YouTuber like when we first started YouTube, we started getting fans. I started seeing like I was honestly I did not know that much about Indonesia even back until like until really 2014. I didn't really look into it because I didn't meet that many. And then I'd see some fans like commenting and they were like these Asian girls with the hikabs on. Yeah, that he jobs on. And then I was like, "Oh, like what where where are all these people from?" And then I did research. I was like, "Oh, Malaysia, Indonesia." And I was like, "Oh, this is cool." Like, yeah. And they were like, "So, shout out to all of them, you know. I mean, I don't I don't know if some of them are still watching, but Oh, they're definitely watching. You put Indonesia on any tag of your videos, it will blow up." Well, they're they're devoted, but they can also be they can be toxic as well. It sounds like you have some personal experience with that, Oliver. It sounds like you have some trauma you want to share. They're among the countries that use social media the most in the world. Yes. Yes. Them, Philippines. But also, when it comes to bad comments, that's just everybody. I don't think it's necessary Indonesia. I That's just them being humans using the internet. Hate comes from anywhere, you know. And the thing is, I will tell you this, this is just off topic. This has nothing to really do with Indonesia, but people always want to share the worst story about you. They don't want to share the good stories that no one's ever been like, "Yo, I heard this one time Oliver met my friend and he was really nice to him." No one's going to say that. No one's gonna say that. They're all gonna say like, "Yo, this one time I saw Oliver, he was like rude or something. He was weird." And then it's like it was probably true. Yeah. But it's probably like one out of every like 50 interactions you had and the other 49 interactions went perfectly fine. But then that one interaction that was a little bit just awkward. It's the truth though. Like negativity sells, right? Megging sells significantly more than And I really hope I really hope authenticity and actual positive vibes, you know, will move us moving forward in terms of my content. I'm killing the fish. Go for it. Go for it. I know you like it. I'm actually pretty much done, bro. This is We have a fire banger. Five out of five dish. Chicken curry. I'm dipping this in everything. Everything. This kind of feels like one of those old Fun Girls food videos of how much I I'm eating. I usually don't eat this much, but I'm not going to lie, I'm actually very excited about Indonesian food. And that's also to preface. Both of us were not hungry coming in. Yeah, we were not hungry at all. I actually ate a huge cheese steak like literally an hour before you called me. Yeah. Auntie Ruvio, what do we got for dessert? The coconut milk pudding. Coconut milk pudding. All right, Oliver, real quick. What was your What was your top two dishes here of all? It's going to be super super basic, but I love the nasi goring and theang. You cannot go wrong with those two staples. Yeah, man. I loved the nasi goring, the renong, and the cod. And uh the the goat sauce, the goat, the sweet goat, come. Yeah. Fire, fire, fire. Why should people eat more Indonesian food? Uh because Indonesian food. I think they're good. They're good because cuz Rufia thinks it's good. So you better come get it. Like I cannot believe that Indonesia is such a big country and not enough people have had the food. It is so colorful. It's so diverse. It's so flavorful. And I do think Eat it with your hands. A lot of the customer they eat with by hand with like even the boules. Yeah. Boule. Yeah. I mean know a lot of people eat Indian food by hand too. So boule is like far. That mean I said boule of American American people they said boule. Boule. Boule is like the word for American. All right. My favorite dishes today were the nasi gorang the eambal. That's actually a Balines dish from Bali. The kam goren which is the sweet like dark lamb sauce. And then actually the stir fry was really good. Um, and the fritters were great. Coconut pandan pudding. You can see the solo solo cup. What are your thoughts, Oliver? What do you want people to know about Indonesia? Man, say something deep. Growing up here in New York, the most diverse city in the world, experiencing every culture, every culture imaginable, right? And nobody knowing anything about my own culture. And it's lowkey a gigantic country. It's a gigantic. We're fourth largest population. It's the most low-key country. Yeah, honestly like I cannot think of a bigger country that has less of a western impact. Exactly. As far as like uh soft power as far as branding, people the average person knowing what that is, you know, and I'm hoping that that changes in the next couple years either through music, food, entertainment, my own efforts, and a lot of other young Indonesians that will hopefully carry our culture out to the world. You know, I hated being uh never being understood fully for my culture or people saying, "Oh, Indonesia, where is that?" or oh yeah, Bali not even realizing that was an individual. Oliver, it's okay. It's okay that you came from a big country but felt like a little country. Okay, that is that is odd to me because you know China Thai is a huge country but we totally get credit for it. Thailand is a small country by comparison. Their soft power Thailand's soft power is amazing. Yeah, I got to say Myanmar all even Malaysia I think feel like people have a little bit more I think maybe because the British were there. Okay, so here's the thing. The British weren't as heavy in Indonesia as the Dutch were, but the Dutch presence in America, there's like no Dutch. No, there's a lot of longtime Dutch influence in America. Sorry, but not like modern Dutch influence for sure. But all right, guys. Come to Java Restaurant in Park Slow, Brooklyn. Java Indonesian restaurant on 16th Street and 7th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Park Slow, Brooklyn. Come by. Authentic experience. Rufia is going to be here. She'll like talk to you and be nice to you and like treat you like a family member. I'm just gonna say it. Best fried rice I've had in recent memory. You're a Chinese guy who like, you know, we I eat a lot of fried rice. Okay. So, so Indonesia, that's a big W, man. We're taking that. Nazi. Yo, good seeing you in New York. You're doing big things in Jakarta. Keep working hard. Shout out to all the friends out there. Now, see, now I got friends all over the place. Let's do it, man. If you're ever in Jakarta or Bali, you let me know. Oh, I'm coming. I'm coming to Jakarta. All right. Safe flight, bro. Appreciate you, bro. See you. Uh, whoa, wait. Yo yo, let me get the mic. Don't Don't take that to cart, bro. What's up, guys? Just landed here in Bali, Indonesia. Thank you so much for checking out that video. Check out Java Indonesia in Brooklyn and to follow me on Instagram, Oliver Pros, for all Indonesian American content. Thank you so much, Bang Bros. And I'll see you guys in the next video. Peace.