Ayam Penyet @ Malioboro, Bali

 Starving upon reaching Bali, the first agenda was to hunt down some late lunch. We decided to leave the fate of our tummies to our villa representatives who greeted us at the airport.

 "Tourist trap!" was the first comment we murmured when the agent told us they were bringing us to a 'famous' Ayam Penyet place that tourists always ask to go. Sounds like a whole pile of baloney to me!

 And how right we were when we arrived, whole bunch of chartered vans parked outside, nobody but chinese (Singaporeans probably) eating inside. We gave a silent sigh and looked at the menu anyway.

 But honestly, this Ayam Penyet was pretty damn tasty. Never would I have imagined salted egg sauce would go with fried chicken (recommended by the waiter), but hey, this plate of chicken here easily owns most random Ayam Penyets in Singapore. Chicken fried to oblivion till the bones are edible, but still strangely juicy and crispy, not the best dish for your heart but whatever!


 I was very skeptical about this initially, and even more so when it landed on our table looking like that! But it tastes waay better than it looks. The chicken was still crispy underneath the deluge of salted egg sauce,  and the meat easily fell off the bone. I really liked this take on regular familiar ayam penyet.

{ Ayam Presto Telur Asin (64,000 rp / $9) }

Ayam Penyet with Salted Egg sauce

 Unfortunately everything else went downhill from there. The kang kong tasted very undercooked, the sauce at the bottom was extremely salty, and the sambal chilli was extremely tasteless (and only mildly spicy IMO). Even the chilli in the bottle by the side was a little tasteless. After tasting Ayam Penyet chilli in Singapore you'd expect the chilli in Indonesia to be absolute hellfire.

 The Kangkong was a bit too raw for our liking, probably could be better if left in the pan for about 3 minutes longer with the sambal stirred through, rather than piled atop like that.

{ Plecing Kangkung (18,000 rp / $2.50) }

Kangkung with Sambal

 And this tahu telur aka weird egg thingy - wasssnnn'tttttt quite what we expected. While we knew it was tofu and egg, we couldn't taste where the tofu began and the egg ended, and drizzled in this strange sweet, salty peanut sauce. Texture was as you'd expect, soft eggy / tofu-ey / melty. Well I guess it's an acquired taste!

 Our waiter assured us this tofu egg dish was yummy, but we shouldn't have listened lol. The sauce is too sweet and there is too much damn sauce! Would have actually preferred a claypot rendition with the savoury eggy sauce.

{ Tahu Telor (31,000 rp / $4.30) }

Fried beancurd with egg

 After a bit research back home, turns out this place really is rather popular and well known for their chicken. Still can't stop the place from looking ultra dubious though. Truth be told, the price wasn't that expensive. It's still slightly cheaper than Singapore, but of course if you expect to come to Bali and pay $2 for lunch you'll be disappointed anyway.

 The signature ayam penyet is good, but the other dishes don't quite work for us. But hey, never know till you try right?


Other comments about Malioboro :
http://www.travbuddy.com/Malioboro-Restaurant-v501632
http://vialentino.blogspot.com/2010/06/ayam-tulang-lunak-malioboro-restaurant.html