Food! Glorious Food! (Part 2)

I eat out a lot here. I've found good places and you'd be surprised how much a delicious meal costs. For 2 people, it's easy to have a wonderful meal for less than $5 and for 3 people? Less than $10! Of course, expensive food is available too, but I've discovered that it's never better food, just more expensive. As a former restaurant person, I like good food with a good price in a pretty place. And I've found a few such places here. 

 This delicious meal for 3 was about 8$. The dish to rear left is bubur ayam; diced chicken on rice porridge with  a julienned scrambled egg, peanuts and a thin, seasoned broth. To the right is nasi goreng; fried rice. The dish closest is basically a salad with tofu and peanut sauce and the fried stuff in the middle is tempe. The lovely pink juice? Guava. Yum!

Here's an example of me being hungry and forgetting to take the picture before  we destroyed the presentation! This is/was a whole chicken (the head was also attached at first, but since I had asked for it not to be there, they realized they left it, whisked it away and took it off for me) in Balinese spices and sauce, served with peanuts, a shallot relish, sauteed greens with hot sauce (with shrimp flavor; I don't eat that) and rice. The beverage in the bowls is called es buah - iced fruit and has diced fruit, sweetened condensed milk (or maybe coconut cream) flavored syrup, ice and water.

I'm a little embarrassed about this one...horror of all horrors, this is a chain restaurant!  But the food is consistently delicious and I need to feed myself. Here we have rice, fried chicken breast and wing, whole fish, 2 kinds of Javanese salad, fried tempe and 2 hot sauces. This meal? About 4 dollars (with 2 drinks, one is fresh guava juice)

This meal would be considered rather fancy; but still not too expensive...I'd say less than $10. Shown above is a sweet and sour fish dish  (fish called Gurameh, whole, partially filleted with the fried pieces on top), a Javanese salad, eggplant,  typical garnish of cucumber, mint and cabbage, soup, hot sauce, avocado juice and of course, rice.

My meal of fried noodles was only just ok (I should have had the chicken) but the place is awesome and I think the chef is professionally trained. It's the first time I've had an average meal there, so they're still on the list for sure. They do a great job - service, presentation, beverages and price. I had fried noodles with rice on the side (because if I only eat noodles I'm starving an hour later). The chicken dishes are braised leg portions in a cashew sauce. The beverage to the rear if a hot ginger drink and that awesome chocolate beverage to the left was unsweetened chocolate love....maybe with some coffee, not sure but very good! This meal? Less than $10 - TOTAL.

Because I live here and I think in monetary terms, I don't usually think of things in terms of American dollars but rather "oh - this is 50,000 rupiah (Indonesian currency, about $5)...that'll buy 2 bottles of beer, or 2+ trips to the laundry, a long taxi ride, 4 or 5 hair cuts, trash service for a month, a book or magazine (maybe),  breakfast out for 10 days, etc". I think in terms of what the money will buy, not how much it is in American currency, however, since I'm thinking that most of the people who'll read my food posts are American, I thought it would be nice to include prices...because I want to put it in perspective now.

A teacher here might make around $10 an hour, may also make $5 an hour...
A restaurant worker may may between $50 and $70 a MONTH (no tipping here - straight salary)
A house helper might make $100 a month
An office manager can make $100 a month, but because it's business, that amount is wildly variable.
A barista can make about $3 for 9 hours of work.

I don't know much about salaries in general, but I know the ones above, give or take a bit...so even if these meals are "cheap" based on American currency, they are not all "cheap" based on Indonesian currency. It's important to me to try and spread the love when I spend money, even if it's not much, and support small, local businesses...just like I do in the US. And it's especially important to eat delicious food; that's the only thing I'm high maintenance about...I think :-)