[Los Angeles] [Indonesian] Simpang Asia

Simpang Asia
10433 National Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034
(310) 815-9075
http://www.simpangasia.com

Simpang Asia is a small Indonesian market in West LA.  They also have a small Indonesian cafe that served authentic dishes with pretty reasonable price for westside standard.  Dr. P and I came here on Sunday for lunch.  The food was good, but we still had a pretty bad experience there which made Dr. P swore to never go back again.

There was no seat available inside so we grab a small table outside.  After ordering from the inside counter, we waited for about 20 minutes for our food to arrive.  While waiting, a group of Indonesian teenagers showed up.  There were about 15 of them who took the small table right next to us.  They were loud and obnoxious, I mean REALLY REALLY loud and obnoxious.  They crowded around our table, which was quite uncomfortable.  When our food arrive, Dr. P went inside to get some chopsticks.  I was busy taking pictures and wasn't really paying attention to the kids.  Next thing I know, they took our umbrella which gave us the shade for our seats, WITHOUT even asking.  I was still stunned when another girl tried to take Dr. P's chair away, RIGHT IN FRONT of me, without even saying anything.  I quickly stopped her.  She dropped the chair, didn't say nothing, gave me a mean stare, and walked away.  OMG!  What is happening to our education?  Why are kids like that nowadays?  When Dr. P came back, they kept on bumping into his chair, again, without saying anything.  Those kids were so rude, but there isn't much we can do.  I mean, I don't really want to be fighting 15 kids.  I just want to eat my lunch!


Nasi Gudek ($7.50)
Authentic rice platter from Jogja, sweet spiced, slow cooked chicken, egg, tofu and young jackfruit over rice and a side of tofu and beef rinds spicy curry.

Anyway, so the food arrived.  I ordered No. 1 on the menu, Nasi Rames.  Not knowing much about Indonesian food, I don't really know how Nasi Rames looks like.  So when the server sat the plate down in front of me, I assumed it was what I ordered.  Everything looked brown.  I had no idea what I was eating, except for the curry tofu, which was served in a separate bowl.  The brown stuffs tasted sweet.  I ate lots of mushy stuffs that I had no idea what they were.  I just assumed it was some sort of soybean products like tofu.  I did liked the food.  But I vaguely remembered the dish I ordered had beef and curry chicken in it.  We got the menu to make sure.  Yup, I didn't think they gave me the right dish.



Nasi Bungkus ($7.50)
Banana leaves rice wrap. One of the most popular rice dish. Handsfull of steamed rice served w/ chicken curry, beef rendang, Balinese style egg, spiced potato w/ bits of chicken gizzard, and vegetable light curry.

Dr. P ordered Nasi Mantep, which is supposed to be wrapped in banana leaves.  The plate the server brought us was wrapped in banana leaves.  So we also assumed it was the correct dish.



Dr. P had a few bites and thought it was great.  I tried it too and liked it even better than my plate.  The rice had the banana leaves fragrance and was delicious.  Chicken curry, chicken gizzard, and the little diced potatoes were all very good.  It also came with a fried Balinese style egg with chili sauce.  We did enjoyed this dish a lot.  But when I checked the menu for my dish, we also checked to see if Dr. P got the correct dish.  The Nasi Mantep was supposed to come with collard green.  This one definitely had no collard green.  I guess this was wrong, too.  So we called the server over to make sure.

It turned out that we both received the wrong plate.  The server apologized and offered to packed our corrected orders for to go with no extra charge.  I guess that was an acceptable solution.


Nasi Rames ($6.50)
The popular Indonesian rice platter, w/ the combination of spiced chicken curry, tasty tofu tempeh, and delicious daring beef rendang. Great combination for the first timer. If you like it spicy don’t forget to ask for sambal terasi.

I thought the wrong Nasi Gudek looked better than the Nasi Rames when I opened the box.  It wasn't too bad, but I did liked the Nasi Gudek better.  The chicken curry was tasty.  Tofu tempeh was quite good, too.  But the beef rendang was so hard and chewy.  The small container of chili sauce tasted sweet and fishy.  I think I rather order something else next time.


Nasi Mantep ($7.99)
One of our favorite spicy rice combination. Spicy and tasty chicken - egg curry, spicy beef jerky, slightly creamy collard green leaves, green chili with anchovy over a bed of rice and wrapped in banana leaves.

The banana wrapped Nasi Mantep was pretty heavy.



I enjoyed everything, except the beef jerky.  I don't think I like Indonesian style beef too much.  But the curry chicken and the egg was yummy.  But comparing the 2 banana leaves wrapped rice dishes, I still like the Nasi Bungkus more.

Funny how the wrong dishes turned out to be better than what we actually ordered.  We did enjoyed the food at Simpang Asia.  But the service was slow.  And they served the wrong dishes.  I mean, how they gave us the correct dishes for to go was nice.  But we wasted another 20 minutes just waiting for the to-go food.  And those rude kids totally ruined it for us.  I don't think we'll be eating there ever again.  Well, probably we'll just grab something for to-go next time.  But we'll have to check the items before leaving the place, too.

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