Eat

With 17,000 islands to choose from, Indonesian food is an umbrella term covering a vast variety of cuisines. Local flavors tend to be rather more simple than those in Malaysia or Thailand though, the predominant flavorings being including peanuts and chillies. The main staple is rice (nasi), served up in many forms including:

• bubur nasi, rice porridge with toppings, popular at breakfast
• lontong, rice packed tightly into bamboo containers
• nasi goreng, the ubiquitous fried rice
• nasi kuning, yellow spiced rice, originally a festive ceremonial dish
• nasi padang, white steamed rice served with numerous curries and other toppings, originally from Padang but exported throughout the country
• nasi timbel, white steamed rice wrapped in a banana leaf (looks pretty but doesn't add any flavor)
• nasi uduk, slightly sweet rice with coconut milk, popular at breakfast

Noodles (mi or mie) come in a good second in the popularity contest:

• bakmi, thin egg noodles usually served boiled with a topping of your choice
• kuetiaw, flat rice noodles most commonly fried up with soy sauce

Soups (soto) and watery curries are also common:

• bakso ("BAH-so"), meatballs and noodles in chicken broth
• sayur assam and sayur lodeh, vegetables in a soup of tamarind and fish
• soto ayam, chicken soup Indonesian style

Popular main dishes include:

• ayam bakar, grilled chicken
• gado-gado, boiled vegetables with peanut sauce
• ikan bakar, grilled fish
• karedok, similar to gado-gado, but the vegetables are finely chopped and mostly raw
• perkedel, deep-fried patties of potato and meat or vegetables
• nasi gudeg, jackfruit curry from Yogyakarta
• sate (satay), grilled chicken and lamb kebabs

Chillies (cabe or lombok) are made into a vast variety of sauces and dips known as sambal. The simplest and perhaps most common is sambal ulek, which is just chillies and salt with perhaps a dash of lime pounded together. There are many other kinds of sambal like sambal pecel, sambal terasi (with fish sauce), sambal tumpeng, etc. Many of these can be very spicy indeed!

Crackers known as keropok (or krupuk, it's the same word spelled differently) accompany almost every meal and are a traditional snack too. They can be made from almost any grain, fruit, vegetable or seed imaginable, including many never seen outside Indonesia, but perhaps the most common is the light pink keropok udang, made with dried shrimp.

While Indonesians happily eat anything that walks, crawls, flies or swims, vegetarians will be happy to know that tofu (tahu) and its chunkier, indigenous cousin tempeh are also an essential part of the diet. Vegetarianism as such is, however, poorly understood and avoiding fish and shrimp-based condiments is a challenge.

Eating by hand

In Indonesia eating with your hand (instead of utensils like forks and spoons) is very common. The basic idea is to use four fingers to pack a little ball of rice, which can then be dipped into sauces before you pop it in your mouth by pushing it with your thumb. There's one basic rule of etiquette to observe: Use only your right hand, as the left hand is used to clean yourself in the bathroom. Don't stick either hand into communal serving dishes: instead, use the left hand to serve yourself with utensils and then dig in. Needless to say, it's wise to wash your hands well before and after eating.

Eating by hand is frowned on in some "classier" places. If you are provided with cutlery and nobody else around you seems to be doing it, then take the hint.

Budget

Eating on the cheap in Indonesia is cheap indeed, and a complete streetside meal can be had for under US$1 (Rp 10,000). However, the level of hygiene may not be up to Western standards, so you may wish to steer clear for the first few days and patronize only visible popular establishments.

The fastest way to grab a bite is to visit a kaki lima, literally "five legs", named after the mobile stalls' three wheels plus the owner's two feet. These can be found by the side of the road in any Indonesian city, town or village, usually offering up simple fare like fried rice, noodles and porridge. At night a kaki lima can turn into a lesehan simply by providing some bamboo mats for customers to sit on and chat. "Kaki Lima" in fact means five feet, not five legs, and refers to the footpaths that are nominally 5 feet wide. The itinerant street stalls occupy the footpaths, therfore their name. This dimension for the footpaths was introduced by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles when he was Lieutenant Govenor of Java during the British occupation during the Napoleonic wars, Jalan Marliobro in Jogja is named after the Duke of Marlborough.

A step up from the kaki lima is the warung (or the old spelling waroeng), a slightly less mobile stall offering much the same food, but perhaps a few plastic stools and a tarp for shelter.

Mid-range

Rather more comfortable is the rumah makan or eating house, a simple restaurant more often than not specializing in a type of food or style of cuisine. Nasi Padang restaurants, offering rice and an array of curries and other toppings to go along with it, are particularly popular.

Another easy mid-range option in larger cities is to look out for food courts and Indonesian restaurants in shopping malls, which combine air-con with hygienic if rather predictable food. Major local chains include EsTeler 77, best known for its iced fruit desserts (es teler) but also selling baso, nasi goreng and other Indonesian staples, and Hoka Hoka Bento, for localized Japanese fare. KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut and the usual suspects plus copies thereof are also abundant in large cities, but peter out once you go east of Lombok.

Splurge

A restoran indicates more of a Western-style eating experience, with air-con, table cloths, table service and prices to match. Especially in Jakarta and Bali, it's possible to find very good restaurants offering authentic fare from around the world, but you'll be lucky to escape for under Rp 100,000 a head.

Drink

Tap water is generally not potable in Indonesia (unless boiled), but bottled water is available everywhere. Also beware of ice which may not have been prepared or transported.

Juices

Fruit juices (jus or es) are popular with Indonesians and visitors alike, although the hygiene of the water used to make them can be dubious. In addition to the usual suspects, try jus alpokat, a surprisingly tasty drink made from avocadoes — often with some chocolate syrup poured in!

Coffee and tea

Indonesians drink both coffee (kopi) and tea (teh), at least as long as they have had vast quantities of sugar added in. The Coke-like glass bottles of the Tehbotol brand of sweet bottled tea are ubiquitous. Last and least, no travel guide would be complete without mentioning the infamous kopi luwak, coffee made from beans which have been eaten, partially digested and excreted by the palm civet (luwak), but even in Indonesia this is an exotic delicacy.

Alcohol

Islam is the religion of the majority of Indonesians, but alcohol is widely available in most areas, especially in upscale restaurants and bars. Public displays of drunkenness, however, are strongly frowned upon and in the larger cities are likely to make you a victim of crime.

Indonesia's most popular tipple is Bintang beer (bir), a standard-issue lager available more or less everywhere, although the locals like theirs lukewarm. Other popular beers include Bali Hai and Anker. A can costs upward of Rp 5,000 in a supermarket and as much as Rp 50,000 in a fancy bar.

Local spirits include tuak, sugar palm wine (15%), arak, which is the distilled version of tuak and brem, Balinese-style sweet glutinous rice wine.

Smoke

Indonesians smoke like chimneys and the concept of "no smoking", much less "second-hand smoke", has yet to make much headway in the country. Normal Western-style cigarettes are known as rokok putih ("white smokes"), but the smoke of choice with a 92% market share is the ubiquitous kretek, a clove-laced cigarette that has become almost a national symbol, and whose scent you will likely first encounter the moment you step out of the plane into the airport (Kreteks are widely known as "cloves" in the western world.) The main brands are Djarum, Gudang Garam and Sampoerna, and a pack of kretek will cost you on the order of Rp 6500, while white cigarettes are (by law!) twice as expensive.

Kretek are lower in nicotine but higher in tar than normal cigarettes. Most studies indicate that the overall health effect is roughly the same, but obviously they're not exactly good for you either and, combined with pollution, go a long way to explain why every other city resident seems to have a persistent cough.