Every region has a culinary identity of its own, and Lombok is no exception. The traditional food of Lombok Island is famous for a level of heat that leaves travellers craving more. Cooks here are used to reaching for a very generous handful of chillies.
You may think you will surrender at the first spoonful, but the heat of Lombok food has a way of making you go back for one more bite, and then another.
“Why is that?” Because a little fire always wakes up the appetite. There are a few local dishes you simply have to taste when you travel around Lombok. Miss them and you will regret it.
1. Pelecing Kangkung
Pelecing kangkung is a Lombok speciality with a heat level well above average. If it is not spicy, it is not pelecing. The dish is built on Lombok’s own water spinach, which has a different texture from the kangkung grown on other islands.
“How so?” Lombok kangkung is cultivated in water and grows thick and large. It stays tender and gives a satisfying krenyes (crunch) once boiled.
The boiled kangkung is torn into strands and eaten with a fiery tomato sambal. What usually separates pelecing seasoning from an ordinary tomato sambal is the terasi (fermented shrimp paste). Lombok terasi has a savoury character all its own, different from the terasi used elsewhere.
Not convinced? Let’s try. You will be hooked.
2. Sate Bulayak
This is one satay you will not find in any other region. It is called sate bulayak because it is best eaten with bulayak.
“What is bulayak?” Bulayak is rice wrapped in aren (sugar palm) leaf and then boiled. It tastes much like lontong (compressed rice cake), but the wrapper is what makes it different, and peeling it open before each bite is part of the experience.
The sauce is the other thing that sets this satay apart. It does not come with the peanut sauce used for satay almost everywhere else.
The sauce is cooked with thick coconut milk, and it always arrives with slices of green bird’s eye chilli. You can try sate bulayak around the Suranadi forest area or at Senggigi Beach.
Tasting all that heat while looking out over Lombok’s scenery is the kind of thing you do not forget.
3. Nasi Campur Sukaraja
At first glance, nasi campur Sukaraja looks much like the mixed rice plates served in other regions. The plate holds white rice, tempeh, fried chicken, egg, chicken intestine satay, abon (seasoned meat floss), potato croquette, olah-olah, and sambal.
The Sasak signature is the olah-olah, made from vegetables and spices with a little thick coconut milk.
The other reason nasi campur Sukaraja is never short of customers is the firewood. While almost every other eatery has moved to gas stoves, the owners here still cook over a wood fire.
That is what gives the food here a flavour you will not get anywhere else. The eatery serving this mixed rice is in the Sukaraja area of Ampenan.
