Exploring the flavours of Indonesia
GADO GADO’S NAMESAKE SALAD helps take the edge off the harshness of life. It’s part of the restaurant’s homey ambience
It may be a stretch to call this the summer of Indonesian food in Montreal, but the cuisine is having a bit of a moment. And let’s hope the moment lasts because there’s so much to enjoy in the archipelago’s hawker foods, native spices, seafood preparations and sweet shaved ices.
Two-month-old Gado Gado is, by my count, the third representative of Indonesian cooking in the city. The other two are the longstanding and more upmarket Nonya in Mile End (which, among other things, does a multi-course feast called rijsttafel, a remnant of Dutch domination) and the newer Mia Tapas Indonésiens in Villeray (recently positively reviewed in this column). Gado Gado, which takes its name from the famous salad, is for now the lone downtown representative.
In some ways, this eatery has most in common with the original incarnation of Nonya, which first opened on a low-budget strip of St. Laurent Blvd. a decade ago – without quite the same style or buzz. The second-storey space is clean and rather spare. Most of the surfaces (tile floors, wooden tables, brick walls) are hard and echoey, so it needs people populating those dark corners to feel animated. And it does deserve to be better known.
First, to that signature salad. while amazing seasonings abound in Indonesia, this classic dish is not a zingy thing. The effect was fairly muted, as though it was designed to take the edge off everything, even the harshness of life. In other words, totally mid-tempo: the vegetables steamed to softness, the peanut dressing tame, rich and relatively fireless. Our platter contained cabbage, green beans, chayote, boiled potatoes, cooked eggs, sprouts, tempeh and tofu, scattered with beige melinjo chips, made from nutlike seeds that are pounded and formed into discs, and topped with a big shrimp cracker for some crisp and foamy extravagance. A pleasant and placid dish to file under world comfort food.
An order of jerky took us to the other end of the spectrum, or should have. Mounted on a bed of lettuce, dark triangles of beef were heavy with soy in the marinade and chili flakes on the surface. While hot and spicy, this tended toward the sweet, a recurring comment here. The contrast of flavours was appreciated. Best as a share, though.
I wasn’t immediately taken with Gado Gado’s fish cakes, maybe because I had a Thai bias, imagining bouncy patties seasoned with lemon grass and chilies. instead, the colourless, tubular forms of pale paste arranged on a banana leaf took me by surprise. (It’s done that way to facilitate eating, the waiter told us. The fish mixture is actually grilled in the leaves.) The consistency took some adjusting to, but the fragrant herbs wound up winning me, paired with that now-familiar peanut sauce.
The main main, the one that stood out most, was the beef rendang. The sauce was seriously cooked down to become thick and clumpy so that it adhered to meat on the bone, achieving a real intensity of flavour, deep with galangal, ginger, lemon grass and chilies on a base of concentrated coconut milk. (It instantly reminded us of early forays into Malaysian food, and there are indeed many variations of this Western Sumatran preparation). I also loved the pungency of the red chili sambal that came alongside – together the flavours told a story. So did the plating, suggesting that someone in the kitchen had been schooled in the hospitality arts: as shown in the smear of sweet potato puréed with coconut milk, big florets of broccoli and moulded rice as accompaniments. If the look was more mainstream (than need be, at least from the perspective of more adventurous eaters), the result was a cared-for and well-rounded offering – and for $13, hard to argue with the value.
While I tend not to order shrimp very often these days, (TMI – Too Much Information with regards to how most crustaceans are cultivated), the waiter mentioned that udang was popular with customers. Cooked inside a banana leaf wrap, the sharp spicing permeated the shrimp with a tangy burst. The shrimp were tight and overly firm, though I’ve found that typical of this cooking technique. The rest of the plate bore the same sides, with the addition of simmered and lightly sauced green beans.
We went for accessibility on the third choice, with the standard chicken satay. After all, skewered meats plus Sapporo equals summertime. Nothing too challenging in the generous pieces of tender white meat, with a grainy, sweet-salty peanut sauce for dipping. Filled out with starch and veg like the other mains, this was also good value.
Desserts showed commitment to homemade items, including layered rice flour cake and two-toned sponge cake called lapis surabaya, the colours of egg yolks and chocolate, with a rum-lite flavour. These were set off with green tea ice cream and fresh fruits.
Gado Gado was a homey experience, and the staff humble and quietly enthusiastic. I’d certainly return. There were items I was curious about that we didn’t manage to try: the steamed buns with pork belly, the tamarind soup with the lure of jackfruit in it and the mackerel with red peppers. And if a shaved-ice dessert were to appear on the menu, I wouldn’t say no to that, either.