Essential information: Gluten free in Indonesia

Soy sauce

Soy sauce turns out to be one of the greatest dangers in Indonesian cuisine. Smaller stalls have large plastic bottles without labels. Ingredients unknown, but used freely on all food in reach. When there is a label, it’s possible to use the Google Translate app, but only when it’s Bahasa. I found it easier to order without sauce as to not complicate things even more.

Tofu and Tempe (fermented soybean cake) are often served. Tempe can be eaten raw, baked or deep-fried. I enjoyed eating both a lot (before I had to quit soy as well) and never got sick. However, I did always check if there was any soy-sauce involved before digging in. Additionally, there is meat, mostly chicken everywhere. On Javanese warungs many recipes involve sugar. During the colonial times sugar factories were build all over, especially near Jogyagarta. The factories sometimes gave away sugar to the locals, one inhabitant told me.

About train food

Java is quite big and since there is train tracks all over, it’s easy to take the train. Affordable (if you compare it to Dutch standards), usually on time and most importantly equipped with a blissful air-conditioning. What about the food, immediately pops in mind when talking about longer journeys. It’s actually pretty nice! The crew walks around with coffee, tea and food. Trains are equipped with a restaurant car. When you go there with you diet card, they might be able to give/sell you something. You have to make them really understand, since ingredients might not be listed on the box.

Food revolves  around rice: nasi goreng, white rice with veggies and Tempe. Rice roll with hot (like fire breathing hot) sauce. Sometimes I would skip part of the meal because of a debatable sauce. If you want to try this, make sure you get your food early. There are only so many meals available and it might sell out of you’re too late. They also sell chips.

Warung

There are small restaurants with a restricted menu all over the place: warungs. A warung can be anything, a couple of chairs with an open kitchen in a small alley or an actual restaurant. And anything in between. Many people get their food here and it seems there is a Warung on every street corner. Food is generally inexpensive, heavy on oil and contains little vegetables. Nasi goreng is always present on the menu.

Breakfast

I did not eat breakfast often in this country. A couple of times a hotel or hostel served something I could eat (or not). Sometimes I bought fruit at a roadside stall. We did get a fancier breakfast in a touristic restaurant a few times in Yogjakarta. A local acquaintance one brought me some Burbur Ayam to try: rice mush with pieces of cooked chicken, garlic and onions. I didn’t enjoy it so much, but it was filling, savoury and is sold in the morning on the street for breakfast. It was no conscious decision not to eat breakfast, it was so hot all the time and I didn’t want any.

Lunch/diner

Always a good choice for lunch or dinner: satay skewers. Served with peanut sauce. When I’m lucky, I can ask someone in English if there is wheat flour mixed through the peanut sauce. Or let Marnix taste fist to detect the taste of soy-sauce and decide later. Sometimes peanut sauce is made with water and peanuts. I secretly do think it might be safer to eat at small stalls, but I am not sure.

One of the dishes you will find (or it will find you) is nasi. The variety is stunning but then of course ‘nasi’ means ‘fried rice’ and rice is the fundament of most foods here. Nasi bakar, Liwet, Goreng, Uduk, Pecel, the list seems to go on and on. I tried out a fair share, but my no means all of them! Nasi always consists of rice. Can be plain rice of fried. Nasi goreng is found in every warung. If you ask for this, you’ll be served fried rice with a few veggies and sometimes a bit of kroepoek.

Nasi

Nasi Sayur I like very much. Plain fried rice with vegetables. Sometimes served next to another meal, but not at cheaper warungs.

My absolute favourite: Nasi Rendang. I only found out this existed two days before we left Indonesia again. White rice, veggies and great sauce with beef. Mouth-watering really, I get hungry ever thinking about it.

A plate of fish, called Bakar (though nobody knew what kind of fish it was) and cups of coconut milk with pieces fresh coconut mixed inside. Steamed peanuts complete the meal.

About other foods

Cap cay/cap cai is a nice diversion from all the greasy food. Cap cay is just mixed vegetables, sometimes with some sort of sauce.

