An Indonesian Chowtime with Ben and Suanne at Sweet Chile Cafe (Vancouver BC)
Pics: http://picasaweb.google.ca/gustibus.maximus/SweetChiliWithChowtimes
I had the pleasure of lunching with Vancouver food-bloggers extraordinaire Ben and Suanne of Chowtimes. For those of you who are unfamiliar - Chowtimes is one of the most prolific and accesible food blogs in the blogosphere: http://chowtimes.com/ . You can't help but be impressed with the sheer number of places that Chowtimes has covered.
Sweet Chili on Victoria Dr is the East Vancouver re-birth of the former Bali restaurant (Broadway). I have reported on this place here before (when it first opened).
The three of us ordered three lunch dishes, some roti canai. To start we all had few sweet drinks - mine was a fresh-squeezed lime soda, Suanne had Indonesian coffee - sweet with condensed milk, and Ben had the es cendol (a South East Asian crushed ice "shake" with sweetened condiments).
The roti was hand-made and nicely flakey. Many places in town serve frozen roti and this was a nice change - freshly made roti is much more tender, flakey, and far less oily than when cooked from a frozen state. One quiblle - they really should provide more of the dipping sauce: it came with what looks like a thimble-full of the coconut-turmeric based condiment.
The rujak kemanten is very similar to a gado-gado. The rujak kemanten uses fresh vegetables in contrast to a gado-gado's steamed and fry-wilted veggies. The sauce is also slightly different - the rujak had a more distinct tang from the more judicous use of tamarind. This is a nice alternative to the more common fruit rujak - which has a deeper sauce with a greater flavour contribution from tamarind, trasi (shrimp paste) and palm sugar than this more peanutty variant. (There are about as many variations of rojak/rujak as there are islands on the Straights).
The rendang and the lamb curry were nicely spiced - but clearly toned down in both spice, fermented fish/shrimp and chili heat. You can ask them to dial the heat up a notch - and they will add a chili sambal to the dish, but it this does not have the same effect as when you cook the spice deep into the stew. It was still quite delicious and well balanced, but I can see these dishes being better when done to authentic spice levels.
The mie lomie (or was it the mei ayam?) is a noodle dish that has a sweet (from real palm sugar and kecap manis), tart (once again from tamarind), salty and spicy sauce. It was nicely balanced - and didn't taste syrupy or heavy with oil like some others that I have had in town.
Overall a very nice, and inexpensive meal (about $40 for 3 of us). The flavours are a bit toned down, but I give them high marks for using the proper and authentic ingredients (eg real palm sugar, Indonesian kecap manis, trassi (shrimp paste) . The service was very personal and attentive...perhaps because they were intimidated by the size Ben's camera...
(more pics: http://picasaweb.google.ca/gustibus.m... )
By fmed on
Jun 25, 2009 01:09PM
View »
Video
Chowhound is acting up...attaching photos and place link again...
5438 Victoria Dr, Vancouver, BC V5P, CA
Permalink | Reply
Hey fmed!
So excited to read your post on an Indonesian restaurant because I'm going to Vancouver next weekend (Fri nite til Sun nite) and I was planning to go check out one of the two Indonesian restaurants I read about : Spice Island and Pondok Indonesia. There are no Indo restaurants in Toronto (where I used to live before coming to Vic), but I was spoiled by my mom and the Indo network of people who take food orders.
The roti canai looks really goood...i'm addicted to that kind of flatbread, and yes, i'm guilty of buying the frozen ones :) ...On a side note though, I don't recall them being Indonesian, but oh well.
The other two dishes look good too. I'm glad you enjoyed your meal there.
Just FYI, mie = noodles, ayam = chicken !
So, overall how does Sweet Chile compare to the other two in terms of food quality and price? I'm assuming you've been to the other two because... hey, it seems like you've tried almost everything ;) To me, Spice Island seems a bit pricey... I'm afraid to try it because I don't want to be let down by high expectations. Pondok Indonesia has a lot cheaper prices, but is the food still good?
Permalink | Reply
Hi sumashi!
I would characterize the three restaurants like this:
Sweet Chili - budget, good, toned down for local tastes, good value. Small - a bit of a hole in the wall (in a good way).
Pondok - mid-scale, food is toned down for local tastes, decent value. I used to go to their old Commercial Dr location regularly - the food was decent, and the lunch specials were are great deal. I've been to the newer Broadway location only once.
Spice Island - pricey, the most upscale ambiance, small servings, the food is perhaps the most authentically spiced of the three. I was there fairly recently. I thought that the reviews didn't match my expectations of the place. The food was fine, but not great.
Post again if you have any more questions! Have fun in Vancouver.
PS - I knew the meanings of mei and ayam, I just couldn't remember if the one we ordered was the mie ayam (just chicken), or the mei lomie (which also came with chickenas an ingredient).
