Sunday, April 22, 2012

Another Indonesian Restaurant in Sydney CBD

Southeast Asian restaurants springing up in Sydney has made this cuisine the new flavour, replacing Thai and Italian which had dominated the food scene for more than a decade. 


Delima serves Javanese and Balinese food. You don't have to travel to the Eastern suburbs / beaches to enjoy good Indonesian food. However, the lack of direct competition also meant paying a little higher prices for similar dishes. The challenges come from Malaysian restaurants Mamak, More more cha, Petaling street and the newbie Nonya all within the vicinity and a short walk. 


Knowing what are the specialities to order would make the experience thoroughly worthwhile. 


Highly recommended : ox tail soup cooked in spices, every drop is precious, the moderate serving is sufficient to feed two persons.




The crispy cups filled with vegetables and shrimp is a rare offering in Sydney. A time consuming dish to prepare, they warrant a high price tag. The pastry is a bit thick but otherwise it is as tasty as the Malaysian version.




All time favourite berkedel - morsels of mash potato with mince and onions deep fried to crisp. 


Javanese style BBQ chicken with rendang marinade, so it's a dry style of cooking



The mixed vegetables  stir fry which even has fava beans thrown in is soaked in savoury spicy sauce. Very tasty but makes you want to eat more rice and drink lots of water.


The fried tofu nuggets with mushroom sauce is very similar to a Chinese dish but this restaurant does not do it as well.


The deep fried calamari infused with dark soy sauce may be a favourite for some but not to everyone's liking because it is quite oily. Using large calamari instead of baby squid which is true to the original recipe may have diluted some of the charm.



There is no space for dessert. But most Indo-Malay dessert in Sydney are quite disappointing if you have tasted the real McCoy.  Other than Saturday evening, you should be able to get a place at this restaurant especially when there are three Malaysian restaurants in the vicinity.

No comments: