Batak people has a very deep and long history in Medan which can be seen through a lot of activities, way of communicating, and one of the most prominent, is the food. Batak cuisine is one of the most authentic and must-try delicacy if you visit or live in Medan. In this case, I am talking about Toba speciality, which is not to be confused with Karo that has a different set of delightful delicacies, even though through times, both cuisine somehow overlaps and shows similarities, yet still notable in the look and taste overall.

OnDo Grill Batak, a restaurant that serves Batak cuisine in a whole different interpretation from the traditional with some hint of Korean fusion. Located in a suburban area of the city, this restaurant seems like a hidden gem (even though most of the people has found the gem). Arrived, you will only see a usual house renovated into a restaurant. Walk through the house, you will be greeted by a beautiful inner court that connects the house with the whole dining area which is very spacious. Uniquely, OnDo only serves us hungry people from 10.30 in the morning to 5 pm in the afternoon. You heard it right, no dinner is served here. So for those working with a tight lunch time, Sunday or Saturday would be your best choice.

Thankfully, since we were one of the last customers that day, we could choose our seats. We were seated on the most beautiful space available, right next to the small garden that gave us a good breeze in the afternoon, and of course the best space for snapping some beautiful dishes with natural lights all over the dishes (even though sometimes the reflections was quite hard to deal with).

After being seated, we ordered our food and waited for quite a short time before all the dishes came out. While waiting, I noticed some ornaments on the wall which somehow represented traditional Korean, and I was right, after looking for "traditional Korean mask" in Google, I found the perfectly similar set of what was hung on the very wall. The ornament somehow implies that this is a Batak and Korean fused restaurant for those who noticed.

Let's start with the most widely known side-dish of Batak cuisine, which is pork soup/broth/stock. The taste of the soup was flavorful. I really love the word "flavorful" (please mind me) because it shows how rich the taste of a food is. It was aromatic and the slices of the carrot and potato was soft and melts in your mouth - that is how I like it.

Soup Babi Kosong (10K)

The next dish is a must try! It was a milkfish (or Bandeng in Indonesia) that was sliced into a two-part with its bones all removed. The dish was grilled and smothered with a special-super-spicy-but-addictive sauce. The sauce was truly addictive, if you can't bear the spiciness, you could always request it to be less spicy which I forgot to do. Nevertheless, I could not stop having a mouthful of the easy-to-spoon dish, the experience to scoop out every single part of the fish meat was so seamless that I really had a good experience eating it. The taste itself was spicy (another warning), with a hint of sourness/freshness (probably from lemon, lime, or Andaliman maybe?) and savoury Korean BBQ sauce. It went pretty well with the perfectly cooked fish, such a masterpiece!

They also served similarly coloured dish which contained pork. Named as Kalbi Panggang, it is an authentic Korean dish, with kalbi or galbi (갈비) means "ribs". The sauce was less spicy than what was experienced from the fish meat (could it be that there weren't aware of it?) with overall similar taste compared to what I tasted from the fish dish. The most prominent different would be the juiciness and sweetness from the pork itself that elevated the whole flavor of the dish. Sadly, I did not experience the out-of-bone meat tenderness (when the meat is easily separated from the bone). It could be because it was not cooked/smoked long enough, or purely because the different method of cooking ribs, I would not know, but somehow, every time I am faced with ribs dish, I expect it to be like that (CMIIW).

A dish of vegetable is always a must to balance the healthy food intake (do not remind me the ratio of meat dish and the vegetable dish please!) Because of that, we ordered an in-house vegetable speciality which consists of cassava leaves, banana hearts, and slices of chillies and pork. Spicy yet tasty!

Not to be forgotten, there was a small portion of fried pork belly to accompany our feast that afternoon. Crispy, juicy, savoury, addictive, and too small for a person's portion! A must try, but did a pretty good damage to one's wallet.

After finished eating the dishes, we were given each a cup of Korean tea (no pictures), which is said to balance and to cleanse. The tea was a very nice gesture that made our meal a memorable meal. Overall, our experience eating here was amazing! The way they fuse Batak cuisine with Korean was subtle and you guys should give it a try!

RM ONDO GRILL BATAK
Jl. Pabrik Tenun No.45, Medan, Indonesia
Everyday, 10.30 am - 5 pm
+6261 451 1608
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So, it has been quite a busy week for me lately that I haven't had the time to write! Let's get back to blogging. About a couple of weeks ago, for the first time, yes, you read it right - and somehow I feel ashamed - I visited Dimsum Babura, a very well known local restaurant for dim sum and hotpot. Fyi, Dimsum Babura serves dishes that contain pork - you know what I mean. It was actually called Dimsum Ayong (maybe still uses that name), but since it is located on Jl. Babura, people generally acknowledged it, and they also named it as Dimsum Babura.

