Indonesia Restaurant

How many star would u give if
1) did not pick up the phone for 10 times during business hours
2) took your order and made you wait for another 30 minutes when you went to pick up the food;
3) totally forgot your order!
I don’t even want to give them a star. They don’t deserve to be in the service industry.

Where will I go for Empek Empek?

lets just say that fellow Unilocalers really helped determined if me & my sister should go to this place & i must say I LOVE YOU UnilocalERS so far i havent been dissapointed. Now moving on to my review, me and my sister walked a good darn 5 miles to find this place and i was about to give up but suddenly i saw the light (or should i say the restaurant) it was in a corner of a not so busy street, the sign is pretty hard to see. We were walking and we missed it, now imagine if your zooming by in a car, maybe gotta drive around 2 to see it. Went today monday in the afternoon place was dead! literally the 30 minutes me and my sis dined we were the only ones! which worried me, but later the food came out and it was all worth the walk!
1. only reason am giving it a 4 stars is because eventhough we were the only ones the food came out cold how the hell does that happen? aint no one else getting your attention so why the lag on taking out my plate! we were literally the only ones there!
oh and 2. reason why i give it a 4 stars, am a petite girl and did not get full with the entrees! so i can imagine a big football player would need like 5 of them to be hecka full
thai tea delicious :) curry cocunut spicy shrimp superb :) and exotic spicy prawns on point :)

I need to start writing down the foods that are so authentic that I cant remember their names at the top of my head.
ENVIRONMENT
It has a family restaurant feel and it’s feels like being welcomed into an Indonesian person’s home. The place is very colorful and its like stepping into another world.
SERVICE
The staff was extremely friendly. They were helpful in picking out our food.
FOOD
Since I do have a Filipino background, I wanted to try foods that look familiar on the menu. I tried Indonesian lumpia, and I think there was a dish that was similar to a pinakbet. But I have to say… its really good. I was just imagining how the food is so similar to Filipino that it could have been originally this way before the Spaniards conquered the Philippines. Who knows? But I love the ginger kick in the foods. I like the spicy and the way it doesnt taste bland. The food is just great! I would come back again to try the other dishes. Next time I will write the names down.

Heard about this place from an ex’s sister whom I happened to end up sitting next to at another restaurant. For some reason, we are always bumping into her at different restaurants.
I find it difficult to write this review, so much that I had to wait about a month before writing this so I could get some perspective. It is hard to give a rating when there is such a disparity between service and quality of food.
It seems to be a family run restaurant where you have the parents probably working the kitchen and the kids exploited as waiters. When we first got there, there was another couple ahead of us. There were plenty of open tables and after about 5 minutes a waiter came over to seat the other couple and then us. After selecting what we wanted from the menu, we customarily put our menus down to signify that we were ready to place our order. The waiter took the order of the first couple and then took the order of a small group that seemed to come in after us. Well, for sure I know no one was sitting at their table when we walked in, unless they all went to the single stall restroom together at the same time while we came in. The waiter then came to us for our order. In total, it was probably about 15 minutes from walking in the door and placing our orders.
After about another 15 minutes, we got our drink orders fulfilled. Still no food on the table, but the other tables that placed their orders before us started to have some food on the table.
I glance upstairs and see a patron walking down w/​check in hand. When he gets to the bottom he waits until he flags down a waiter so he can give him his payment. He must have been waiting a long time for the waiter to come by if he had to come downstairs to chase down a waiter to make payment.
Another 15 minutes goes by, and still no food. The waiter was completely oblivious that we now have an unruly toddler in our party that is getting cranky b/​c it is late (about 10PM) and hungry b/​c of the non-​existence of food. With no more patience left, we asked to have our food packed to go instead. After about another 15 minutes, we finally had our food all ready to go.
All in all, it took about an hour to get our food to go. After all that time there was not one single apology or explanation as to why the food was taking so long. You might expect this kind of service for a chain restaurant or if you have a ton of people in your party, but for a small mom and pop restaurant this is unacceptable.
If you are going to use child labor, best to train them a bit in customer service: take orders in order, serve in order, get people w/​kids out fast, check-​in on your customers.
After we took the food home, we had a nice meal. The food tasted good, but the whole experience left me w/​a bad taste in my mouth.

