Makassar city (Sulawesi Selatan District, Indonesia) and other major city in Sulawesi Selatan are beach area, surrounded by waters. So it is not surprised if those areas are overflow by sea crops. The sea crops such as kerapu, kakap, lamuru, tuna, and cepa fish, squid, shrimp, lobster, milkfish, red fish, etc.
So, if you fish foodie, and have vacation in Indonesia, don’t miss Makassar (also known as Ujung Pandang) as your destination. Beside fish market, there are a lot of food stall that serve seafood as main menus.Every food stall has specific menus. You can pick what fish culinary or fish cooking style that you like. There are Bugis culinary, Makassar culinary, China culinary, Java, Padang, and others traditional food culinary and international food culinary which seafood as main menus. The food stalls also have many classes, from restaurants till street food stall. Pick it as you like.
One of food stall which serve fish is Tawakkal food stall at Paotere. The unique menu of this food stall is roasted milkfish cut in half.
Move in the middle of city, there is Lae-Lae food stall. This food stall serves their roaster and fish box at front of food stall gate. With that position, guest can pick their fish/fishes as their desire. With same way, guest can value the freshness of the fish. Roasters at front of gate also add value for this food stall, roast fish aroma entering food stall space. For commonly guest, burn fish aroma make eat appetite increase.
Another food stall which has milkfish as favorite menus is Pangkep Utama. In this food stall, milkfish do not cut in half. The uniquely of this menu is milkfish eaten with red peanut soup.
At Mappanyukki Street, you can find exclusive food stall. This food stall is exclusive, because only serve one menu, that is pallubasa red kakap head. Pallubasa is traditional cooking method from Bugis. First, fish wrapper with dry turmeric mixed with water and a kind of star fruit which has sour taste. Then the fish is cooking with sautening garlic, onion, and lemongrass. For whose like sour taste, this culinary food can be a choice, because the gravy taste are hot and sour.
Seafood cooked in Surabaya culinary can found at the night, on Cendrawasih Street, at front of Catholic high School, at front of Fort Rotterdam Fortress, and other locations.
The different of fish which cooked in Surabaya culinary and Bugis culinary is from the sambal (sambal is uniquely culinary from Indonesia; made from chilies that pestled, mixed with spices or condiments or tomato). Bugis culinary serve beans sambal with raw tomato and chilies. Surabaya culinary serves a sambal with chili, tomato, onion, garlic, etc which cooked and then pestled.
Fish which cooked in Chinese culinary can pleasant in food stall such as Surya food stall, at Nusakambangan Street, Ratu Muda food stall at Khayangan Island, Nelayan food stall.
There are many others culinary style and food stall for seafood in Makassar. With the various sea foods culinary, it is right to call Makassar as Seafood Paradise.
Article source is from KOMPAS, written by Reny Sri Ayu Taslim, titled “Makassar, Surga Penikmat Ikan”. Translated and edited by reog.