Not one of the cheap options, at least not in a tourist restaurant, but a lot of fun! We paid 24 USD for this huge meal, including a appetizer, alcoholic drink and a plate of fruit as dessert. We ordered this here because they are known with the gluten free diet. You can order a rijsttafel in other places; you get small bowls of different contents. At the end you pay for what you’ve eaten. I found this unwise to try out with my diet: ‘What is this? What kind of sauce is this? Is there any flour inside?’ with every small bowl. Nah. Better to pay a little more and be safe this time. I loved rijsttafel at Viavia Jogya.

Soto Ayam: a scoop of rice, bean sprouts, chicken, some herbs and chicken broth. Sometimes noodles. Surprisingly filling. I was a little unsure about the broth and found it hard to ask about this, since communication is not always so easy. On the bright side: I never got sick and ate this quite a lot. Soto ayam is sold in many places. The ingredients are ok, only watch out for noodles. Mostly made with rice flour, but this could potentially be gluten. Better ask.

Tiny humans

Swikee: frog soup, a local delicacy a few hours from Jogyakarta. Frogs from the rice field are boiled and served with soup. It didn’t taste bad, but I had some trouble with eating the tiny humanlike figures, movable limb and the rubbery vocal sag. Interesting and all, once was enough.

Ronde is basically a bowl of tea with round clumps of rice flour, ginger, peanut and cassava. The taste is pretty intense, but it looks nice with coloured shreds and all. Here at a floor mat at a night market in Solo.

Yogyakarta

We spent a lot of our time in Yogyakarta. A couple of suggestions for where to go for gluten free food. It’s touristy places.

• Via Via bakery/restaurant (read my post here)
• Yam Yam: a Thai restaurant. Some of the Thai food can be made without gluten. I liked the Pad Thai!
• Christine’s garden: you can get gluten free pancakes for breakfast, made with tapioca. The waiters might be clueless, but the cook knows his business.
• Depot Veggie: vegetarian restaurant. Easy on your wallet and they also sell vegan ice-cream (which is not cheap). Loved the dark chocolate! The cook knows about the gluten free diet.

We spent only a little time in Jakarta, but I did find some interesting information about Cake and bake shops online. Note: I did not visit any of these shops myself, so I’m not sure about how gluten free they actually are. Would have loved to check this places out though!

Streetfood en food markets

I found eating street food hard. Often you can see the ingredients people use, but communication was really difficult. After being sick once, I stopped eating much at the stalls. It should be kind of safe, but it did feel like too big a risk. It should be pretty safe in theory, but it always felt like a big risk to me. Some food, such as Ronde is quite safe. Pisang (fried banana) is also possible in theory, but it was not always clear to me what kind of flour was used on the outside of the banana.

We have eaten at food markets several times. This can sometimes really be in the way of a regular market, where stalls are built and taken down again at the end of the day. We have also seen many ‘fixed markets’, where stalls have their own place and are never removed. You’ll find tables where you can sit. These stalls sell one or more dishes you can eat on the spot. I wrote a post about visiting a food market (Paskal) I enjoyed very much.

Snacks

In smaller supermarkets you can find chips and nuts. Pretty often there would be an English ingredient label. Buying fruit at markets is really easy. If you’re adventurous you could also buy dried chicken paw-skin. The big, chunky pieces of kroepoek you see at the market are probably pieces cow skin.

Don’t like

Be vigilant if you want to buy something from a stand, even more so when they sell more than one type of food. These people are dependent on your money and some are happy to give the desired answer. One time the ingredients ‘changed’, based op-on what I said I did not want.

I have been laughed at when I asked if wheat was one of the ingredients. ‘No, of course not.’ With this unbelieving face, how I could think such a thing! To bring me some doubtful looking sauce, crackers or whatever. Waiters don’t always know what’s the deal. Neither does the cook.

It took me some time to figure out where to get ‘healthy’ food (read non-oily of sugary). My stomach had a hard time adjusting to the greasy food the first week.

Like

In principle, wheat is not a much used grain so much in the traditional Indonesian kitchen. Here they mainly use rice, cassava and palm. This makes my gluten free life much easier, because even if there is flour somewhere, chances of me becoming sick are smaller. Warungs seem to work the same way all over Java and Sulawesi, so you can find food everywhere! Soto Ayam has saved my day several times. This knowledge gave me a much needed safe feeling during travelling. I like travel in Indonesia very much indeed and finding gluten free food here turned out to be quite all right.

Gluten: 1

Lactose: 0