1 of 3 Indonesian restaurants in San Francisco, smack dab next to another Indonesian restaurant. I was a little hesitant to try this place because they also sell Thai food. Usually crossing Southeast Asian borders on a menu is a warning sign (think Chinese restaurants with «Korean» options), but their Indonesian food was in no way pan-​Asianified! Very humble setting and awesome late hours.
Martabak Telur: These look a little like Totino’s Pizza Rolls, but taste way better. On the meatier side of an egg roll, just the way I like it!
Perkedel: A beef potato cake the consistency of the inside of a knish. Pretty pasty, but I liked it for its novelty. Great in the dipping sauce.
Ayam Goreng Bumbu Bali: Fried chicken with a lot of hot pepper paste on top. The fried chicken itself was ok, but you can get better at Korean joints or Soul Food joints. Wish the pepper paste as more saucy.
Gulai Kambing: A lamb curry that is more like an Asian soup than a proper Indian curry. Not too spicy. Very tender lamb chunks with a luscious coconut base I loved slurping up.
Loh Mie: Pork belly bits with some hearty pancit-​like noodles in a base somewhere better soup and sauce. The pork was soft, not crispy, but totally savory. This and the gulai kambing put me into bliss!

I’m from Jakarta, Indonesia and this is where I go to get my Indonesian-​food-​fix! The menu is better than Borobudur restaurant, which is like a block away. I’d say it offers a more authentic Indonesian food!
Gotta try the Soto Mie, all of the chicken choices, and definitely the drinks! and the chicken satay with peanut sauceeeee! YUMMM
I don’t really like the fact that they added «Thai» to their restaurant name, but ehh.
Also, the restaurant has a homey kinda feel. It’s very cute for Lunch and dinner. Soooooo what are you waiting for? GO EAT SOME INDONESIAN FOOD!

I LOVE INDONESIA RESTAURANT! I don’t care what people say on Unilocal,my mouth is watering just thinking about it! I don’t know how authentic this stuff is but I guess its pretty legit. As long as it infuses sensations to my taste buds, I can’t complain!
My first experience here was with native indonesian people, they said the food here was better than the indo place next door. I ordered the fried chicken with spicy sauce over it and ever since then, I can never view chicken the same way again. I think its Balinese style… or something like that. Compared to Indo-​Café in Seattle, the prices are pretty expensive. My chicken was 12(?) dollars and it did not come with rice. It’s fine… i guess.
Anyway, I’ll definitely be back!

Woe is me. I’ve been wanting to try this place since moving to this ‘hood and finally took the plunge after months. I just hope this isn’t what Indonesian food is like, which I’m sure it’s not. I was expecting bursts of flavor… spice…anything! Maybe me and my PIC (partner in crime) ordered the wrong things? Maybe sober people shouldn’t be eating at 1:30am? Maybe I should have known better – I haven’t really seen people in here since they’ve re-​opened. Karma? I pray any of these were the case.
Skip: The gado gado (Indonesian tofu salad with peanut sauce). BLAND.
Try: The BIGGEST calamari rings I’ve ever seen! Think: onion rings. Drool…
When my wounds heal from this let-​down, I’ll certainly try Borobudur across the street instead.

Jeebus-​farking-​cristo! What have they done with this place? I used to love the original indonesia restaurant because it was the closest thing to having the food I grew up with. Then it changed owners and the food got crappy. Then I stopped going for a while. Then it changed owners again and the food got even crappier and more expensive. $ 12 for a fookin rice place? Shiiiet! Big portion, but come on! It wasn’t even that good.
This place gets worse with each makeover, kinda like Joan Rivers and Lara Flynn Boyle. And now they think they’re a THAI restaurant too? Gimme a fucking break. Go see a shrink and sort out your identity and then go back to serving great, home-​made, authentic indonesian food.
I still don’t have the heart to give it a one star though. Sigh. As an indonesian expat, I really don’t have much choice. And the waiter was very nice.

New management and new menu again.
They jacked up the prices, swapped out the tablecloths for paper, added Thai items to the menu, and are now open till 3AM.
Definitely a disappointment for me, as I really liked the last régime here. But it still is decent, and they fulfilled my need for sweat inducing hot and spicy food at 2:30AM.
I will be back, but probably only for late-​night!

I am so disappointed in the Indonesian Restaurant! My mother and I went back here about two weeks ago and they have a new owner, AGAIN! This time we do not know the lady but my mom had a couple of words with her before she re-​opened the restaurant.
It is STILL called Indonesian Restaurant but instead of JUST Indonesian food, it’s Indonesian AND Thai food. I knew this was a disaster from the beginning. How can you mix Indonesian food with Thai food?! *sigh* I really didn’t want to go but my mom INSISTED that we try it.
The Menu was wayyyy different. After a long hard time of thinking of what I was going to order, I finally decided to pick Ayam Bumbu Bali, Mie Tek-​Tek, Roti Prata and Gado-​Gado.
First my mom order me the wrong thing. She ordered a Tilapia fillet with «SUPPOSSEDLY» Bumbu Bali sauce. OMG! It was not even close. The cook just fried the fillet and put a whole bunch of TAQUERIA-​tasting SALSA on top of it! WTF?! When it first came I was like WTF is this, I didn’t order it and they were like «it’s the Bumbu Bali» ok, Bumbu Bali is suppossed to be SAUCY not no damn SALSA! To make things worse I found a hair in my Mie Tek-​Tek! Everything tasted so DISGUSTING. The whole time I was extremely frustrated and mad. There is nothing that irks me more than FAKE Indonesian food! Plus the owner is Indonesian too! How DARE she cook fake Indonesian food and serve it to REAL Indonesians! AHHHHHHHH!
Henny, Freddy, where are you guys?! Can you please come back and save this restaurant! :(

