Indonesia Street Food - YOGYAKARTA'S BEST STREET FOOD GUIDE! CRAZY Halal Food tour in Jogja!!

Welcome to Chopstick Travel. I'm Luke Martin and today, we have another episode from Indonesia. This time, we are in Yogyakarta, a culinary hot spot on the island of Java and in this episode, we are going to be showing you the best street foods around Yogyakarta from morning until night. We are going to cram as much as possible into one episode to show you the ultimate guide to Yogyakarta street food. So, let's go get some breakfast. We are at our first stop and you have to wake up super early to come here. We woke up at about 530 and came straight to this legendary stall. There is a woman set up right on the side of the street named Ma Setnem and she is famous for selling a traditional Yogyakarta snack called lupus and she was made partly famous because of the Netflix street food series visited her and filmed her and you can just see there is a massive crowd of people. It's only about 6 AM and she's just getting things ready. We grabbed a little number. We have number nineteen. So, we're just waiting our turn in line and then we're going to try out the famous lupus. You have to be up bright and early to get your lupus from Ma Setnem. Otherwise, you're running the risk of her selling out. This is a simple dish of only three ingredients and I'm kind of wondering why everyone is waiting in line for so long. When we first arrived, we had number forty but for some reason, there was a woman who had been waiting but she needed to leave and she gave us number nineteen and that shaved off at least an hour of waiting. So, super grateful to her for giving it to us. Number nineteen. We have our lupus now. It is simple as I mentioned. Only the compressed rice cake, sticky rice cake, a little bit of coconut shavings and then she drenches it in this thick palm syrup. So, you can see just those simple ingredients here. I'm going to take my first bite. Make sure I get a little bit of everything. All that palm sugar as well. Oh, that is phenomenal. Okay, that clears up everything. Now, I understand why everyone is waiting for this lupus. I don't know what she's doing to that palm sugar. It's got this sourness, a little bit of tartness and then, of course, it's nice and sweet. The coconut is refreshing and then that sticky rice just completely melts in your mouth. Such a simple dish but if I lived in Jogja, I would be waiting in line every single morning for this. That is just a bite from heaven. Oh, man. This is the perfect breakfast for me. I like my breakfast to be a little bit sweet and this is definitely on the sweeter side. Wow. You don't want any of this palm sugar going to waste because that is where the magic happens. That palm sugar is just incredible. She must be doing something special to it. Maybe the way she's cooking it down. I'm not exactly sure but this is worth it to wake up and have lupus for breakfast. So delicious. Just completely coats your mouth and flavors. That was really good. There's still a huge line in front of Masetnem. Definitely recommend trying it out. Great way to start the day but it's not quite enough. We're going to go get one more thing for breakfast. So, our next breakfast item is hidden down this little alley back alley here in Jogja and we're going for another sweet one for breakfast today. So, our next dish is the quintessential Jogjakarta dish called Gudeg which is a young jackfruit stewed with palm sugar and coconut and it's served with rice and a few other things. We have our order here. So, this is the Gudeg right here. Actually, she didn't give us a whole lot of it but you can see that is the stewed down jackfruit. Of course, with rice, a little bit of that sauce on top and then this is I'm not exactly sure what it is but it's like this gelatinous sambal. I'm not totally sure what it is. We'll have to try it to find out and then a stewed egg of course and such a cool setting. Once again, just right on the side of the road and really popular with the locals. So, let's dig into this. So, for my first bite, I gotta get just some of the jackfruit with some of the rice and some of that kind of curry sauce. Oh wow. There was a big bone in there. That jackfruit just melts in your mouth. When the jackfruit's young like that and they stew it down in a particular way, it really feels like tender meat. Almost like pull apart beef. You can taste all that palm sugar. It is quite sweet and then coconut once again. Kind of similar in flavor to the lupus but with the rice of course. It's a little bit more savory than the lupus. Okay, let's go in for another bite and try some of this jelly thing here. If you guys know what this is, let me know down in the comment box. That's spicy. That's definitely got a strong heat. It honestly just tastes