Indonesia has a big presence in Taiwan, but its food still flies under the radar, leaving many diners unsure of where to start or how far to go.
STORY AND PHOTOS BY STEVEN CROOK
As the number of Southeast Asians living in Taiwan climbs, so too do the small pieces of home they carry with them. Vietnamese eateries are now ubiquitous across Taiwan, and Thai cuisine enjoys broad mainstream appeal. But Indonesia — Southeast Asia’s most populous nation and Taiwan’s leading source of foreign labor — has yet to see its diverse cuisine win over local foodies.
One reason is a lack of marketing and publicity, says Teresa Liu, a food writer and entrepreneur. Liu says that the popularity of Thai cuisine has benefited from vigorous worldwide promotion by the Thai government, while Vietnamese food is quite similar to Chinese cuisine, making it easier for Taiwanese people to accept, she says.
But Taiwanese people “still hold stereotypes — even prejudices or misunderstandings — about Indonesia,” and this affects their interest in the country and its culinary traditions, says Liu, an Indonesian Chinese living in Taiwan since the mid-1990s. Those familiar with Indonesian cuisine recognize that its flavors align with dishes that Taiwanese already chase, like those of southern Thailand.
Liu points to the Thai favorite known as goong pad sataw and what her community calls sambal petai udang. Her friends within the Indonesian diaspora understand that Thai and Indonesian cuisines like these are closely related, both dishes built around prawns or shrimp cooked with stink beans in a chili paste. “But the vast majority of Taiwanese people are unaware of this,” she says.
Because familiarity with the country and its foodways remains limited, “those willing to invest in food businesses hesitate to use the label Indonesian cuisine,” says Liu. “Instead, they use nanyang (南洋, Southeast Asian) to attract wider attention and interest.”
The complexity of Indonesian cooking — with its wider and more expensive range of spices — can be discouraging for aspiring restaurant owners, Liu notes. “Many dishes also require slow cooking techniques, which are time-consuming and labor-intensive,” she adds. Most food businesses operated by naturalized Indonesian residents “can only target their fellow countrymen, perhaps due to financial constraints, and they find it difficult to attract Taiwanese consumers.”
For her part, Liu promotes Indonesian food culture through social media. Her website also highlights the historical link between Indonesian saté and Southeast Asia’s broader satay tradition — flavors that ultimately inspired Taiwan’s shacha sauce (沙茶醬), a Chaoshan condiment brought by postwar migrants and now an island-wide staple.
How to get started
There are more than 600 ethnic groups represented within Indonesia’s population of over 280 million people. Java, the country’s most populated island, gives Taiwanese diners an entry point that stays close to the flavors they already love.
Because Javanese food, particularly Central Javanese, tends to be sweet, “it aligns with dietary habits in central and southern Taiwan,” Liu explains. What’s more, Javanese food is heavily influenced by Hokkien cuisine. “It features fried noodles, noodle soups, and snacks that resemble common Taiwanese fare, so it’s readily accepted by people here in Taiwan,” she says.
A full-stack engineer and entrepreneur who’s been working in Taiwan for the past seven years, Daivalentineno Janitra Salim says that though there aren’t many Indonesian restaurants on the island, anyone seeking the country’s cuisine should begin by exploring the cluster of eateries just east of Taipei Main Station, where they’ll find Javanese, Balinese, and other regional dishes.
The dishes served at Sate House (磐石坊, No. 15, Leli Rd., Da’an District) also “lean toward Javanese Peranakan flavors — and the restaurant is frequented by both Indonesians and Taiwanese people,” says Liu.
Of the several distinct ethnic groups on Java, the Peranakan people — descendants of settlers from southern China who arrived in the archipelago hundreds of years ago — represent a hybrid of Chinese and Indonesian cooking traditions. Peranakan cuisine is probably the easiest for Taiwanese to accept, Liu says.
What to try next
In a 2018 episode of Parts Unknown, Anthony Bourdain said of rendang daging sapi: “I could eat that all day.” Liu relates that “many Taiwanese who’ve tried it have told me it’s incredibly delicious and far superior to curry.”
Hailing from the Indonesian city of Padang, the dish is a signature delicacy listed as Rendang Sapi on the menu at Sate House as well as at many other restaurants. It’s a slow-cooked and rich beef dish — too dry to be a curry and too reduced to be a stew — simmered for hours in coconut milk and spices.
Liu says that food from Padang is well-liked by local diners. In restaurants, “Padang cuisine” is often used as shorthand for the dishes of the Minangkabau people in West Sumatra. Padang, the region’s capital and largest city, serves as the center of Minangkabau culture and its vivid gastronomic heritage.
Salim says that his Taiwanese friends “usually like dishes like sate or rendang, although some find the spicier or coconut-heavy dishes a bit strong.” He recommends an inexpensive spot near National Taipei University of Technology called Chandu (讚都, No. 6, Lane 128, Section 3, Civic Boulevard, Da’an District), saying he’s a fan of their noodles and sate.
