A Well-spent Money

Tukang Bakso, or meatball seller, is one of the most common food vendors that you can find in Indonesia. There are some who open up a small Bakso restaurant on the sides of the streets and there are also door-to-door Tukang Bakso who usually use carts to carry their product. Those Tukang Bakso have the tendency to signal their presences by making sounds with a kentongan, a wooden-based instrument attached to the cart, by hitting it with a wooden stick. When you hit a kentongan, it will produce a high pitched sound that echoes through out the neighborhood. I usually can tell if there's a Tukang Bakso roaming around my housing complex, even when he's actually five blocks away from my house. An obnoxious high-pitched sounds like that are hard to miss.

I didn't have lunch today, which made me starve during the whole lesson of car driving class. I drove a car an hour long, with my stomach singing the song of its' people, can you imagine? When I arrived at home, I was lucky to find a Tukang Bakso parking his cart exactly in front of my house. So, I decided to buy a bowl to satisfy my need for food.

Tukang Bakso doing what he does best

The sight of the Bakso Cart

"A portion of Bakso, please," I said to the man. This particular Tukang Bakso's Bakso are a bit different, but in a good way. His Bakso are light and chewy, and it didn't taste like flour, like any other door-to-door Tukang Bakso's Bakso I have tried. The broth also tasted delicious and savory, especially if you eat it with some cut spring onion. Noodles and bihun were added to the bowl, making my early dinner looked appealing and colorful. "Rp 6.000,00, miss," he said. I paid the man and he went off, leaving me with a bowl of hot and delicious Bakso.

Scooping some broth to the bowl

In about 15 minutes, I finished the whole thing and I was satisfied and happy. I ate the noodles and bihun first, leaving the best part for the last. The combination of the meatballs, the spring onion, and the broth flew me to the moon. I enjoyed every scoop of it. It was, by far, the best Rp 6.000,00 I have ever spent!

My bowl of Bakso, with some noodle, bihun, and spring onion 

A close up look of my early dinner