like sambal. So, I wonder if it's just like a jellied sambal of some sorts. I've never seen this dish so far in our trip in Indonesia. It's quite unique. It's got a really interesting texture. Let me crack open this egg. It's like a braised egg. Probably in that same gud egg sauce. Oh, this is really good actually. I really love the jackfruit when they cook it this way. Just so tender. Oh yeah. This is a super satisfying dish. It's really a simple flavor. Just kind of coconut-y and sweet but with all those ingredients soaking in there, it's really hearty. Great thing to have for breakfast and then of course with the rice too. This is awesome. I love this setting. That was a good little breakfast. Sweet and savory at the same time and I love the spot to have it right on the side of the road. Definitely have to try gud egg when you come to Jogja. It's the quintessential dish of the city. So, we're gonna cram as much into this video as possible. So, we're gonna keep going, eat some more food here in Jogja, Kedah. So, Jogja is famous for a lot of attractions, nature, and in particular, a couple temples but that's not what this video is about. This video is all about the food here in Jogja and we've driven out to the countryside to have a dish called Mangut Lele. This is the spot we are looking for. This local woman is guiding us to the spot and this is supposed to be a particularly spicy dish. So, let's go check it out. The setting here is gorgeous. Very rural feeling. They've got a couple pet goats here as well and now we've just come to check out the smoking station where they're smoking all of those catfish. There must be at least 80 to 100 catfish and they're using coconut husks to smoke those away. We're just trying to take all our shots and it is so ridiculously smoky. My eyes are watering like crazy but I'm really excited to try this spicy smoked catfish. So, they invited us right into the kitchen as soon as we got here because they saw the cameras and they wanted to show everything that's going on and they're cooking on wood fire back here and there's a couple different sections. Check this out right here. This is just tons of chilies, red chilies, orange chilies, green chilies, yellow chilies and that is the base to the dish that we are having which is the Mangut Lele which is cooking right over here and it's a catfish dish in a soup of very very spicy broth and those catfish have actually been smoked and once again cooking on fire, wood fire. So cool. So, when you arrive, you come right back to the kitchen where you're going to serve yourself some of the dishes. They have rice back here and a few pre-cooked meals as well as that Mangut Lele. So, we're going to assemble a bowl right now and take it out to the restaurant. Terima kasih. Sambal? Okay. We've assembled our plate and we have a couple of really good looking things. First off, we've got the tofu with tempeh and then we've got some sprouts with cucumbers and some greens and then of course, the catfish and this is the entire catfish. As you saw, they are skewered and smoked and then we've coated it in sambal as well. A ton of sambal and I'm just going to dig right into this. Catfish is honestly one of my favorite fish and try to make sure I don't have too many bones in there and I'll just go for this piece here with a little bit of rice. I'm a little bit intimidated by the amount of spice on this. Oh, that's awesome. That catfish actually has remained really soft on the inside even though it looks like it's been boiling away and it's kind of double cooked because it's been smoked and then boiled but it still remains juicy and soft on the inside. Definitely not overcooked. Yeah, you can feel that spice. That is building for sure. I gotta go for one more bite though. That sambal on the outside is just ridiculously good and then the bones are quite small so you can actually eat most of them and get a couple of sprouts and some greens here with this bite. That's awesome. So simple but then they're cooking it in a really unique process. Double cooked like that. That catfish is really good. Not as spicy as I was expecting but give me a couple of minutes and let me eat a little bit more and then we'll check back in. I think this is a little piece of lemon basil. I'm gonna mix that in with my tofu and my tempeh which also has tons of chilies as well. Oh, that is hot. Let me try a bite of this. The tofu is just bursting with flavor. Spicy once again and then you can taste that little bit of zing from that fermented flavor coming from the tempeh and then some lemoniness from the lemon basil. Okay, definitely starting to build but I'm gonna keep digging into this. Oh, look at this. I didn't even notice but they actually left the stick still on the inside of the catfish. So, I can just remove