Bakmi Hunt : For The Love of Noodles
9:00 AM
Bakmi lovers rejoice! Until January 24, 2016, there is something exciting going on for you: bakmi hunt. In collaboration with Green Sands, Bakmi Club Kelapa Gading offers a treasure hunt-esque experience for foodies and foodgrammers. Simply dine in one of the listed noodle restaurants, and you’ll get a chance to win a trip to the capital of Indo-Chinese food, Medan.
There are 10 noodle restaurants on the list. For a first timer, visit any restaurant you like, then ask for the Bakmi Hunt pamphlet. After eating, ask the staff to put a stamp on your pamphlet. Repeat the steps at the other nine restaurants. The restaurants are, among others, Bakmi Danau Toba, Bakmi Ayam Kampung A Tjuan, OTW, Mie Benteng, and Bakmi Sin Lun. Check out Bakmi Club’s official page for more details.
Now I’m going to talk about two restaurants I’ve visited: Bakmi Sin Lun and Mie Benteng.
BAKMI SIN LUN
Address: Jalan Kelapa Kopyor Raya Q1 No. 19
Phone: 082160226022
Opening Hours: Tue - Sun 06:30 - 16:00
Bakmi Sin Lun’s speciality is curly noodles with pork. In Chinese food, there are a lot of ways to cook pork, and here at Bakmi Sin Lun, they highlight a couple of them. The two favourite bakmi(s) are:
Bakmi Special (IDR 45k) contains crispy roasted pork (shiobak), sweet red pork (chasio), sweet red honey pork, salty minced pork, leeks, and fragrant boiled eggs (telur pindang). There is also pork dumpling in the soup.
Bakmi Chasio Madu (IDR 38k) contains sweet red honey pork, minced pork, leeks, and crispy fried lard.
Both dishes are kind of too salty. Almost everything taste salty, from the minced meat to the sweet red honey pork. I mean, I’m hoping for the sweetness of the honey to come through, but I get salt instead. Shiobak is not crispy enough, although it looks really nice—it fools me at first.
The dumpling tastes good in spite of the fact that the skin is too thick and the seasoning is not bold enough. But maybe they intentionally make it that way to balance the saltiness of the noodles. Overall, the noodles are quite nice, although they do not reach my expectation.
MIE BENTENG
Address: Jalan Kelapa Kopyor Raya Q1 No. 2
Phone: (021) 99634149
Opening Hours: Mon - Sun 06:00 - 16:00
In contrary to Bakmi Sin Lun’s curly noodles, Mie Benteng’s speciality is “straight” noodles, mie kecil. AKA small noodles. But they’re not that small to be honest. I believe mie kecil should’ve been smaller than this. Maybe that’s just me. Maybe not. Okay. I’ll stop this topic here.
Mie Benteng’s uniqueness is that you can personalise your noodle by the type of noodle (kecil, lebar, karet), toppings (pork, chicken, etc), and size (small, medium, big). I order big-sized bowl with mie kecil and five toppings for IDR 38k.
The noodle itself is smooth and soft, but a little bit overcooked for my taste. When I bite through the noodle, it gives no resistance and crumbles down very easily. The toppings:
* Minced chicken is quite good, tender and salty.
* Crispy chicken is not so nice; it’s not crispy at all and leaning towards chewy. Perhaps they are not served immediately after frying.
* Minced pork is nice, it has a balanced taste.
* Chasio is sweeter than my liking.
* Shiobak, similar to crispy chicken, is not crispy at all. I don’t even have to taste it to tell you that it’s not crispy. I can see it.
Fried Dumplings (IDR 2k/piece)
Love it! Visually, it has that golden-brown skin that simply screams I’M SO CRISPY PLEASE EAT ME. The seasoning is also spot on. Yum!
THE VERDICT
A friend once told me that the most important thing in a bakmi for him is the noodle, to which I immediately agreed. However, in these two restaurants, I fail to see that. In my opinion, both put more focus on the toppings, which is kinda sad because the toppings are not that satisfactory either. Having said that, if you love bakmi and pork, you have to try these restaurants, because each has their speciality and uniqueness. Plus, we might have different preferences! You could end up loving what I didn’t enjoy at all.
Although both restaurants do not serve bakmi that I truly enjoy, I believe they could—and would—improve in the future. The owner of Mie Benteng told me that fellow bakmi stall owners around the area hang out together sometimes to chat and push each other to find something new and unique. Kudos!
Happy hunting!
Happy hunting!
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