[ID] Sulawesi @ Graha CIMB @ SCBD, Jakarta

Sulawesi is located at the ground floor of Graha CIMB in SCBD. From the outside, Sulawesi doesn’t look like a place you would want to visit. It doesn’t have the trendy looks and/or the authentic looks. In fact, that was the main reason why we never thought about visiting the shop. And, we suspect that’s the reason why Sulawesi is widely underrated.

Sulawesi serves Manado food. Their slogan is “Serving Fresh, Tasty seafood with immaculate flavors of Indonesia”. To our surprise, this was exactly what we got!

We started with otak-otak and it was a big surprise. The usual otak-otak has little fish contents and more flour mix, however, what Sulawesi served was rich in protein. We also enjoyed their Jalangkote – A fried pastry from Makassar filled with vegetables and sliced boiled eggs. In fact, Jalangkote is the first recommendation on their menu. Their nasi goreng merah was also one of a kind. The red color of the rice seems to have come from the beetroot (which is quite rare in Indonesian cuisine). However, they could have done a something better with the chicken contents, as we saw that they used the skin part of the chicken (no meat) just to save cost. Ayam woku was also quite nice with the aroma of turmeric and complex spices. To finish off the satisfying dining experience, we ordered the es pisang ijo for desert. The shredded cool ice was a brain freezer and the green banana chunks were so mushy.

We were walk-in customers, however, we never expected such impressive quality of the food. It was indeed a rare discovery. Would we come back? Of course with a big group of people (for more selections).

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