that. Go on for a little bit of the skin. There's not a whole lot of meat on these guys but wow. What there is is really flavorful. So, it's definitely a slow releasing spice because I'm pretty much finished eating and I'm just starting to feel the full intensity of the heat. You can really feel it in your stomach and on my lips. Wow. That is strong. It's like deeply infused with spices. You can just taste the smokiness of the catfish too. It's a really good dish. There's not a whole lot of meat on that catfish unfortunately though. How do you find the spice level? Well, my nostrils are running so it's pretty high. Eight out of ten for the spice but I mean, I'm not even finished yet. I feel like it's gonna get worse and I'm gonna eat a chili. Bye bye. Bye. Everybody is so friendly here and that was some super spicy smoky catfish. Gotta try this place out. It's definitely a little bit out of town. Bye bye. Bye. Everyone is so friendly and accommodating and really cheap too. Uh if you're not a spice lover, I'm not sure you're gonna be able to handle that cuz that was probably the spiciest thing we've had in Indonesia and we are stuffed after a big morning of eating. So, I think we're gonna take a little break to digest and then catch back up with you this evening to show you some more of what Jogja has to offer. We are back out. It is nighttime now and we have a plan to hit up a couple more places here in Jogja this evening and this is our first spot right behind me here. Well, actually, that's a gas station but in the back corner hiding away is a little shop selling Javanese style noodles that I'm really excited to try out. You definitely would not expect to find this restaurant in back of a gas station. It's quite traditional. They have a street food cart that's parked here permanently and they are serving bakmi jawa which is Javanese style noodles. They've got a couple of different things on their menu but particularly, we wanna try their soup noodles. They're cooking it all on charcoal open flame which slightly is concerning considering that we're right beside a gas station. So, they start with some garlic, some oil. They add some mixture of vegetables, tomatoes, chives, and chicken, free-range chicken and then they add in a duck egg and then a mixture of two noodles and then you have the bakmi jawa. Smells so good. We're gonna order up a bowl, maybe try a couple of different things and sit down and try it out. We've ordered up our bakmi jawa. I will note that we waited about 30 to 40 minutes but they are making these one by one on that charcoal fire you saw downstairs and we have the soup version here first which looks absolutely incredible. So, you can see that fresh chicken. There is tomatoes. There are two types of noodles. These thin noodles and then these thicker noodles. Some fried shallots on top and then there is a nice duck egg and I can definitely smell lots of garlic. I'm just gonna try the broth first though. Wow. Honestly, if I had to compare it to something, it kind of reminds me of some ramen stocks that we tried in Japan. Very garlicky, very chickeny too and lots of salt in there as well. That's really good. Okay, I gotta go in. Get some of the ingredients, some chicken, maybe this tomato, some noodles. It's really hot. That is really satisfying. The chicken is really really tender. You can tell it's a free range chicken because it's got a firmness yet it still falls apart in your mouth and then I just love the flavor of that broth. Really really garlicky. There's a big jug of some pickles, mostly cucumbers. I'm just going to throw those in and grab a little bit of this duck egg with some of those pickles. So that kind of helps settle down a little bit of the garlicky-ness and some of the saltiness. Really fresh served cold from the table. Man, this is just super satisfying. In back of the gas station. Really cool setting too. So I've ordered something a little different. This is the bakmi goreng, which is the exact same ingredients as Luke had. However, there's no soup in this one, so it's dry. That was incredibly delicious. Super garlicky again and a little bit of crunch from the fried shallots that they put on top at the very end. Absolutely delicious. I love this kind of noodle. Damn that really hits the spot. I love those noodles. Definitely the best meal I've ever had at a gas station. So we're going to keep going to the next spot. So we definitely want to have a dessert after that really garlicky bowl of noodle soup. So we've come to have a popular Javanese dessert called Ronde. It's particularly famous here in Jogja and there's this little stall. All she's got is a candle light and she's serving up the Ronde. So let's order up a bowl and then I'll tell you about it. We just ordered our bowl of Ronde from the old lady selling