Entering the restaurant, I could really feel a very homey-authentic-Chinese atmosphere. Loud, noisy, crowded, well, very Chinese indeed! The huge room is decorated with some red pineapple lanterns which is believed to bring luck, wealth, and fortune. Huge round tables are mostly used in the restaurant that implies it is mostly intended for large groups eating. There are numbers of four-people seating available too.

As I have mentioned before, this place is very notorious for its dim sum, especially the hotpot they offer. Unfortunately, our tummy is not that empty to be filled with the huge portion of hotpot (110K each, with minimal order of two portion), so, instead, we ordered the dim sum and some other Chinese meals. Our first order that came out was a sweet delight they named as "Tan Tak" It is simply egg tarts, a couple of them, that is too few for us to share. The taste? OK, nothing special, but not at all disappointing. The pastry crust was so soft and fragile that made me felt sad I wanted to finish its life quickly.

The next stuff is very authentic of Indonesian-Chinese origin, local people called it Leng Hong Kien. After some research, it is derived from the words 龍凰卷 which is romanized as lóng huáng juǎn (please correct me if I am wrong). I could not find this dish outside Indonesia (again, please correct me if I am wrong), and especially if not in a particular restaurant that serves this. The dish is actually a deep-fried shrimp paste roll, covered with "special" mayonnaise. I called it special because it is different from each restaurant serving the dish. This dish is always a favourite dish wherever it is served, and it was well served in this restaurant as well. If it not as pricey as it is, I could ordered it more.

The restaurant turns out serving Vietnamese dish too. Well, Vietnam has quite a great shared history with China, so maybe there are similarity and resemblance of Chinese and Vietnamese dishes that they decided to serve this delicacy. Based with lettuces, filled with beansprouts, rice vermicelli, thinly sliced carrots, yam bean, topped with the juicy, sour/acidic sauce and generous sprinkles of fried shallots, the salad dish was quite delightful. 

I love delicacies with tangy-authentic-tasting sauce/dressing, and this one surely have that quality. I always adore the moment of the salad mixing and finishing to the last pieces of the vegetables. A perfect build-up of my appetite that night.

We ordered quite a number of dim sums because we wanted to try as many as we could. But somehow, the most anticipated (since I have never tried this and it looked so tempting) dish was the most let-down of that night. Call it shrimp dumpling with small pieces of vegetable inside. Maybe some peas, carrots, corns and other unidentified vegetables inside didn't go well with the taste of the shrimp? I don't know, I didn't enjoy it very much.

A small portion of fried rice vermicelli came to us next. This is one of the very recommended variety dish they say should be tried if you visit this place. It seems so unattractive, and we could always go with the variety of dish with meats cooked with it. But for your own indulgence, try it once. I think once is enough. Flavorful indeed, but I could show you more places that sell the exact same thing with half the price and at least the same deliciousness.

Who doesn't love fried turnip? Fried turnip is one of the most well known savoury snacks of Chinese people. Pump it up by stir-frying the dish with beansprout, egg, and other vegetables, the dish become scrumptious, succulent, more flavorful than ever. This is TOP NOTCH, and one of the most recommended dish they offer. The fried turnip will somehow melts and oozes your tongue with the savoury flavor that you won't stop until there is nothing left.

The seventh dish came out, afraid not, we are not full yet. This dish somehow have a special place in my heart that I will order something like this whenever I see it in any restaurants menu. It is no other than the most delicious meat in the world, pork, prepared in a way that no one (expect those who dislike/restricted) could say no to. Fried to a perfect crispness, well marinated, served along with one of the best sambal (spicy sauce) using Andaliman (could cause numb sensation, with hint of fresh and acidic lemon flavor), this dish of pork belly (samcan) slices easily won my heart belly. Don't look at the price, it was always worth it.

Last main dish, the longest dish that we waited that evening, was finally served to us. It was called Mie Raja or you could say Emperor Noodle. A dish usually eaten on a special occasion. Nope, there were no special occasion that evening, it was just to satisfy my curiosity. They cooked it well and I liked it, as simple as that. The noodle texture is not pretty much distinguishable from the usual egg noodle, it is just thinner.

Do you think we were finished? I also thought so. But then, somehow one of the waitress offered us this succulent Thai dessert. All of us couldn't resist the temptation to accept the offer. The sticky rice texture was fine, very well matched with the sweet-tasting coconut milk. About the mango, it is a seasonal produce that makes the overall taste vary. Ours was not that sweet, yet still enjoyable. What a good way to finish a great meal!

DIMSUM SANGWO BABURA
Jl. Babura Lama No.12, Medan, Indonesia
Everyday, 7 am - 2.30 pm; 5 pm - 9.30 pm
+6261 456 7839 (456 6161) or +62878 686 028 28
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