My First Brongkos and Horse Satay, Yogyakarta

Yogyakarta offers a never-ending list of unique food, and it was my first time eating brongkos and horse satay, among our other fun activities!

DAY # 3
GUDEG BU IS

Windy’s house, where we stayed, is one of a couple of houses in her family’s small complex. The house next to us is her aunt’s who lives there with her husband and kids. Every morning she provides us delicious Javanese breaksfast. On this morning, she got us Gudeg Bu Is in boxes.



As I am not really an expert on food, it took me quite some time to try to describe what gudeg is… until I found that Wikipedia has the right way of describing it:

“Gudeg is a traditional food from Central Java and Yogyakarta, which is made from young Nangka (jack fruit) among other things, boiled for several hours with palm sugar, and coconut milk. Additional spices include garlic, shallot, candlenut, coriander seed, galangal, bay leaves, and teak leaves, the latter giving a brown color to the dish. Gudeg is usually served with white rice, chicken, hard-boiled egg, tofu and/or tempeh, and a stew made of crispy beef skins (sambal goreng krecek).”
There you go :D

I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the info of the gudeg price because we got it for free. But from the box, you can see where to get it: Pelekung Wijilan Pandean street # Pb 1/159 and also the phone numbers are there. And although as I said I’m no expert, I can say that compared to other gudegs I’ve tasted in Jakarta, Solo, and Bandung, this one is the best.

Alright, next : shopping again! Not only for batik, but also for some silver jewelries.


BATIK RUMAH & BATIK KUNTHI

We headed to a shop called Batik Rumah at 2A Nogosari Kidul Street by taxi with the meter on. It’s a house turned into a shop and located among houses in what seems to be a nice neighborhood. A row of becak were parked in front of the shop, ready at your service.

They have various types of goods, from clothes to tablecloths. The prices range from ten thousands rupiah to hundreds of thousands, mostly depending on the batik types.



I walked out empty handedly from there that day, not because none of them I liked, but because the things that I liked were kinda out of my budget.

But I was happy that I got what I wanted in a nearby shop called Batik Kunthi, at 6 Nogosari Street. A loose black blouse with orangey batik borders for Rp 110,000 after a 20% discount. Yay!!



SEKAR KEDHATON

Batik shopping is done for the day. We then headed to Kotagede area to do some silver shopping. But on the way, we got hungry, because of course, it was noon already. We had the taxi waiting for us in the parking lot of the restaurant called Sekar Kedhaton. Lucky for us, the taxi driver agreed to take us to a few stops, pausing the meter each time we stop at stores and restaurant. Most taxi drivers wouldn’t agree to that.

Modern Javanese style resto

Sekar Kedhaton is a middle-upper class restaurant that’s visited a lot by groups of foreign tourists that come by buses and minibuses. From outside, looking at the size and look of the restaurant, we thought the menu was more expensive than they really are.

Iga Brongkos

Iga Brongkos cost me Rp 49,000 plus tax, and the whole of our meal cost Rp 241,230 including tax. We walked out there as satisfied costumers. And good news for you because the waitresses seemed to talk quite good English, maybe because they’re used to having English-speaking guests.

Taking pictures before enjoying the meal

The guard at the entrance :P

KOTAGEDE

A shopping tip I once got was that it’s not recommended to shop with empty stomach. Hunger often make foolish decisions. So, it was great that we went to a silver shop after lunch.

This Aranda’s Silver shop is located at 30 Kemasan Street, Kotagede. As a lot of other silver shops in Kotagede, it has rows of jewelry display. Oh and they actually sold other decorative ornaments as well, like statues or miniatures of horse carriages, all made of silver.


I forgot how much the price for the miniature was, but the spiral ring that I got and fell in love at the first sight with was Rp 160,000 after a 20% discount.



HORSE SATAY

At 3 PM we got back at our ‘free hotel’ and rested for a while until Oni, a friend of Mia’s, picked us up at 6.30 PM. He’s a Jogja native, so he knows the ways around. We – and it was my idea – asked him to take us to a horse satay diner that I knew from the culinary guide book. I was just curious what horse meat tastes like.



The diner turned out to be a frugal stall near the Santika Hotel on Jenderal Sudirman Street. Because we didn’t know how good or bad it was gonna taste, we only ordered 2 portions of satay, each consisted of 5 skewers, and drinks. The whole thing cost Rp 28,000. And no, I don’t think I will look for horse satay anymore. Knowing was enough for me in that case.


JO’ KLERU

Then, Oni took us to another stall called Jo’ Kleru (translates to ‘Don’t Be Mistaken’) at Pasar Terban. They sell noodles, ronde (ginger drink with peanuts and rice flour balls), and others. Hm, don’t ask me how much, ‘cos Oni paid for everything this time.






AMBARUKMO MALL

Before calling it a night, we checked out the Ambarukmo shopping mall on Adisutjipto Street (it’s quite near to the airport), just to see what it’s like. Well, a mall is mall. It’s just like a middle class shopping mall in Jakarta that I’ve seen a lot. But the good thing is, I spotted a statue of mbok jamu* that’s now sitting nicely on a rack in my living room. I saw statues like it in Mirota Batik shop but they’re not as good as the one I bought :D

The Adisutjipto Street is also know as Laksda Adi Sucipto Street, it’s a newer way of spelling, I guess. Also known as Solo Street because it is the long street that connects Yogyakarta and the city of Solo, Central Java.

*mbok jamu = women who sells herbal drink. Often bottles of ingredients are packed in a basket that's carried on their backs with the help of a long piece of cloth (usually batik) that ties the basket to their bodies.