If you watched they debut of Street Food Chef this morning on TransTV, you saw that I sampled a beef dish called brongkos koyor on a recent trip to Yogyakarta, or Jogja as it’s more commonly called.
I arrived, complete with TransTV crew at Warung Handayani first thing in the morning to try their famous bronkos-beef for breakfast? Why not?
The warung, like so many, is set up on the side of a bustling street that feeds into a large roundabout. It’s the typical ambiance of a roadside warung: plastic covered tables, bare lightbulbs, mismatched plates-there are no concessions made for style, it’s just straight up eats. Across from the warung, in a massive roundabout that encircles a park. In the middle sit two ancient banyan trees, surrounded by perfectly manicured grass.
In Jogja, there is folklore that only the pure of heart can walk blindfolded between the two trees. Those with sin in their souls, will end up walking into one of the trees. The space between them is wide and it seems easy enough, but once you’re blindfolded it’s a lot harder than it looks. I decided to try it with my co-host Ramita before we sat down to breakfast and although I was confident in my stride, in the last fifteen seconds I started to veer right and hit the wall surrounding the banyan. Ramita had much better luck, drifting between them without any hesitation. She was the only one from our group who made it.
After that brief set back, a hot bowl of brongkos was perfect to soothe my bruised ego. Brongkos koyor is a beef stew with pieces of tender beef and a boiled egg inside, served over rice. It’s indigenous the the area and several warung’s serve it, but I like it best for breakfast when it’s fresh from the kitchen.
If you’re living in Indonesia and you had a chance to catch the show, send me a note on Twitter with the hashtag, #StreetFoodChef and let me know your thoughts.
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