New owners yet again at this place. I’ve been going to it for the better part of 10 years, and I think I’ve encountered at least 4 different owners. I went for lunch last week, and the food was good. Spicy like the way I like it. The «trasi» was interesting. It tasted fresh which was actually good.
For now, I’m only giving this place a «3» because it’s always been a little too expensive, and I’m not sure if the new owners/​chefs are going to stay.
So, stay tune.

It was a Friday night of reunions and such; I knew I had to be better prepared with dinner ideas than in previous times. I knew it was time for me to finally familiarize myself with more of the restaurants in the downtown area…
So I compiled a list of places that seemed of interest to me, all of them along the Jones/​Post area. My friend decided we should go for either Borobudur (Indonesian) or Pearl’s Deluxe Burgers. We walked up from Hotel Nikko and passed by several restaurants along the way to the two destinations. I hadn’t realized there were a couple of Thai restaurants in the vicinity as well, so I took note of those restaurants (making sure to add them to my bookmarks later!). We also weren’t aware of there being another Indonesian restaurant near Borobudur; this place was simply called «Indonesia» and looked more home-​style/​casual than Borobudur.
We peeked at the menus for all three places (actually, we only briefly glanced at Pearl’s and realized the atmosphere wasn’t what we were looking for), so then we narrowed it down to Borobudur vs. Indonesia. While Borobudur looked classier and perhaps had higher quality food, nonetheless the $ 6.95 lunch/​dinner special at Indonesia drew us in. For $ 6.95, we could order two entrees from a set menu and it’ll come with a big serving of rice (add $ 0.50 for coconut or turmeric rice) and noodle salad. Special runs only until 8pm though. We were sold on the deal since we hadn’t tried Indonesian food: more opportunity to sample the different dishes. We were lucky that our server was actually someone we knew (really, by chance; I wasn’t aware that he worked at the restaurant until we entered inside and he seated us). He helped us with menu recommendations, and we took his advice on what to order.
I ordered the spicy beef cubes and the vegetable curry with coconut rice; also ordered the #56 drink (unfortunately I do not remember the name of the drink; it had rice flour in it, though). The portions for the entrees were smaller than I had expected, but there was plenty of rice, thankfully. I find that a lot of restaurants seem to find it hard to have a good balance of both entrée and rice, although I also know that I have a huge appetite when it comes to eating rice… anyway, in the end the portions were actually just right for me: enough for me get a feel for the entrees and their flavors. The spicy beef cubes were cooked well and were easy to eat; just the right amount of spice. The vegetable curry was lighter than Indian curry, almost like a curry soup instead. There was a light hint of coconut in the rice, which was perfect for me.
My friend ordered the beef with coconut milk and shrimp curry with the #55 drink. She also seemed to like her entrees; I tried a sample of the beef and it was a bold, strong flavor. The shrimp curry looked to be about the same as the vegetable curry, other than the addition of the shrimp. We felt very satisfied with our meals after we finished.
The atmosphere: definitely more casual than Borobudur (I haven’t visited Borobudur yet, but from the looks of it from outside, it looks fancier than Indonesia). However, I felt like because the atmosphere was casual, it was also more comfortable; my friend and I stuck around for awhile after we finished our meals and chatted for a little. I noticed there was another table of customers who were sitting and chatting for awhile, too. That’s a good sign when customers feel like they can stick around for a little to talk after dinner. Granted, the restaurant didn’t have a Friday dinner rush, but still. There was no feeling of urgency to head out of the restaurant.
Unfortunately, I feel like I cannot be too objective with the service since our server was someone we knew. However, I will say this much: he was helpful with our order and attentive with our water glasses. At times, service was a little slow, but that was saved by the quality of the food. Also, he was the only server that night anyway, so I can understand a slower pace in service for that reason.
As an extra note, apparently there are only three authentic Indonesian restaurants in San Francisco: Indonesia, Borobudur, and Bamboo Village. I had mentioned how I had gone to Java (on Clement) awhile ago, but the server hadn’t heard of the place. He said the place might be another type of cuisine other than Indonesian… so I’m not sure. Anyway, good piece of information for those of you who are curious.
In general: Indonesia Restaurant is a cozy place to go to for the casual atmosphere and the great lunch/​dinner combo meal. If you’ve never tried Indonesian food before, you should start here and then make your way around to the other two restaurants in the city (that’s my plan anyway).

