From grilled beef ribs to fish cake-stuffed tofu skin, Indonesian cuisine is making its mark on Dominion Rd thanks to Raos

restaurant

18 Jul

Written By Antony

DOMINION ROAD DIARIES - RAOS

When Yuli Roesli emigrated from Indonesia to New Zealand in 1997 she suffered culture shock – Auckland was quiet (and a bit boring), with few fellow Indonesians, and very limited access to her favourite things to eat. Back then, opening an Indonesian restaurant would’ve been a pretty tough call – the cuisine not being well understood at all by the general population here then, and with only a very small community of expats upon whom you could count to give you a go.

Skip forward 20 years or more and the climate in Tāmaki looks much more favourable for Indonesian cuisine stamping its mark; over the past few years we’ve seen a flurry of openings across the city, among them Raos (from the Bahasa Indonesian for ‘yummy’), the Dominion Rd restaurant Yuli runs with family members.

Raos, which opened in the height of the pandemic, is stage two of Yuli’s hospo dream; she’d opened her first restaurant a few years prior a little further up the road but as it quickly attracted loyal custom in particular from the Indonesian community, it soon outgrew the premises.

Yuli, whose hometown of Kediri in East Java is an ancient capital and cultural centre for the Javanese, thanks her mother for her love of cooking and is keeping the family flame burning at Raos, where you’ll find Yuli in the kitchen, her son Ariel front of house, and other relatives rotating on duty. Raos’ reputation has grown well beyond the Indonesian community to attract the many keen to recreate dining experiences from their travels, as well as plenty who’ve never really had the chance to enjoy Indonesian food until now. As Yuli says with a smile, busting one myth and confirming another, “Kiwis love spice... and bigger portions”.

Big portion-lovers will walk away satisfied after Raos’ iga bakar dishes – Javanese marinated and grilled beef ribs. In the sambal mangga version, the ribs are coated with a beautiful peanut sauce and served with chilli mango pickles. The saos madu meanwhile sees the ribs glazed with a sticky honey-soy sauce and served with spicy sambal belacan (chilli paste aromatic with shrimp paste, fried onions, and more) – both dishes come with steamed rice and salad.

Indonesian cooks sure know how to grill a chicken to perfection, and the ayam bakar bumbu rujak is a favourite on Raos menu. A quarter-chook is given a sweet-sour-spicy treatment and cooked just-so on the grill then served with steamed rice, salad, tempeh and spicy sambal belacan. Lamb fans should go the sop kambing which features tender lamb in an aromatic coconut broth topped with prawn crackers.

For customers wanting to dig a little deeper and go beyond the dishes well-known outside Indonesia, give the batagor a go. There are many takes on the Sundanese favourite batagor, a dish said to have originated from siu mai, wearing a name that’s a portmanteau of bakso (fish cake), tahu (tofu), and goreng (fried). Raos version consists of tofu skin stuffed with fish cake and deep fried, then smothered in peanut sauce, kecap manis (Indonesia’s ubiquitous sweet soy sauce) and finished with a bit of lemon juice to add a dash of acid to the delicious umami-sweet party.

And if you’re keen to try one of Yuli’s family favourites, she says that would be cuanki – a soup loaded with wontons, tofu, meatballs and chicken broth, it was the go-to dish for Yuli when dining out with family in Indonesia. In another beauty of a portmanteau, the word cuanki is fashioned from a phrase describing the daily life of street vendors as they circle the neighbourhood: cari uang jalan kaki – ‘walk and earn some money’.

The drinks list at Raos refuses to be ignored and right now being winter it’s a great time to try some of the hot numbers. Sundanese Bajigur is made with coconut milk and young coconut, palm sugar, pandan, and ginger, while wedang jahe sereh sees green tea bolstered with ginger and lemongrass.