As lovers of anything curry, we adore mie Aceh. This Acehnese noodle dish is found throughout Aceh province, where it is simply known as ‘mie’ - order a ‘mie goreng’ in Banda Aceh, and you’ll be presented wit something very different to the Chinese-influenced mie goreng you’d get in Jakarta.
The noodles at Mie Aceh Cut Putroe come with three different toppings - egg, beef and prawns. You can order any combination of these. The egg is mixed through the noodles rather than served on the side, and adds to the thickness of the curry sauce.
You’ll also need to specify your sauce style here - goreng (’fried’, meaning stir fried with no sauce but still with the curry flavour), basah (’wet’, with a little bit of sauce), tumis (’stir fried’, with a medium amount of sauce), or kuah (’soup’, with a generous soupy amount of sauce).
We both went for the basah variety, which leaves the noodles coated in just a thin layer of spicy curry sauce. (You can also choose your level of spiciness - sedang (medium) or pedas (spicy); we went for sedang, which was about right for us.) James went for beef and eggs with his; Kate with just beef. Strangely, no chicken is available here.
The curry sauce was delicious - much darker and richer than other mie Aceh we’ve had. The egg noodles were fresh and springy, and were stir fried with loads of sawi (mustard greens) and cabbage, which made the meal all the more satisfying and healthy. A couple of small bits of tomato added a delicious sourness, while the accompanying acar bawang merah (red shallot pickle) was simple but great.
Scoffed down with some iced teh tarik and a couple of kue thimpan (Acehnese ‘cakes’ of mashed banana and sticky rice, cooked in banana leaves), it was a brilliant lunch to end 2015 on. The fact that it’s about 500 metres from our kost doesn’t hurt, either!
Location: Jl. Radio Dalam Raya no.37, Kebayoran Baru. Opposite Grand Lucky supermarket.
Rating: Scrumptious and cheap.
Price: Rp.20.000 for mie aceh telur daging Rp.17.000 for mie aceh daging; Rp.12.000 for es teh tarik
