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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