Ah Fung Baso@Hartamas

Demona: I wrote a real nice, lengthy post on this meal initially, but the connection went dead when I finished writing. The post writings failed to show on the website, and they were not saved in draft as well. (FRUSTRATED). I decided to shorten it. My customer knows Indonesia in and out and he had been promoting this popular Indonesian dish, Baso, a meatball soup. It is usually sold from street side stalls, push carts that make their rounds through the neighbourhoods, from late afternoon and throughout the night.

The opportunity finally came when this busy customer of mine finally had the time to take a break away from work to have a meal here. Since he was familiar with it, we let him do the ordering. The pict above was an appetizer. A mixture of crackers, long beans, fried tofu squares and bean sprouts, drizzled with a thick, sweet and hot spicy sauce, with nut bits in it. The only highlight of this dish was its sauce, as it complemented well with the ingredients. Personally, I feel that our own MALAYSIA-BOLEH! local rojaks could win them over anytime.



Demona: This was a giant, deep fried pastry skin. Not worth spending the money on. I could only taste flour and oil. BTW, you could see a small round whitish spot on the big pastry skin? That was the incy wincy tiny bit of minced meat inside. Basically, the meat portion given was like what you would get in a normal wan tan, except that this one offered a BIG BIG skin surface area.



Demona: The pict above showed the Baso soup. The noodles were well hidden beneath the soup, which was filled with floating fishballs, crabsticks, fishcakes, mushrooms, spring onions, stuffed tofus etc. Before eating, I was mentally prepared to taste a new flavour, thinking that their baso must have tasted different, to have its own special name. Sadly, it tasted like any other soup noodles which you could get in chinese hawker stalls etc. There was not an inch of significance which Baso had offered to stand out from the other noodles which I had tried before.



Demona: This pict was a bowl of soup with minced beef stuffed tofu. Thank god, the shop had finally offered a dish worth complimenting. The minced beef was very well spiced, making it very flavourful, however not to overpower itself, the bland fried tofu came in hand to control it.



Demona: This baso was replaced with thick and thin soy sauce, drizzled with oil, instead of soup. Besides the fact that their ingredients (fishcakes, fishballs etc), were pre-made and bought from suppliers I suppose, the noodles themselves tasted normal too. Like any other egg based noodles you can find at the mart.

I did not manage to take a pict of the baso with beef balls and minced beef. The meat part was delicious, the noodles however, left untouched. I suppose that the beef was the same as the one in the stuffed tofu.



Demona: I am not too sure what was the exact term of this dish. For me, it was a giant wan tan stuffed with minced beef and noodles. Nothing fantastic either.

Verdict: The bill came up to about RM 90. I found it slightly pricey, due to the fact that we were only having noodles. I personally felt that the dishes were just a plain mix-and-match, just like our own "wide" variety of proton car models. This place showed me that the Indonesian Baso left no significant impression on me at all. I would not bring Dogma here to try out the food here.