Dining out in Yogya

By Adelle Neary s22
Adelaide University
See photos from Adelle's semester

After my often futile attempt to sleep, I wake up (or not) and realise that it is time to head out on the nightly trek for food. One probably negative side effect of the low cost of food here is that there is no incentive to cook for yourself. There is a kitchen at the kos, fully equipped, but I usually limit my time in there to the preparation of two-minute noodles and 3 in 1 Coffee (sorry, yet to find an easy to prepare replacement).

Why would I bother buying ingredients, preparing them, cooking them, and then washing up, when I can eat a complete meal for $1-$2, usually including a drink (hot lemon tea is my current favourite warung beverage). Anyway, I have a few favourite food spots:

1) Lesehan Wida - this is 30 seconds from the kos and is a permanent warung (as opposed to the thousands that are set up on the side of the road every night). My favourite dishes there are the ayam bakar (roast chicken) served with rice and cucumber and consumed without cutlery (actually, no cutlery is de rigeur in these kind of places) and all of the noodle dishes.

2) Hollywood Warung - fried chicken, or tofu or tempe, rice and veg for 5000 rupiah - or about 75 cents. This is a sitting on the side of the road on mats, eating with your hands type restaurant. This is warung of choice when I am bankrupt.

3) Silla - this is up-market for Yogya - serves Korean and Japanese food in a Hyatt type atmosphere and in traditional Japanese style with the sunken floors. I ate delicious sukiyaki with unsweetened *hallelujah* green tea here for under $5. Worth every rupiah.

4) Ananda - this is about two minutes from my kos and serves a mix of Chinese-Indo food. The only downside is that you often get smoked out by the dudes at the front roasting the fish on an open grill thingy.

5) Top Java - more of a lunch time establishment for me as it is far from my house but close to uni. It is a self-service "as you can" type place with a variety of delicious food. I went there the other day to load up on red meat after I decided that I was anaemic. It cost 9000 rupiah including lemon tea. Cheap.

*Taken from a weblog Adelle kept during her semester in Indonesia