In an emailed response to Taiwan Business TOPICS, Chandu’s owners say that they and all their staff are Indonesian, while the clientele is around 50% Indonesian, 45% Taiwanese, and 5% other nationalities. Asked what specialties they’d suggest to first-time diners, they point first to rendang sapi, then to two less familiar dishes: ayam goreng Kalasan (fried chicken done in the style of Central Java) and ayam geprek.
The latter dish is chicken that’s been deep fried, then immediately broken up in a mortar and mixed with sambal (chili paste). The restaurant also serves soto, a chicken soup with a yellow, turmeric-infused broth. Chandu’s version contains rice vermicelli and is accompanied by a bowl of steamed rice.
Ready for more
For diners not based in the north with access to Taipei’s Indonesian eateries, central and southern Taiwan offer the same flavors and the same drive to share them.
Described as the culinary cornerstone of South Sulawesi, coto makassar is a rich, traditional Indonesian beef soup, with a broth that includes lung, liver, and tripe, as well as muscle meat. The dish gets its texture and flavor from ground roasted peanuts, galangal, lemongrass, coriander, and cumin.
Sharing the same name, Coto Makassar (No. 33, Lane 81, Section 1, Taiwan Boulevard, Central District, Taichung), a recently opened eatery in Taichung, is perhaps the only place in Taiwan that serves coto makassar. The restaurant is operated by Indonesian Nita Mutmainna and American Chris Ecker.
“Customers from Makassar tell us our version is spot on,” says Ecker. Coto Makassar is traditionally served with rice cakes, but because some Taiwanese ask if it comes with noodles, Mutmainna and Ecker are considering adding it as an option. “We’re new, and we’re still trying to see what works,” Ecker says. “We’re small, so we can’t add too many items to the menu.”
So far, the restaurant’s customers have been “mostly Indonesian, some very curious Taiwanese, and a few others,” Ecker says. When it comes to connecting with fellow Indonesians in Taiwan and promoting their business to the greater community, Mutmainna has helped Coto Makassar hit the ground running. She boasts more than 370,000 followers on TikTok, where she’s known as both a singer and a commentator on migrant-worker issues.
Elsewhere in Taiwan, the Shangri-La Far Eastern Hotel, Tainan directly challenged perceptions of Indonesia in 2024 by promoting an 11-day Indonesian food festival at its buffet restaurant. Acknowledging a “general bias against Indonesian cuisine in Taiwan,” the hotel’s website made a confident claim: its use of coconut milk, spices, and a balanced sweet-and-savory profile makes it an ideal match for the tastes of southern Taiwan.
Tainan has its share of Indonesian bites, but the real hub is on Nanhua Road in central Kaohsiung. The best-known spot and busiest of the stretch is RM. BU Yeti Indonesia (爪哇真美食小吃店, No. 206, Nanhua Rd., Xinxing District, Kaohsiung), opened in 2017 by Yeti Li, a Javanese woman who met her Taiwanese husband when both were working in Jakarta.
Unlike many of Taiwan’s Indonesian restaurants, which describe themselves as “Muslim friendly,” Li’s business has obtained full halal certification. The current menu lists almost 30 items, including gado-gado (a vegetable salad dressed with a savory peanut sauce), bakso kecil (small beef meatballs served in soup with noodles), and saté kambing (grilled mutton sate skewers served here on a portion of white rice).
However, the next step for Indonesian cuisine to really take hold in Taiwan is seeing it made at home as easily as it’s ordered out. Reaching that point will depend on obtaining the right ingredients — spices in particular — which can be difficult, says Taipei resident and Surabaya native Salim. “You can find some items in Southeast Asian grocery chains like INDEX or EEC, but buying online might be a better option.”
Liu says that, in addition to picking up ingredients at specialist grocery stores, supermarkets, and traditional markets, she buys galangal, lemongrass, pandan, sand ginger, torch ginger, and other essential produce directly from Taiwanese farmers.
For its part, Hokkaido Fresh Food Supermarket (北海道生鮮超市), which operates eight branches solely within the Tainan-Kaohsiung area, has sought to distinguish itself from larger competitors by stocking a variety of Southeast Asian products, including Indonesian instant noodles, canned herbal drinks, premixed coffee, and spice mixes. And as more businesses stock these products, Indonesian flavors are expanding the range of palates in Taiwan.
For more information
Teresa Liu’s website offers Southeast Asian recipes, sales of ingredients, as well as links to her Chinese-language blogs about her culinary and travel experiences: tprose.com.tw
Rasa Indonesia is an online directory developed by Indonesia’s Ministry of Trade “to serve as a guide, a means of promotion and information, and to introduce the flavors of Indonesian cuisine and culinary delights.” At the time of writing, it listed 211 food businesses around Taiwan, including a vendor close to Taoyuan Railway Station that specializes in martabak manis (fluffy pancakes with sweet toppings), and an eatery on Pingtung City’s Chongqing Road that offers mie ayam (chicken noodles): rasaindonesia.kemendag.go.id
