Exploring The Indonesian "Tom Yum" Chicken Soup?

 As a food enthusiast, sometimes I wonder how able food is going mad and makes my mouth want to eat more and more. And also, I believe that amazing food comes from great ingredients. If we are talking about the famous food ingredients, chicken is one of the most affordable. We can easily find chicken all around the world, even though in Indonesia, my homeland, there are lots of chickens that are wandering on the street, maybe one of them had stolen another pair of slippers (just kidding anyway). And yes, all places include traditional restaurants until the modern markets provide chicken.  This kind of flesh has a lot of ways to make it become tastier. Deep-fried, steam, sauced, and soup are the three perfect and quite popular ways to cook chicken.

Anyway, I have written several things, but I forgot to introduce myself lol. Well, I am Felix, and I need to tell you guys that I am not a chicken maniac. I am just a student that enjoys lots of flavors that flow and dance on my tongue. I live in Jakarta, a super crowded but beautiful place, and home of many kinds of culture here, especially food. We can easily find western food, traditional food, Chinese food, Indian food, and many other foods that I can’t mention one by one. As an Indonesian that lives in Jakarta, usually we spend our holiday in another nearby city. Bandung and Bogor are the most popular places where the Jakarta citizens spend their holiday, even though I can’t count how many times I have been there because it is too often. It is understandable because distance between Jakarta to Bogor or Bandung is not that far, around 1 hour to Bogor and 2 hours to Bandung. So, my family and I decided to travel to another city on Java Island.

For your information, Java Island is quite wide, and long island too. There are different kinds of food in different areas in Java. As I said about Bogor and Bandung, which located in West Java, the foods there with several places in Central Java like Semarang and Solo, are slightly different. For example, fried chicken in West Java tastes more salty than fried chicken in Central Java which tastes little bit sweeter. I had gone to Central Java several times, and the first time happened when I was 10 years old with my family and their friend. At that time, we spent 7 days there, and it was so joyful because there was the first experience for me to explore a place that is hundreds of kilometers away from Jakarta by car ahead to Semarang.

We were talking and looking excitedly for the Javanese culinary there. Even my mom had lots of culinary options that came from her workmates that had been there too, one of the most recommended suggestions are a chicken-soup named “Garang Asem”. Garang Asem is a Javanese authentic chicken soup that we can easily find in Central Java, especially in Semarang City. We couldn’t wait to eat Garang Asem, because there was our first time trying it. But at the first opportunity, we had to hold our dream come true because the traffic jam was really bad and terrible. We stucked for around 20 hours on our way, from evening to another evening. At that time, duration trip from Jakarta to Semarang reached 6-8 hours. One thing that we thought about when we arrived at that time was having dinner in the hotel then taking a rest asap, because time had shown at 9 pm at that time.

Finally, on the rainy day, after around 4 days in Semarang, we tried Garang Asem for the first time. Unfortunately, I forgot the name of that restaurant, what you can expect with 10 years old boy that is still thinking about fun and play lol. But I knew the ambience there was really convenient. I also remembered we were eating covered with Javanese traditional wood-structured gazebo.  After the Garang Asem served by the waiter, my first impression said that this food was unique, because the soup was covered by cooked banana leaves. My mom said that Garang Asem was great, she said it had strong flavor and enjoyable. I was curious about that fresh aromatic soup, but sadly, it tasted spicy and at that time I couldn’t eat spicy foods. So, I just could imagine and wonder how good the taste and how warm the soup it was, because it looks different from usual chicken soup. From that day, Garang Asem spotted the special place our family’s heart. Every time we go to Central Java, they always remember to have Garang Asem as their main course at least once. According to my parents, there was something missing when we didn’t try Garang Asem there.

Time flies, year by year, my family still spent their holiday mostly in Bandung or Bogor. Still, we couldn’t find the ‘competitor’ of Garang Asem in Bandung or Bogor. Chicken-based food is just fried and used as soto’s ingredients (soto is one of an Indonesian popular soup with beef or chicken filling and taste savory). So, when we finally had decided to spend our holiday to Central Java again several years ago, our mind and soul directly to Javanese culinary, especially Garang Asem. I was very very happy, because at that moment, thanks God I was able to eat spicy food. Yeay…

Magic happened when we were on the highway’s rest area to have some dinner, which it was my first time to try Garang Asem in a restaurant named Pringsewu. After it served, the nice aromatic of the soup and well-trimmed chicken makes my stomach scream loudly. When first slurp was done, oh my God, the balance of the spiciness, sourness, and little bit dominant of umami were perfect. I just realized that the soup included the complex combination of chicken stock, belimbing wuluh (sour tropical fruit – looks like small cucumber), tomato, garlic, shallot, ginger, and little bit coconut milk. It tastes similar to Tom Yum, but Garang Asem is savorier. The only 3 words that describe this food are amazing, insane, and comforting. I also have tried another place that serving Garang Asem too, named “H. Ismun” in Semarang and their chickens filling were generous with stronger flavor. If you love strong flavor or high portion, “H. Ismun” restaurant is highly recommended when you go to Semarang. “Pringsewu” also recommended if you guys enjoy the lighter taste.

This is Garang Asem that I ate in H. Ismun restaurant in December 2023

This is the end of my first treasure that I and my family found in Central Java, a strong flavor chicken soup that makes a perfect combination of sour, spicy, and umami tastes. Stay tuned for my other journeys in culinary world. Have a great day and don't forget to have a plate of warm Garang Asem 😇😋