Arriving in Batam from Singapore by boat, feeling a little famish, our local buddies whisked us from Harbour Bay ferry terminal straight to Ayam Bakar Taliwang Pelita in Batam Centre.
As some of us may know, Ayam Bakar Taliwang is the signature dish of Lombok island in East Java, Indonesia. Following a devastating earthquake in Lombok in 2018, the owners of Ayam Bakar Taliwang Pelita uprooted, and moved to Batam to rebuild their lives. Initially with a single shop lot serving ayam bakar taliwang and other East Java specialities, the business soon thrived and expanded to two shop lots.
The Lombok ayam bakar taliwang. It comes served with a dish of sambal chili and vegetable soup.
The grilled chicken meat was moist (not juicy), a little firm and chewy to the bite. The savoury spicy marination was well infused into the fibres, complemented by more robust savoury spiciness from the sambal chili paste smothering the chicken thigh. If that is not enough for you, the sambal chili in the dish adds a further sharp spicy hot sting. The accompanying savoury tangy vegetable (carrot, corn etc) soup and boiled white rice helped to moderate the chicken's spicy heat as well as complete the dish.
The ayam bakar taliwang was good, but the memorable dish for me here was the next dish - ikan bakar taliwang i.e. the fish version.
The same set of sambal chili, vegetable soup and a large grilled fish with bands of char, fully sheathed in a thick fiery looking coat.
The grilled fish was meaty, its white flesh moist, tender and subtly naturally sweet.
Eat the fresh, moist tender sweet fish enveloped with savoury spicy paste together with this extra spicy sambal chili along with plain white rice, and it was a wow, just wow.
Mix of tender fish, soft rice, crunchy long beans, with blend of sweetness, savouriness and successive assaults of hot spicy sting of increasing intensity. As I am writing this on a cold rainy evening in Batam, I am yearning to go back to Ayam Bakar Taliwang Pelita for more
We also had a sop daging which is beef soup. The bowl of soup was filled with large chunks of beef, some beef bones and vegetables. The flavour of the soup was similar to that in soto ayam - savoury with pronounced spice notes.
Drink the soup and eat the beef with the nerves in your taste buds kicked to full alert by the ultra spicy sting of this sambal chili, and you will appreciate the layers of beefy goodness in the meaty soup. The somewhat mild tasting savoury spice soup, suddenly tasted rich with layers of spice flavours. Even the underlying beefiness leached from the meat could be discerned in the soup. (So many words just to say.. shiok lah.. 😂 )
The obligatory fried tempeh with every Indonesian full meal. The ones at Ayam Bakar Taliwang Pelita were thick like energy bars and clean tasting (even though it's fermented soy beans). Nice complementary side for the robust tasting dishes we had.
Eh? This tempeh (served at Ayam Bakar Taliwang Pelita) is exported and available in Singapore supermarkets like GIANT, Sheng Siong and NTUC woh 😃 I shall look out for them, when I am home.
Total bill came to IDR 188,100 (SGD18.50). The most expensive dish was the ikan bakar taliwang at IDR 80,000 (SGD7.88) but to me it is the winner here 😄
Recommended for you 👍 Good place for authentic Lombok cuisine in Batam. Everything was nice, and the dish that moved me the most was ikan bakar taliwang.
More Batam adventures with Johor Kaki 👈 click
Restaurant name: Ayam Bakar Taliwang Pelita
Address: Komp Suri Graha, Jln. Sriwijaya No. 8-9, Kp. Pelita, Kec. Lubuk Baja, Kota Batam, Kepulauan Riau 29432 (directly across the road from Hotel Merlin & Bank BTN)
GPS: 1°08'40.9"N 104°01'07.8"E 🌐 1.144683, 104.018835
Tel: (0778) 425120
Hours: 10:00am - 9:00pm (Sunday 6:00pm - 9:00pm)
Halal
Date visited: 25 Aug 2019
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