Iggle Piggle lives for a night

Iggle Piggle in front of Sydney Town Hall....

Sydney Town Hall on X-mas eve

We always wanted to come and watched Sydney Town Hall glowed and showered with lights, illuminated its years old pillars with different projection of pictures represent Australia natives or symbols. 4 Christmas, never made it.

Took us more than 4000kms from Jakarta to watched those lights projected from Woolworths building across, we made it last night when we aren't -for now- Sydneysiders anymore

It meant to be like that.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday !

And the day has came

Go for SOTO

When people moved away from their hometown, continue with their –new- life, once they have chance to visit back their hometown, it's always one thing they all looking for –for sure.

Food.

Not just food, more like food they used to have, restaurants they used to visit, mum's or even grandma's kitchen they used to hang out or simply local food that been disappear for long from their life.

I did feel the same. Not as bad as my friend –he always spent most of his time from one restaurant to another, one food vendor to another to quench his thirst-; I'm on the stage that I'm fine without those foods also happy if I can have one.

So, on lovely Monday morning –Public Holiday, this is the best thing living in Indonesia, many public holidays- we all squeezed in to my brother car, round around the city, wanting to had a bowl of 'Soto' –"So" as 'so' and "To" as 'to' in toffee-.

15 minutes later, we landed on this place.

It's Soto Kirana.

This place is more like small restaurant, with no-air conditioner. There are more than 12pairs of long wooden-bench placed on sort-of open air verandah style. Once people sit and having their hot 'soto', they will feel the breeze and don't mind sweating a bit!

Soto Kirana itself it's not pretty much different with other soto (Kirana it's the name of the founder). It's a hot clear soup accompany with fried shredded chicken, rice-thin noodle and finely sliced cabbage. Some people likes it with rice, some wants extra fried shallot on top of it. People can always order their favorite version of it. Once you get your seat, a staff will approach and memorize your order –without any sight of paper they take the order- and serve in less than 10minutes. All comes perfectly as ordered!

On the long table itself, there are plates of many 'snack' to accompany your soto, like fried tempeh or tofu, quail egg-sate cooked with sweet soy sauce or something 'heavy' like fried mini-beef-steak style full of spice (we call it empal).

On holiday or weekend like this, don't hope too much for lingering around and chat with friends while eat here. Once you finish your bowl, and army of staffs in bright orange t-shirt and black pant will cleaning up your bowl quickly and that is the sign you have to stand up and pay. Or ask one of the waiter to count your bill –yep, they count in front of you, push their calculator button, tell you amount you owe and you just hand your money; paperless, saving tree by slave your brain heavily -)

And you will see people face hoping to get your seat –as you put your hoping face and show others customer you need their seat beforehand.

The cost?

About 10 Australian Dollars for 7 of us!

Welcome to non-smoking and non-soda flight…

Sound Strange?
Strange but true.

I spent my long weekend away from Jakarta, visit my family in Solo. With only 55 minutes fly by aero plane, we opt for Indonesia’s national carrier. The best –we assume, it suppose to- and the most expensive compare to others cheap airline flying to same destination.

And I’m craving for soda. Cola, precisely. My thirst came in a sudden when I was in departure lounge, chewing my doughnut –yep, doughnut plus cola, what a ‘perfect’ combination for stretching my belly a bit- . I’ m a bit prick at that time, not wanting to spent any money for soda, rather waiting another hour for free can of coke. Or less than a can –I never drink much coke-. I hold it until we were boarding on to the aero plane. And snack time.

2 stewardesses usher their snack cart, I wait patiently for my turn.
“What would you like to drink?” the young ones asked me.
“May I have a coke please?”
“Pardon me?”
“Coke. Coca cola. Or any soda you might call it.”
“Oh, sorry. We have no soda on this flight”.
“Oh, you run out?” (Silly question)
“No, we don’t serve soda anymore. Tea, coffee or juices only.”

Ohhhh…Can’t believe it. One and a half million rupiah for return ticket, and no sight of soda. I’m speechless.

“Ok, I’ll have Orange Juice then.”

Once those stewardesses move their cart away from my side, I can see my husband from his seat toast his tea-filled plastic cup to me.
“Welcome to non-smoking and non-soda flight, darling. Enjoy,” he smiled cheekily.

I turn my back on him.

My cupcakes Hero

Look at those beautiful vanilla cupcakes, made by my lovely friend Ambar. She is my lender of the last resort, for things that I used to do myself –preparing cupcakes for my son school event. I love the joy of preparation, baking, icing and after all, it’s a labor of love. Gosh….I misses my kitchen so much!

Lucky me she said yes when I beg her for cupcakes with only one day notice. Lucky me, she got all ingredients ready on her kitchen. Lucky me, she even had time to dropped on my place, before she had to start worked.

Thanks mate.

Dim-sum Indonesia's' Style

What is so special about Siomay? (Pronounciate as “she-o-may”)

Nothing special if you Indonesian or you live in Indonesia.

As you may know that in Indonesia you can buy some nice yummy food easily from street vendor. Some of the vendors are walking around the street, with their push-cart -we call it gerobak; as ‘ghee-row-buck’- just hail them and give them your plate or bowl, and they'll do the rest.

One of the very popular foods sold by street vendor is "Siomay". This kind of dim-sum, made from fish and formed into ball-shape like, accompanies with boiled potato and hard boiled eggs. Some vendors add steam cabbage that been rolled -like vine leaves on Lebanese food- They dressed it with peanut dressing -kind of dressing you could find in Indonesia's Chicken Satay-
We had one vendor that been selling this Siomay since like 8 years ago. It was so surprised to see him again passed our place, so we decided to have one big plate of it. Rama was so amazed with this 'show' as the vendor prepared my order. He didn't it eat, of course. The peanut dressing is hot. Even I can't bare the chilies anymore, it's became too hot for me know. I have to get use to it again.

Have a look at the pictures. This vendor is very generous with the peanut dressing. It covered up the whole plate.

Let me know when you want to visit me here, I will ask him to prepare one big plate of Siomay, only for you -if you dare the chilies :)

Sydney...we home....

11 more sleeps....11 more days to go....

Got butterfly in my stomach

Sydney...we coming....