Pempek & Bakwan Malang, ITC Mangga Dua, Jakarta

ITC Mangga Dua, or should I say the whole Mangga Dua area is a very busy busy place. It’s jammed packed with people, like really a lot of them! And the traffic there is scary, well traffic in Jakarta is basically scary, jams are horrible especially during peak hours. There are actually a number of malls in Mangga Dua area, but due to time constraint, we only managed to make it to one.

Anyways, we made out way to ITC Mangga Dua to checkout a different shopping experience, comparing Plaza and Grand Indonesia the previous day. There are a lot of things there and it was near to Chinese New year that time, so they have stalls set up selling flowers, red packet and decorative items, and many more. It’s actually like a wholesale place, fully air conditioned but it’s not exactly that cold when the amount of people you have in the mall. It’s not a modern mall, unlike Platinum wholesale mall in Bangkok, this one is slightly older, a little big like our Komtar but bigger with more stuffs! Here, you can find a lot of bargain items, clothing, bags, accessories, and many more.

Anyways, for lunch, we were brought by my friend’s friend to these stalls inside the mall, since we already stressed on Indonesian eating experience. It’s a small stall with minimal amount of seats, selling pempek and bakwan malang.  Pempek is actually a delicacy made of fish and tapioca flour originated from Palembang.

There are many types of pempek, pempek kapal selam, lenjar, adaan, kerinting, kulit, telur and more. So we basically had like each of everything. It’s just like fishballs, chewy texture version. Served with some mini cucumber cubes, glass noodles and also kuah cuko (cuka), basically it’s vinegar sauce.  Taste not bad actually, each piece has it’s different taste (perhaps different types of fish and preparation.

When I saw this name bakwan malang, it came directly to my mind, if on direct translation bakwan (sounds like hokkien for meatball) and malang (in malay meant unfortunate).. so it’s unfortunate meatballs??

Bakwan malang can be found all around Indonesia, and It’s actually meatball noodle soup from the city of Malang. So it’s not the “unfortunate” malang, it’s actually a city in Indonesia. That’s what I found out later when i came back. So, bakwan is the name of the food, and they are indeed meatballs. Taste like chicken soup, also not bad.

Yes, i know that this is not Indonesian, but the tako balls stall is just next door, so we ordered some cos we were hungry and yes, also because we need more seats. The pempek stall has limited seats only..haha…

This one is just normal, but presentation wise, not bad… not like some tako balls served in a messy manner…

To quench our thirst, we got ourselves lychee drink with aloe vera cubes… yummy.. I have also love lychee drink… and with the generous amount of the refreshing aloe vera cubes.. very cooling, perfect on a hot day.

After shopping around, we went to A & W to get some rootbeer float.. with creamy chocolate ice cream. I noticed that A & W has got more fans in Indonesia, cos it’s full house, compared to Malaysia.

And yes, we had fries for tea time :P while waiting for some of us that is still busy shopping…

ITC Mangga Dua,
Lt.5, Jl. Mangga Dua Raya,
14430 Mangga Dua,
Jakarta Raya, Indonesia