Description
This comfortable eatery joins the ranks of Elmhurst's handful of Indonesian restaurants. It serves Javanese standards, but leans toward the specialties of East Java, with dishes like daging krengsengan, a wonderfully savory stewed beef in shrimp paste, and an elaborate version of gado-gado in the style of Surabaya, the capital of the region. Skip the soups, which tend to have wan broths, and go for meat and fish dishes like the satays--in chicken, beef, lamb, or shrimp versions, all generously drenched with a sweetish, thick peanut sauce and dressed with raw sliced chilies and shallots to cut the richness. Do give in to the server's exhortations to order the whole grilled fish: Seasoned with not much more than salt, the fish is grilled until the flesh is steamy and moist and the skin crunchy. Dip it into a bit of the pungent sambal that comes on the side.
