A week in Lombok and Jakarta, Indonesia

[KennethT]

34 minutes ago, liuzhou said:

 

I do indeed; in fact almost exclusively. I'm never without it, but then I use a lot of garlic.

 

 

Known as 独蒜 (dú suàn - literally 'alone garlic'), it is, I'm told, native to Yunnan province, but widely grown in Sichuan and elsewhere today. It ís easy to peel and for me one bulb = one clove is (usually) the perfect amount for one dish.

 

It is becoming easy to find in the west, I've heard. I remember @Anna N saying she had found it in Canada and I've seen it in London's Chinatown.

 

P.S. It makes excellent black garlic, too.

 

 

Reserve me a room in that supermarket, too please! Thanks for the detailed account. Fascinating.

 

 

Nice. I wish I could find that garlic but I'd go through it like it were candy.  Malaysian/Indonesian food uses a TON of garlic.  One dish will usually use at least 5-6 standard cloves, so if I was making a dish plus a vegetable, I usually go through a whole head of standard garlic in one meal.

[KennethT]

16 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

 

Ditto what @liuzhou said!  I love visiting markets when I travel - even if they're not as amazing as these. 

 

And how nice that your hotel procured the cobek for you, @KennethT, and explained their quality concerns. I'd say their price was worth it. Lovely piece. 

I'm continually surprised at how cheap things are there compared to home or even to places like Singapore which is already cheap compared to home.  While I paid the hotel IDR100,000 (technically $6.06 at 16,500/$) I saw quite a few on the Indonesian versions of Amazon for like 65,000, so around $4!  Incredible...  Actually, I paid about $9 for the cobek because I gave the guy who went out to get it for me another 50,000IDR (about $3) just for him and he was so appreciative.  He went back out to get a bunch of newspapers and stuff to wrap it with to get it home safely.