Trip to Cirebon, West Java (2)

Visiting a new place also means trying new food.
In Cirebon we were not only enjoying the city, seeing the heritage buildings, and learning their culture, but also enjoying their culinary and capturing the glory of past time dining.

I have a list of traditional food that we must try. And...surprise-surprise, my children love the food, so do I. This culinary journey ends up with beautiful memory of delicious North Java Coast cuisine. Just one day after we got back from Cirebon, my children kept asking me to cook some of the food.

Empal Gentong
To be honest, that was our very first time trying this famous food. We have heard the name many times before, but never had a change to try it. Finally, on our first day in Cirebon we had a delicious lunch eating this food, and surprisingly, our children who normally hesitate to try traditional food, this time they loved this food so much.
Empal Gentong is made of beef (and innards) soup with the flavor slightly like gulai, that is cooked using unique traditional way (i.e: using big clay pot and fire wood). This delicious soup is served with chopped chives and ground chilli. To accompany them, we can choose rice or lontong (rice cake) and acar (pickled cucumber).
This hot soup gave us a very good impression about this city. Delicious food and hospitality of the seller.


Nasi Jamblang.
Nasi Jamblang or Jamblang Rice is rice wrapped in teak leaves, and served with some delicious side dishes. All the food are served on a long table/buffet style. Since the size of the rice inside the leaves is quite small, the waitress will ask how many packed of rice we want to order, then we can choose the side dishes to accompany the rice. My favorite is including fried tempe, spicy tuna, potato fritter, pepes tahu (~tofu) and kerupuk. Other than that, there are lots of choices of side dishes such as semur daging (beef in soy sauce gravy), fried tofu, potato satay with dry coconut, fried sambal (chili), salted fish, jamblang eggs, black squid, and many more. These are simple everyday menu for most of Indonesians, but for unspeakable reason, this food is so delicious and quite cheap. All the side dishes are cooked and treated with good way, it's so delicious. Great culinary experience we got!
If you are curious where the name of 'Jamblang' came from, actually it's the name of an area in the west side of Cirebon, where most of the Nasi Jamblang sellers come from. Long time ago, this food actually were served for forced labors during colonial era. They chose to use teak leaves instead of banana leaves, because teak leaves can keep the rice fresh longer compared if they're wrapped with banana leaves.

Nasi Lengko
Some people call it Sega Lengko. This is a vegetarian dish.
I tried this food after finishing our shopping at the famous batik Trusmi. In this humble dish all the food is served in one plate.
It's warm rice, fried tofu and tempe (cut into small pieces) and steamed bean sprout laid down beautifully on the plate and covered by peanut sauce and sweet soy sauce, then sprinkled with chopped chives and fried onion. Very humble dish that rich of flavor and texture.

Other than all those food, there is another must-try dish.
Tahu Gejrot.
Tahu Gejrot is one of Cirebon's culinary icon. This dish is not only famous in Cirebon, but also known in other places in Indonesia. Not sold in a fixed place, the tahu gejrot sellers will walk around and carrying their merchant. In big cities, some sellers ride their bicycle to sell this food.
Tahu Gejrot is crisp-fried tofu bathed in a thin, dark sauce flavored with green chili and shallots. We can ask the seller, how many chilli we want to put in the bowl. For me, one chilli is enough.
As a bonus... we could find lots of other traditional desserts around the city. One of them that stay in my heart is the traditional delicacy that we found in front of Warung Nasi Jamblang Mang Dul. An old lady just sat down on the pedestrian floor and sold her homemade traditional snacks. There were about 5 or 6 different type of snacks that using rice flour as the main ingredient. It's good for my dessert after enjoying nasi jamblang.
Those are the food that made us happy staying in Cirebon that I can share this time. The food that we enjoyed in the city.

What better way to end a trip than bringing home some traditional delicacies and some local products. It's not hard to find 'toko oleh-oleh' (souvenir shop) around the city. On our last day in Cirebon, we stop by in one shop, and brought home a big box of local products.

Visiting Cirebon is not completed without stopping by in the famous batik village 'Trusmi'. Located in Plered area, about 5 km from downtown Cirebon, it's easy to get there. Several batik shops can be found along Trusmi Kulon Street. And again, we brought home a big shopping bag. Just to let you know, the famous batik motif from Cirebon is called 'Mega Mendung' means 'Huge Cloud'. It's easy to recognize this pattern, it's just like cloud (see the brown backpack used by my son below).
At the end... we arrived home after 3 days of wonderful trip in Cirebon. In one quite afternoon, we enjoyed the food we brought home. What a sweet ending.
In the picture above including : Simping keju-udang (rice flour chips with cheese & shrimp flavor), wafel wijen (sesame waffel cookies), manisan mangga (candied mango), bangket jahe (ginger cookies). The table clothes bought in Batik Trusmi, and the tea set was made in Plered.