it right on the side of the street. Such a cool little setting. She's just selling it out of a cart with a kerosene lamp lighting her ingredients up and it's a very simple dish. I have it right here, but there are some unique ingredients so you can see right away this pink kind of jelly looking thing. So these are palmyra seeds, which have been sliced and then marinated maybe with a little bit of pink food coloring to give them that color and then we have these which is basically the same as Tang Yuan, which we find in Taiwan. It's a little rice ball that's stuffed this one with peanuts and then we also have some toasted peanuts floating around and this is all served in a hot soup. Very traditional dessert, very unique and it should have a strong flavor of ginger. So let me just give this broth a try here. This is such a cool atmosphere. We're just sitting right on the side of the road. Oh yeah. Wow. That is really interesting. It's strong with ginger and it's almost got like a bubble gum flavor to it. I'm not sure if she's added anything else, but it's definitely got some sugar as well. So let me get some of these palmyra seeds, those little pink jellies with some of the peanuts as well and try these. They don't have much of a taste, but they've got very interesting gelatinous texture to them, but really not much to it and then those toasted peanuts have a nice flavor and then I'll try one of these little Tang Yuan as well. They kind of burst in your mouth with that peanut and they're very, very chewy. Such an interesting little dessert and such a unique setting. There's not much to it and she must have been selling this for years and years and years because even though it's just a small little stall, there's tons of locals flocking to her for dessert. That ginger really hits you right in the back of the throat, but it's super refreshing after that garlicky salty noodles that we had and then once you've eaten all the little things inside, you can just drink the broth. Something that's interesting about this place is actually one of the former presidents of Indonesia used to frequent this stall, this exact one. She's been serving this for many, many years and they say it's really good to have on a winter's night. It makes you feel better. It helps you sleep. However, it doesn't actually get that cold here. We are here in the winter time and it's quite hot, but it's still wonderful. It's going to help us sleep tonight. Very delicious helps with the digestion of all that food we've had today. Although it is the end of the night, there's still one thing we wanted to try, which we probably should have had in the morning and that is coffee, but it's not your regular coffee. This is a very unique coffee. This is the place behind me. so let's go try it out. So this place is packed out with students and this is probably going to keep me up all night long, but I had to try this before leaving Jogja. This is called Kopi Jos and as you saw, he actually puts a piece of flaming hot charcoal directly into the cup of coffee. It's just a plain coffee other than that a little bit of condensed milk and some sugar, but really the gimmick here is that he puts the charcoal in the coffee. So I'm kind of nervous to try this. I don't want it to like burn my lips, but you can see there is charcoal in there. Those are just two big chunks of charcoal that he put inside. So let me try this. Hopefully I don't burn myself. The coffee is served piping hot, which is not really a surprise because there's charcoal inside of it. I can't say it gave it any kind of flavor, maybe kind of a bitterness actually and it reminds me of Turkish coffee because the grounds are just in there floating around you get some of them in your mouth, but really it's not smoky like I thought it might be maybe just a little bit bitter from that burnt charcoal in there. That is hot. Yeah, not my favorite coffee, but a cool little trick, I guess and this place is really popular. There's so many people we have to stand in front because there's no seats. so it's not bad coffee. The only way I think it could be a little bit better is if they didn't put the hunk of charcoal inside of it, but what's the fun in that? What a way to end the day that coffee a little bit gimmicky, but definitely try it out when you come to Jogja because it's a cool experience. This city is a food heaven. There is so much diversity so many delicious flavors. If you ever come to Indonesia and you're planning to eat, you must stop in Jogjakarta. Take my word for it. I promise you won't be disappointed. It's been an incredible day of eating. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already hit the bell icon so you're notified when we post our next video and we'll see you on another episode of Chopstick Travel soon. Bye. Bye.