Bakso: The President's Favorite Soup?

by Robert Sietsema, Posted Nov 12th 2010 @ 3:30PM

Barack Obama state dinner in Indonesia Photo: Charles Dharapak / AP Photo

President Obama spent four years of his childhood in Indonesia in the 1960s, and recently made an official presidential visit to the southeast Asian archipelago. But what excited the most public attention in Jakarta were not any diplomatic initiatives he proposed, but what he said he missed from his time there. And what he missed was bakso.

Bakso (a.k.a. bakmi) is Indonesia's premier street food, a soup that can contain any number of things, but always includes meatballs -- which are also called bakso. Confused? This soup is sold from stalls in the street, from trucks, and, most memorably, by vendors who ride bicycles that have a bakso-assembling set-ups attached to the front, complete with little steam-table tubs heated by Sterno flames or charcoal.

The meatballs themselves are usually made with finely ground beef, but can also be composed of chicken, fish or shrimp. Sometimes, they're formed from bovine variety meats like tendon and liver. But the quintessential feature of these orbs -- which can be as small as marbles or as large as tennis balls -- is that the meat is extended with tapioca flour, which gives the meatballs a bouncy consistency.

Once the bakso have been deposited in the bakso, the soup is filled out with a wealth of other ingredients, and the diner is usually given some choice. Noodles, definitely. Sometimes egg noodles, sometimes rice noodles. Other additions include fried wontons, bean sprouts, various greens, crisp shallots and marinated mushrooms. It's up to you to squirt in the condiments, which include katjap, the forerunner of ketchup. Bakso (the soup) is considered Chinese in origin, but the Indonesians have mutated the hell out of it.

The president finally got his bakso, served at a gala state banquet flanked by Indonesian dignitaries. I can almost guarantee it wasn't as good as the kind you get in the streets of Jakarta.

Since I'm a New York City-based critic, I can recommend a few places to get basko here, though it's not easy to find. That's because, while the city has a wealth of Thai, Malaysian, and Vietnamese joints, Indonesian eateries are few and far between. Our most prominent and long-running place, Bali Nusa Indah (651 Ninth Avenue, 212-974-1875) in Hell's Kitchen, serves a simple version containing beef balls and a choice of egg or rice noodles. In Greenwich Village, tiny cafe Satay Junction offers a rudimentary rendition with beef balls and the egg noodles called mee. Over in Brooklyn another old-timer, Java Indonesian Rijsttafel (455 Seventh Avenue, 718-832-4583) in Park Slope, has a more elaborate bakso featuring bean curd, celery, crisp fried onions and beef meatballs. Though there are several Indonesian restaurants in Elmhurst, Queens (Upi Jaya, Bromo Satay House, and Minangasli are three), they tend to serve Sumatran food, which doesn't include bakso.

Filed Under: Food News
Tags: bakso, obama, President Barack Obama, PresidentBarackObama

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

11-12-2010 @8:44PM robinsinwoods said... bakso is not known as bakmi. bakmi is the name for noodles, mostly yellow egg noodles. and yes, Indonesian is notorious for shortening any name, hence bakso short for a dish containing meatballs and/or egg noodles with soup.

also, the right spelling for katjap is kecap. old pronunciation is "ketjap" if you want to use it, but Indonesian nowadays write it as "kecap".
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11-16-2010 @6:44PM Redhead said... Valori, if you read a newspaper or the news online you would know why he took the trip. It is too bad you are so busy being contrary to know what is going on. Do some reading and come back with some eal information.
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11-16-2010 @5:42AM Julia said... in my opinion,some people who are fortunate to live in America show no respect for anyone or anything..these folks need to shut up or move to another country or to Alaska, next door to another loud mouth that has nothing to say that makes any real sense...but only in America could one get rich just from promoting one's self and exposing one's family's private life....so very sad for mother-hood....!!
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11-16-2010 @7:18PM Orlandosb said... Maybe you should give the presidency a shot. You'd probably do a much better job. I mean...what the heck, you seem to have a lot of free time on your hands to come up with such a profound comment.....just sayin'
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