You must be kidding me with these reviews…
I tried this place out for their $ 6.95 specials…
I got a huge amount of rice and 1 piece of meat for every entrée it came with. At that, the entrée wasn’t even that good. The service actually took forever, an hour before I got my food!
I wouldn’t go here again when there are so many Thai Food places around them that taste so much better!
Not a fan! I’d rather have my friend’s malaysian cooking instead which is way better!

The food is relatively inexpensive and the portion sizes are good for sharing. I’ve been there twice now and both meals were good. I can’t remember the exact dishes that I ordered, but we mixed it up and pretty much everything was decent.
As mentioned by another reviewer, they do use tin-​foil to serve some of their foods, but they attractively twist it into a duck or bird shape.
Recommended.

So finally I came here with my parents (after having been to Borobudur several times) and I have to give this place 4 stars for several reasons:
1. They didn’t have what I wanted :((nasi gudek)
2. They didn’t speak Indonesian! Ok well, at least not to us. But I mean come on that’s like going to a Chinese restaurant and they don’t speak Chinese? I know the waiters knew we are Indonesian because hellooo I went with my parents and Indonesian is clearly the language of choice between us (ok I lie, for them more so than me).
So a rundown of what we did have:
–Lontong sayur. Alright, definitely had flavors, but I forgot it by the end of the night.
–Nasi Padang. According to my dad, it was ok, which means it’s not good, since he has high standards (coming from Padang of course, that’s how he rates his food).
–Siomay Bandung. Pretty good, loads of peanut sauce so it’s not plain.
–Es durian. Damn. I forgot how bad durian smells. This blended durian and ice really tastes like durian, no joke. Not a durian shake or ice cream. Blended durian. And the texture is already creamy.
Between four of us dinner wasn’t cheap, but I guess that’s also because we got an app and dessert. Oh well, 3.5 stars from me.

This place pales in comparison to Borobudur. It’s prata (pancake) with curry was okay, but it wasn’t as flaky and crisp as the one at Borobudur. The entrees were also ok but very short of spectacular. The chicken fried noodle was tasty and spicy, but didn’t have enough spice. The chicken curry was good but the meat was so tough we needed steak knives to cut it. We went at prime dinner time on a Thursday night (7:30) but the place was empty… maybe that should’ve given us a hint.
The venue itself was cozy and nice, and the wait staff, although a bit awkward, was okay.
Bottom line, why go here when Borobudur is half a block away?

After an indecisive bought of:
«where should we eat?»
«oh, I don’t know, something kind of healthy.»
«so no pizza?»
«just somewhere that’s not all greasy and nasty because I just came from the gym.»
«So, does that rule out pizza?»
«Fuckit, I don’t care, anything but pizza!»
«OK, what about a burger and fries?»
«I said HEALTHY!»
«Thai?»
“I’m sick of Thai.“
Enter:
Taste of Indonesia
Because Asian food is always healthy, am I right? Right! And Indonesia isn’t even near Thailand… right?
I have a few warnings.
1– Don’t come here if you are already starving. The food takes about 7 years to come out. We went through 2 extra large Tiger beers and I was about to start foraging in the garbage bins outside for food, when my meal finally arrived.
2– Don’t come here if you are deathly afraid of tin foil, or if you have a problem with excessive static cling, or if you know how to bend tin foil into some kind of weapon that could possibly hurt an innocent bystander.
Don’t be scuuuuuurd!
3– This place will make your poo sad.
Other than that, three stars for the delightful noodles, chicken and coconut rice. After the looooong wait for my food, when it finally came I was not disappointed. Very tasty!

I’ve been dining here for sometime.
The family who ran it for a while, moved to a new location in Berkeley.
It seemingly changed hands, the menu has changed. even the signage changed too.
The food has gone from really good to mediocre. Now, thankfully it’s back to really good.
There is at least one Indonesian person dining when I come in… good indicator in my book.
Came for lunch;
Gado-​Gado, really good, flavorful! ****
Empal Belado, marinated dry beef, sweet and delicious *****
Rendang, traditional beef/​coconut milk dish from Sumatra, pretty good ***
I switched the standard rice for the coconut rice. A nice change.
To finsih, es teler… seems like the have a new ice shaver.
All the «Es» treats here will be good.
Make sure you ask for the sambal terasi and kecap manis. Theya are table condimnets and kept in the cooler.