Reaching the third month since I came here in LA, I’ve been craving for my home country food – Indonesia, located in South-east Asia. I was very lucky and blessed that LA had several Indonesian food restaurant. The famous one that I heard from people was called “Simpang Asia”. It is located at 10433 National Blvd, Ste 2, Los Angeles, CA 90034 . It was only around 15-20 minutes away from LMU which is not really far!
Coming in the restaurant I meet almost everyone from Indonesia, as the owner was also Indonesian and most of the waiters also came from Indonesian and spoke the Indonesian language fluently, so I can speak Indonesian with them (which makes me feel more at home <3). I went here with most of my International friends that I meet during International Orientation, and I introduced them to my home-country food.
We order several special traditional food: Chicken Satay, Nasi Rames, Coconut Juice, and Oxtail Soups
Chicken satay was a special South-east Asian food it is basically chicken skewers poured with peanut sauce and sweet soy sauce. They served with a sizing of 4 skewers
Rating : 8/10
Nasi Rames was a rice platter consist of coconut braised beef / what we usually called as “Rendang” in Indonesian language, chicken curry, fried stir noodles and string beans. It was really nice as the coconut really absorbed well to the beef and it was really soft! The braised beef and the curry was a little bit spicy (adjusted to American spicy level because sually when you have this meal in Indonesia, it would actually taste spicier!) Eating this food just makes me feel home!
Rating: 9/10
Oxtail Soup / what we usually called as Sop Buntut. Sop as in soup for Indonesian language, and Buntut = oxtail! This soup consist of several oxtail, carrots, fried shallots and celery. Usually, people eat this with a side of white rice. The oxtail was really tender, so it’s really easy to take it off from the bone. This cuisine will be very perfect to eat on rainy weather or when you’re sick and wanted to eat something hot.
Rating : 8.5/10
Coconut Juice was a really popular drink back in Asia, especially if you go to chill in the beach, and enjoy the breeze of air, it will be a good companion to sip in this drink! Which is very tropical, and it’s just breeze your mind as if you travel back to Asia for instance : Bali or Thailand!
Rating : 9/10
The special thing about this place, and my favorite part, is the grocery shopping which specialized in Indonesia grocery shopping. From snacks like crackers that I used to ate since I was a kid, a lots variety of spices as Indonesia was popular with their tons of spices, candies, tea, coffee, even herbal medicines straightly direct from Indonesia, their grocery store does not offer only Indonesia groceries but also Asian groceries from Japan, China, Korea. So, it’s totally recommended for you guys who crave for a total new Asian food or maybe do some Asian grocery shopping.