Sederhana Nasi Padang @ Batam

[18 January 2011]

A trip to Batam, or even Indonesia is not complete without having a meal at Sederhana! It's like the Macdonald's of Nasi Padang in Indonesia and offers a clean comfortable dining experience!

Both of us have matching handbags from Naraya! ^^

Here's how all the food are stacked.. You can walk right up to the dishes and point out which one you want and there is NO MENU lah! The best time to visit is between 11.30am to 2pm cos afterwards most of the nice food are sold out and you have to wait till after 5pm for the dinner dishes.

The food are usually not cooked at the premises, we saw vans delivering the food to the outlets when we were there on Day 1, around 4pm++ but most of the nice dishes were sold out and they said the food will be fully delivered by 5.30pm which we can't wait cos we damn hungry.. That's why we went to another location to eat, which was damn expensive and not nice. We most probably got ripped off.. but that's part of the "Tourist Experience" I guess.

So the Nasi Padang experience in Indonesia is totally different from Singapore. The waiter will stack between 15 to 30 dishes (depending on his skill) on his bare hands and bring it to your table. If you want it.. you eat it. If not, leave it alone and they will recycle it for the next patron.

Sounds a bit gross, but since we are there we have to follow the custom. Apparently, the waiters will know if you moved the food in the plate, so you can't cheat by taking a bit than argue saying you didn't eat it..

Of course, it's also a bit tricky when they come and calculate the amount.. So the best you can do is either cross your fingers and hope they don't overcharge you -- which is impossible if you are a Chinese. Or make sure you have a friend who can speak Bahasa Indonesia and is good at math and bargaining.

Then again, Welly and Santi (both Indonesians) said that Sederhana has a lower cheating rate cos it's a national chain outlet, unlike dome other dodgy Nasi Padang stall. However we must still check lah. And they also said that even though they are Indonesians, they will still kena cheated cos different cities speak different dialects. So they are obviously not from Batam cos of their slang and WILL still be cheated by evil people in Batam... Hahahahaha!

The meal for 4 persons is around SGD50.. which is not really cheap if you think about it.. BUT we were scoffing down copious amounts of fried chicken and freshly squeezed orange juice.. so it's quite worth it. A 'normal' meal which consists of 2 veg + 1 chicken is around SGD2.. quite cheap lah. But for Indonesia standards still high cos they earn very little, but unfortunately Batam living standards higher than most other cities cos a lot of Singaporeans frequent there.. Like those cheekopek uncles looking for 13year old mistresses or Aunties looking for a cheap massage/shopping or illegal gambling.

They do deliveries as well, but I think the best thing is to go to the outlet and eat cos you can pig out! :D