Permalink | Reply
Pondok was what made me write my first restaurant review locally. It was the one on Commercial and I found it such POOR value, I wrote my first review. Just last week my lunch partner & I went to the one on Broadway as I said I'd give it another chance. We ordered:
Rice Table 3
Lumpia Istimewa (4pcs)-Indonesian style spring rolls stuffed with minced chicken, shrimp, bamboo shoot & tofu served with a light peanut sauce
Udang Asam Pedas-Tiger prawns simmered in a tomato & chili base sauce
Kari Ayam-Chicken coconut milk curry
Orak Arik-A traditional dish of shredded cabbage & carrots stir fried with eggs & herbs
It was $29 without tax/tip for two which is pricey for lunch. When we were served we looked at each other like we were waiting for another plate. It was basically what we are used to being served for ONE person! The chicken was hard & chewy, and we felt like the dish was very OLD! We couldn't eat more than one bite. The "prawns" were your typical frozen grocery store pre-cooked prawns that you get in a frozen shrimp ring...too bad, because the sauce was quite good. The spring rolls were good & the cabbage was not bad.
We were the ONLY table for the whole hour between 12- 1pm and we couldn't imagine how they remain open only to guess that night time is a different ball game??? Anyway, I will never set foot in the restaurant again! Just my opine, but I had to express it!| :-)
Permalink | Reply
Well there you go. It's good to have another perspective. Was this recent? (edit: oops - this was last week!)
At the Commercial Dr location, I used have the lunch specials (beef rendang or curry on rice, etc - I think they were $6.95 IIRC). I have never had dinner at Pondok. I may have been lucky by ordering only stews, curries and sates. (BTW - the old Pondok was almost always empty as well.)
I think Sweet Chili is the best bang for the buck of the three.
PS -- I found an old pic of one of their lunch 'on-rice' specials (I think this one is chicken sate and gado gado ):
Permalink | Reply
ck, did they have a lunch specials menu at the Broadway location, or is it just at the Commercial Dr one?
Permalink | Reply
They have lunch specials at the Broadway location.
http://pondokindonesia.com/menu/lunch...
Permalink | Reply
I just noticed you wrote two different locations for Pondok Indonesia...... is it a chain?
Permalink | Reply
They used to have two locations - the original one on Commercial Dr and the new one on Broadway. I believe they opened the one on Broadway with the intention of closing the Commercial Dr location once they found a buyer for the business. It is now an oxymoron - a vegetarian taqueria called Banditas.
Permalink | Reply
Awesome, thanks for the input, fmed and ck1234!
Well, I'm leaning toward trying Sweet Chilli based on both of your responses :)
The food pics look yummy.
Well, I did check out Pondok's website. Their rice tables look like it could feed two not-so-hungry people, but I agree that I don't think it could feed two hungry people. Their menu gives me the impression that it's more Indo than Sweet Chilli.. if I had the time, i would've liked to try a bit from all three :)
Permalink | Reply
I think you will be pleased...please report back one way or the other. I may need to rethink Pondok based on ck1234's experience there.
A side note - when chatting with the owner of Sweet Chili, she mentioned that she is actively looking for a location for an upscale restaurant with her old "Bali" brand - basically a reincarnation of her old Bali Restaurant - with upscale service and ambiance. She plans to keep Sweet Chili as a sort of "Bali-Express" - more of a budget takeout sort of place.
Permalink | Reply
I will write back :) Planning to bring 4 other people with me, 2 of them have never had Indo food before so it'll be fun for me to get everybody's opinion.
Permalink | Reply
mmm.. I failed to ask what their hours were.. Went there today and found out that they're closed on Sundays! I'll have to try it out on my next trip to Vancouver.
Permalink | Reply
fmed, is Balilicious on Cambie related in any way to Sweet Chili? Had dinner at Balilicious last night and I thought the food is good enough to warrant a second visit. In general, all the dishes were well-executed (very good technique in the kitchen), flavours clean and distinct. My only quibble I have is the spicing seems to be a bit toned down. Not that it wasn't flavourful, but I wanted a little more oomph.
Permalink | Reply
I don't know. I'll keep my ears peeled.
How was the pricing? Good value? Sounds like a chowdown target.
Permalink | Reply
Pricing is a tad on the higher side considering the ingredients, but I thought the prices were acceptable, considering the level of execution. Also, it doesn't help that they're on Cambie, which probably drives the prices up 15%-20%.
Permalink | Reply
Wasn't there a CAMRA event there recently, beer tasting or summat? The menu for that sounded pretty tasty. I just hate the name :-).
Permalink | Reply
I should probably start a new thread for Balilicious here: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/724819
Permalink | Reply
Ben and Suanne have posted their report on Sweet Chile (far more detailed than mine above) over at Chowtimes:
http://chowtimes.com/2009/07/08/sweet...
(...and that noodle dish that I mistook for mee ayam is actually bakmi goreng).
Permalink | Reply