I have never been to Sulawesi nor tried Sulawesi food before, so I was really excited about my lunch at JB's Sulawesi Cuisine restaurant today. It turned out to be a really fascinating meal, indeed 😄
Sulawesi Cuisine restaurant is a well established brand in Indonesia with three outlets in Jakarta and branches in Bali, Bandung and Medan. This outlet in Taman Mount Austin in Johor Bahru is the brand's first overseas venture.
(Nowadays, more foreign F & B brands are choosing JB as their first overseas outpost due to its vibrant food scene. The customer base is also diverse and growing rapidly with locals and day trippers from Singapore.)
Sulawesi Cuisine restaurant is simply furnished, not air conditioned but it is comfortable as it is spacious, airy, bright, and clean. (They have an air conditioned function room on level two.)
As far as possible, Sulawesi Cuisine restaurant gets their ingredients from local markets for best freshness. But, special ingredients like these large 1kg weight Leather Jacket fish (Ikan Sukang) are imported from Indonesia quick frozen.
There were these strange looking fellas in the display freezer. They look like puffer fish but are actually boxfish or trunkfish (Ikan Kudu Kudu) - a popular food fish in Sulawesi from the coral reefs around the islands. They are imported from Sulawesi to JB, quick frozen.
The boxfish or trunkfish is exactly what its name says - its skin is thick and hard like the shell of a leather box or hardcase trunk. The chef cuts open the fish with a pair of scissors and extracts the flesh inside as if taking meat out of a small boxy tin can. The pale yellowish meat looks like pieces of chicken breast. The quick frozen meat does not have any fishy smell.
The boxfish meat is cut into small pieces and heavily coated with a thick batter. The battered meat and "box" are deep fried till golden yellow outside. We were told the fried "box" is edible but we didn't try it 😂 (This dish costs RM30 - RM50 depending on weight, so it is not too exorbitant for a culinary adventure.)
We had our fried boxfish dressed with Bumbu Rujak - a fruity sweet mango sauce with a bit of spicy savoury sambal balacan and crunchy julienned cucumber.
Eating this boxfish with sweet tangy spicy mango sauce reminds me of eating Cantonese style sweet and sour prawn balls 炸虾球. The frozen boxfish meat feels and tastes similar to frozen prawns.
Indeed, as the meat of the boxfish is inside its exoskeleton (hard boney shell) it felt more like a prawn or lobster than a typical fish.
If you are an adventurous foodie on the lookout for exotic experiences, give Sulawesi's boxfish Ikan Kudu Kudu a try - it is really quite interesting. I hope I have the chance to visit Sulawesi one day and try this dish over there.
We also had this grilled large Leather Jacket fish (Ikan Sukang) slathered with two sauces - a fiery looking spicy one and a brownish sweet savoury one. I enjoyed this meaty tasty fish a lot. (Price RM80.)
The fish was stripped of its leathery skin and grilled with coconut charcoal. The white flesh is tender and a little sweet. The pulpy spicy hot rica-rica sambal chili sauce has a nice sting and an underlying sweetness from shallots. The spicy sweet sauce accentuates the natural sweetness of the fish.
The pulpy sweet Parape sauce made with caramelised red shallots and dark soya sauce also goes marvellously with the sweet fish meat. If you are coming to Sulawesi Cuisine restaurant, this char-grilled Leather Jacket fish is a Must.
This Sulawesi fried chicken is very similar to ayam penyet from Java. Like its Java counterpart, the chicken leg is boiled in curry, rested and then deep fried in oil before serving. The only difference between the Java and Sulawesi version is that the latter doesn't come "flattened" by smacking with a mallet or chopper blade.
Sulawesi Cusine's chicken satay is quite tender and moist even though it uses neither fat nor skin. It is made with chicken thigh. The marination is less sweet than most JB or Singapore satay.
The peanut sauce is quite similar to gado-gado sauce - quite sweet, very nutty and just mildly spicy. It also has a bit of toasty coconut flavour from kerisik (toasted grated coconut flesh). Sulawesi satay is also eaten with kicap manis which is savoury sweet.
Terong Bakar - I like this juicy spongy grilled eggplant (bringal) slathered thickly with spicy sambal balacan.
Eat at an Indonesian restaurant must of course have their avocado drink - at Sulawesi Cuisine restaurant, the puree is made with fragrant Australian avocado and dressed with gula Melaka. Refreshing, rich sweet beverage.
👉 We enjoyed ourselves at Sulawesi Cuisine restaurant. I like the char-grilled Leather Jacket fish with traditional rica-rica and parape sauce. Would love to try SC's other char-grilled dishes. The boxfish dish is very interesting, and if you have adventurous tastebuds but haven't eaten it before, what are you waiting for hah? 😜 The Sulawesi satay and grilled brinjal are nice too.
Disclosure: Thank you Byran for your hospitality.
Video with detailed description of the char-grilled Leather Jacket fish with rica-rica and parape sauce at Sulawesi Cuisine's Kemang branch in Jakarta.
Restaurant name: Sulawesi Cuisine - Best Char-grill Seafood
Address: 55 Jalan Austin Heights 8/8, Taman Mount Austin, Johor Bahru
GPS: 1°33'56.1"N 103°46'40.3"E | 1.565587, 103.777851
Tel: +6016 775 8252
Hours: 12:00 noon to 10:00pm
No pork, no lard, no Halal cert
Date visited: 21 Sep 2017
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