I’m going to first apologize to Colleen about picking this place for dinner. I’ve passed by this place many times already and I have always been curious. I mean, I love Indonesian food. I grew up on that stuff. So I wasn’t about to pass and not try it out. It was a nice Sunday night just about 7pm when both Colleen and I arrived to what was an empty restaurant.
Pondok Indonesia
950 W Broadway, Vancouver BC
Tel#: (604) 732-7608
I was stunned as to how empty the place was, not a single table was occupied and this place is massive. There is even a dance floor to jam out or bust a move. I hinted to Colleen that this was not a good sign. As we got seated, I noticed how dark the restaurant was. The whole theme to it was rather depressing. I already knew what I wanted to try on the menu but I wanted to look some more and to my surprise guess what I saw on the first page?? Crispy pata! Lumpia? What are filipino food items doing on this menu? I flipped the cover back to the front and made sure I was reading from the right menu and it was without a doubt, PONDOK! So, what’s going on here? I’m confused, I looked over to Colleen and she had the same look as me. Oh well. I was tempted to order my crispy pata just for the heck of it but for $22, I’d rather not risk it.
So I took control of the ordering, I’m sorta confused as well as to why the first guy we waved over couldn’t take our order. He had to get the lady to take our order but she was already busy fixing something from the stage area there, so why bother her? I guess it’s their system.
After we ordered, we had a bit more discussion on the emptiness of this place when both Colleen and I stopped. We looked at each other and said, “oh no” , ” did you hear that?” it was the sound I dreaded to hear the most, the beep of a microwave. And from that point on it was pretty much downhill.
First to arrive on our table was their Laksa ayam, ayam means chicken. Yes there was a few tiny pieces of chicken and at this point I was already too busy trying to figure out what here was microwaved…was it the broth? I couldn’t really make a proper guess but everything was already set to fail mode in terms of my expectations and was I proven wrong? Nopes. This broth was bland, thin and watery. I’m sad now. I’m wishing I suggested to go across the street to the red ginger. It looked busy.
Next to arrive was cendol. Dessert while having dinner is a trademark of ours. Copyright that! This was a fail on its own. 90% of the glass was ice and that was about it. Again, bland and tasteless.
Finally my chicken. I remember eating this dish as a kid in komtar tower because there was a AYCE indonesian restaurant in the mall complex there and it was delicious. And when I was younger I couldn’t really eat spicy curries and so I got stuck with fried chicken and well, it was no ordinary fried chicken. To me, it was the best damm chicken and still is to this day if made right. So was this made right you ask? Not really. Marinate the chicken longer and well, add more spices and flavoring to it. But I guess some of the spices are hard to get here.
And came our final order, nasi goreng. You can’t really go without this fried rice dish, it’s a staple. And how was this? Mushy, bland and well, rather tasteless. I get it.
Overall our dinner was a great disappointment and I was very upset afterwards. Another couple did come in while we were eating and that was it. I will never return to this place and I’m still very disappointed about even suggesting it.
Post by Marv
I am a Calgarian and always eat at Pondok whenever I visit Vancouver. In addition, I was born in Malang, East Java, Indonesia.
Looking at the dishes you ordered, I wonder why you did not order Martabak and Chicken Sate, both of which are staples in Indonesia. In my opinion, Martabak at Pondok is the best in Western Canada and very close to an authentic Indonesian Martabak. Martabak (or, “Indonesian Martabak” to be more precise) is very different from Samosa (an East Indian cuisine). Sadly, Balilicious (calling itself an Indonesian restaurant) serves Samosa but calls it “Martabak”. Then, Chicken Sate at Pondok is the best in Western Canada. One thing you have to pay attention to in Chicken Sate is not the chiken meat (which is bland to be honest with you) but the peanut sauce (which is a mixture of sweet soy sauce and ground, roasted peanut). The peanut sauce at Pondok is the best, since the sauce is not oily (typically sold in a can made in Hongkong) and not runny. Balilicious (formerly called Sate Satu which is specialized in “sate”) is unable to make acceptable peanut sauce like Pondok.
I ordered “Laksa Ayam”, too. I don’t think that the broth is bland. Note that I went to several Malaysian restaurants and ordered their Laksa’s, and frankly speaking I do not like Malaysian laksa, partly because it is oily and there are certain ingredients in the broth that I don’t like.
Regarding “cendol”, Indonesians call it “Es Dawet”. I don’t believe it is bland & tasteless. Didn’t you taste (at the very least) sweet palm sugar in the “Es Dawet”?
Now, last but not least is “Nasi Goreng” which I ordered many times when I visited Pondok and I have no complaint about. I don’t believe that it is bland and tasteless. Look at the rice colour that is dark brown. It means that Pondok put a lot of soy sauce (most likely sweet soy sauce). Didn’t you taste soy sauce (at the very least)? Also, didn’t you notice homemade sweet pickles (called “Acar” in indonesian) and fried crackers (called “Kerupuk” in indonesian) served on the dish? “Nasi Goreng” which includes “Acar” & “Kerupuk” is a typical “Indonesian Nasi Goreng”.