We've been in Shanghai for 3 weeks now and we've pretty much gotten used to eating Chinese food all the time at home. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of Chinese food, especially all the varieties of stir-fried vegetables. But growing up in an Indonesian household where we ate Indonesian food almost everyday, I can't help but crave some good nasi goreng and rendang. So we got to work, went on a hunt for an Indonesian restaurant in Shanghai, and found Bali Bistro. It's got really good reviews on BonApp and it's right next door from our school, which is even more perfect!
We decided to go there right before our class. The restaurant is located right next to the famous Jing'an Temple, and is located on the second floor. The first floor is occupied by Balini Coffee, which I think is owned by the same person (I'm not sure though). Anyway, Balini Coffee looks good too, they even sell some Avocado Shake, which looks really delicious. We didn't get to try it though cause we were too full. But back to Bali Bistro! The restaurant has been there for almost 8 years now and the owner is Indonesian (I got to practice my Indonesian with him). He suggested we take the nasi goreng and the rendang, which are two very popular Indonesian dishes. And looking at the pictures on the menu, they do look pretty damn good!
Our order came at the same time. I took the nasi goreng with some chicken satay. For those of you who are not familiar, nasi goreng literally translates to fried rice in English. Vero ordered a mini tasting plate, with some rendang, corn fritters, gado-gado, and nasi kuning. Rendang is basically braised beef in a spicy coconut sauce. Gado-gado, is an Indonesian salad topped with peanut sauce. And nasi kuning is a yellow-colored coconut rice.
I was pleasantly surprised with how good the fried rice was. I didn't expect it to have such an authentic taste. It made me kind of nostalgic of the fried rice I used to eat from a street food cart in Jakarta. Two thumbs up for the fried rice! The chicken satay was well-cooked and had some very nice flavours. It was served with some peanut sauce, which was a bit too thick to my liking. I would've actually liked a little bit of kecap manis (sweet soy sauce) with the peanut sauce for the satay. But it was still pretty good! The plate also came with some grilled shrimp, which was very well-cooked, and some acar, Indonesian pickled vegetables.
Vero's plate was also filled with some yummy goodness. The rendang was absolutely amazing!! It was so tender and flavourful. One of the best rending we've ever tasted, that's for sure! The corn fritters were also very good and had some nice flavours to it. The nasi kuning was good, but it needed a little bit more coconut flavour. But it's still very satisfying to eat. The gado-gado is pretty standard and was pretty good, although we didn't get to eat much of it because we were so full from all the food that we ordered.
Food: 8/10
Service: 9/10
Price: 8/10
Ambiance: 8/10