Adventures in Food - Part 2

After a few days of doing not much more than hanging around with Vonce's family we went to Lasiana Beach today. Some locals had shops set up on the beach to offer their goods to beach-goers. I didn't go over to look; I was more interested in exploring what the waves brought in (not much, though we did see a couple of fish). The water was warm but didn't seem as salty.
Vonce bought grilled bananas for us to try: one with a sugar syrup and a finely chopped peanut topping, and the other with chocolate syrup and a mild, white shredded cheese. I liked the latter and found the cheese's tanginess was a nice contrast to the sweetness of the chocolate-banana mixture. Definitely would not have thought of that on my own. As seems to be usual, the sugar syrup was far less sweet than what I'd get back home. The peanuts were raw, not toasted, and had little of that distinctive flavor.

We watched a man climb one of the palm trees on the beach. He had a basket on his back and harvested stalks that grew from the top of the palm.  I asked Vonce's sister Fonny what they use it for.

The palm stalks are peeled and eaten as fruit.  Fonny brought some over for us to try. The texture is interesting: when I bit down on it, it initially created resistance, but then gave in to the pressure and squirted out its juice from every pore. Kind of fun, very unique. The fruit juice is called tuak. (Think coconut water without the coconut flavor.) It was good, but the flavor was meh and, without the fun of biting into the fruit itself, I considered it unremarkable.


Grilled corn is quite popular here.  The corn is not as sweet and the kernels are starchier and slightly tougher than the hybrid varieties of sweet corn I'm used to back home. You have two flavor options: either regular with a side dish of sambal, or sweet, if you can call it sweet. It's a shame my tongue can't handle the searing pain of spicy sambal, as they are usually homemade and so each has a slightly different flavor.



Also seen: a kaki lima (street vendor) selling bakso from his cart.  What is bakso? I hear you ask.  Well, it's a meatball made from ground meat and tapioca starch, and served with noodles as a soup.  It's an inexpensive dish and very popular here.  The ground meat is usually beef but can also be made from other ingredients, such as chicken, shrimp or fish.  Its texture is consistently dense throughout.