Have a great Wednesday Night.

Trip to Cirebon, West Java (1)

Visiting Cirebon was my old dream.
I couldn't remember, when exactly I began to dream visiting Cirebon with my family. After reading some magazines, I had a picture in my mind that Cirebon is a city/town that is rich of culture, has lots of beautiful old buildings, has delicious traditional food and is located not too far from Jakarta.
It must be very interesting and unique place!
Finally, my dream came true... Yes, we made it! Last month, on the first day of our children school holiday, we travelled by train to Cirebon. We started our journey from Gambir Train Station in Central Jakarta, and it took 3 hours only to arrive in Cirebon Station. For our children, this was their first experience of traveling by intercity train.
The majestic mount of Ceremai & flat rice fields were welcoming us just before we entered the Cirebon Station.
Cirebon (formerly referred to as Cheribon in English) is a port city on the north coast of the Indonesian island of Java. It is located in the province of West Java near the provincial border with Central Java, approximately 297 km east of Jakarta.
The seat of a former Sultanate, the city's West and Central Java border location have seen its history influenced by both Sundanese and Javanese culture and also Chinese.
source : wikipedia
Kota Udang (~Shrimp City) is the Cirebon's nickname, but shrimp is not the only thing this second largest city in West Java has to over.
So... lets enjoy Cirebon!
where to go? what to visit? what is special about this city?
Those are some common questions for most of people when visiting a new place. And to be honest, we only got little information about this town from the internet. So we booked the hotel a couple of weeks before and off we go. With a help from a free map given by the hotel, we enjoyed this town.
First thing that we tought we should see was Keraton/Palace. It'll be good to show the children the traditional Indonesian Palace. They might not be too interested, but it's good for them to have an experience visiting some of them.
Keraton Kanoman
Keraton Kanoman is one of four palaces in Cirebon. It was founded by Sultan Anom I in 1677. In the outer area of the palace, the siti inggil, are masonry versions of the classic Javanese pendopo form, as opposed to the more conventional timber structures.
source: wikipedia

The other Keraton that we visited was Keraton Kasepuhan, the biggest and the oldest keraton in Cirebon. Keraton Kasepuhan
It is the residence of the Sultan of Kasepuhan. It was built in 1527 and its architecture and interior are a blend of Sundanese, Javanese, Islamic, Chinese and Dutch styles.
After going around the keraton complex... this was the most interesting part for my son; the Cannon, made of cast iron.


Next, we visited some old buildings... not as old as the keraton, but they're quite old and of course...beautiful. All of them were built during Dutch occupation period.
It was a beautiful late afternoon after our children enjoying their swimming time, when we decided to walk together and see those beautiful heritage buildings. We visited about 7 buildings that located close each other.

I will not explain one by one of those buildings, sorry.
This beautiful blog, The Aroengbinang Travelog may give you lots of information about those buildings.
One of the places that always on our 'must visit list' is Traditional Market. It's a must! Like every city have their own uniqueness, I believe that every market have their own specialties.Kanoman Market
Located in the front area of Keraton Kanoman, this biggest market in Cirebon is always busy from morning to late afternoon.
From the outside, it's like other market... crowded, hustle bustle. Love it!

If we look around what they sell, we'll realize... seafood is all around.
As a port city and known as Kota Udang (~Shrimp City), it's not surprising if fresh seafood is available at anytime.

Lots of little attraction entertained us in the market...
The most favorite one for us was watching a lady with her capability of shredding chillies rapidly. Awesome!


I'll write more about the food in my next posting.
next : Trip to Cirebon, West Java (2), what to buy, what to eat.

Bye June, Hi July ...

No posting on the 'busy' June... and now we're in the middle of July, in the middle of the year of 2011. It's a beautiful sunny day here in Jakarta. The children school holiday is almost finish, and next week, they'll be back to school. Happy!

Last month, we were so busy. But we're happy, we're enjoying our dynamic life, up and down... and full of celebrations. Last month we celebrated my husband's birthday, our 13th wedding anniversary, and the end of the school year! ...the holiday scent was blowing around us. We travelled, did camping, had reunions, met family and friends, and of course... trying lots of new food. Oh, one more thing, finally...my son's two front teeth were taken out. We were waiting for that because he's already 8.5 years old!

I'll write more about our trip in the next posting. Now, I just want to share the picture of our joyfull, enjoying the beautiful of local strawberries, brought by my husband from Ciwidey, West Java.

Have a nice weekend, My Friends. See you in my next posting.

Next : Trip to Cirebon, West Java (1) *where to go?