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Food, Restaurants
Breakfast at Rumah Makan
While we�re on the subject of breakfast (particularly in Westgate), let me take you down the block to the newly opened Indonesian-themed restaurant, Rumah Makan, where I enjoyed a spectacularly heavy morning meal yesterday. Rumah Makan�s signage proclaims it to be a �House of Sate and Soto,� and when they say sate and soto, they mean it. That�s pretty much all they serve here. Sate (or satay) is, to put it simply, Indonesian barbecue (usually served with a distinctive peanut sauce), and soto is Indonesian curried soup. Both dishes can be prepared with various meats and accompaniments (in Tagalog: sahog, hehe), so while the menu seems rather limited, there is a reasonable amount of variety within the restaurant�s narrow scope.
Rumah Makan (according to their flyer) means �house where you can eat tasty Indonesian food.� Now I know that makan means to eat, but I really have no idea what rumah means, so I don�t know if it directly translates to all that stuff about tasty Indonesian food. In any case, this seems to be a popular phrase for Indonesian restaurants, though I don�t think the places that came up when I Googled the phrase are directly related to this particular restaurant.
Anyway, back to my breakfast� I was planning to have a crepe at Caf� Breton when I noticed that Rumah Makan was already open, so I went over to investigate. Their balcony looked so inviting I decided to forego my crepe and have some sate for breakfast instead. (Besides, I have a
Unfortunately, it turns out that you can�t order regular menu items this early in the day (they start serving regular menu items at 11), and the only thing they had for breakfast was the Bubur Ayam (P140), an Indonesian porridge with chicken bits. I�m not really a porridge person, since I find that any form of the stuff (goto, arroz caldo, congee, champorado, even oatmeal) is invariably too heavy for me. But hey, the balcony was pleasant, the service was friendly, and they had Teh Susu (hot milk tea; no iced version though), so I figured I might as well stay.
Surprisingly, they served my porridge in a deconstructed manner: first came a bowl of lightly flavored sticky rice topped with chicken flakes, then came a bowl of hot curried soup, and finally a small dish with chopped scrambled egg and bits of dried fish (in Ilonggo we call this uga; I suppose the generic terms daing or tuyo might apply). Normally the way to eat this is to mix the soup and rice and toppings all up, thus producing your own porridge. Now, like I said, I don�t particularly like porridge, but I do love adobo flakes with rice, and this was exactly what my food looked like, so I left it all in its deconstructed state and enjoyed the component parts of my meal on their own (I did mix a little soup in the rice, just to see what it was supposed to taste like).
I lingered over my meal, enjoying the morning air and what little view there was from the balcony (I could see the back of UCC and Poquito Mas, and parts of Breton, but then again, there was a nice tree in front of me, so that was OK). The Teh Susu was sooo worth it� 50 bucks got me a pot which was good for almost four refills. The Bubur Ayam was, even in its non-porridgy form, as heavy as expected, so I only got through half of my serving before realizing that not only would I not be able to finish everything, but I would also not have any room for lunch later in the day. Obviously I wasn�t about to try any more sate. Hmmm� maybe next time.
My sister and her husband have tried their regular items and they report that their dishes are OK but not really spectacular. Both of us prefer the more sharply spicy and oily Malaysian cuisine over Indonesian, though a lot of their dishes overlap; I guess the limited options, while good for attracting Indonesian food purists, just isn�t enough to float our boats. They might have to add more stuff to their repertoire to keep up with all the bells and whistles the other restaurants are throwing at today�s diners. Interestingly enough, Bali Blends next door is the exact opposite: they�ve got so many options on their menu, ordering can get a little confusing.
Rumah Makan
Westgate, Filinvest Corporate City, Alabang, Muntinlupa
(no phone yet)
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rumah makan is like an eatery house :) rumah = house… makan as you said is indeed eat :)
i tried this out last week and totally did not enjoy my meal. there was a lady shouting orders from the kitchen, to a lone server who had to shuffle from the ground floor and up. the lady turned out to be the owner’s mother, so how was i to complain. soup was served cold. sate was nothing out of the ordinary. hope the young enterpreneur who put this up does something about it. an indonesian restau would have been a first in the alabang area.
They also own Bali Blends. The owner is Rika Kato. She’ s a kababata of mine, now she lives with her husband in Indonesia so it’s just natural that she’d share what indonesia is to her. Rumah Makans in Indonesia are just like the tabi tabing kainan we have everywhere. Except that it’s cleaner and really more inviting because it is in Indonesia. The meaning of Rumah Makan over there is just the same as our Salo-salo sa Hapag Kainan over here. As in indonesians gather, not reminded by class although I’m not really sure, maybe it’s meant for the lower class but then Rika is so not the lower class. She is over and above that status. Google her and you’ll find out. As I understood from Rika’s mum, it’s to be enjoyed more at night. Parang tipong puso and barbecues in Cebu habang naglilibot ka sa mga night markets. Well that was the formed image in my mind when she explained it to me. Think of it siguro as Dampa in Sucat or Libis pero of course in Westgate and you don’t have to shop for your ingredients. Of course for me mas masarap parin ang lutong Pinoy, which is as broad as our crops because of our only two seasons. Although it is not as specfic as Japan’s seasonal and healthier menu, I find Pinoy cuisine still mas masarap. Indonesian sate and soto can be found in between. And they just started so give them a few more months to do fixes in menus and service. I’d suggest siguro they bring in some of the buns from Indonesia which is to be deep fried pa and use Nutella as spread. That would be so nice for breakfast.
trying hard resto..
i should have spend my money wiser!
Hi, I grew up in Indonesia and was happy to know that there’s a resto close to my house. Rumah is room and Makan is eat - so roughly translated, it means Dining Room.
Thanks for the writeup I’ll probably try it so I can remember the taste of home.