Se'i babi (Timor smoked pork).

Throughout Timor (the Indonesian side at least) restaurants and food stalls were selling se'i babi - smoked then grilled strips of pork. The pork was smoked using leaves and twigs from Schleichera oleosa, called the kusum or Ceylon oak in the subcontinent, and a member of the soapberry family (Sapindaceae).

Flowering twig and young leaves of Schleichera oleosa

The pork is smoked early in the day (pagi pagi) in time for the lunch time rush. Strips of the pork fillet are then grilled on poles of kusum, over kusum charcoal and covered with a kusum twig - all to add a little extra flavour. It was served as strips on a chopping board with a sharp knife to be cut as you wish, some white rice and sambal. The meat was excellent, like very chunky smoked bacon, but more succulent, and we ate it nearly every day, but I never tired of it.

Pork being grilled, kusum branch in the chef's hand

The se'i babi was particularly good at 'Depot Joy' in Soe, served with sop brenebon (a broth with pork and brown beans), bunga pepaya (fried papaya flowers) and deep fried pork skin.

Deep fried pig skin at Depot Joy

Jus alpokat. Again.

When should the jus alpokat tourist visit Indonesia? In Biak in November and December 2010 there were avocados everywhere, but in Bali and Timor in August 2011 there were hardly any to be had, and jus alpokat was extremely difficult to find. In Timor, the avocado trees were in full flower and many had small fruits on the trees - these small fruits being the size of the ripe avocados sold in the UK. Indonesian avocados can quite much bigger - the size of a small cabbage, and when ripe rattle as the stone (the single seed) becomes loose inside. In the UK I don't think I've ever rattled an avocado, just given them a gentle squeeze, and when ripe they can be a bit 'mushy' which may be due to the fruits being picked and shipped when unripe and thus ripened 'off the tree'.

Avocado flowers.

In Timor at the night market (Pasir Panjang, Kupang), I watched the fruit juice stall and this was their recipe (though formula is probably a better term for a smoothie). The juice was a bit weak. Either the fruit was too small and there was too much ice, or the fruit was too early to have any great flavour - experimenting with good ripe fruit and the amount of ice will get it just right.

1 avocado (a bit small, an early 'lowland' fruit)

about 2 large dollops (tablespoons?) of condensed milk (the normal kind)

about 2-3 tablespoons of sugar

ice of an equivalent volume to the avocado

Blended together till very smooth (this took longer than I expected) and served in glasses lined with a swirl of chocolate condensed milk - perhaps chocolate ice cream sauce may work (I've never seen chocolate condensed milk on sale in the UK).

Sunset, Kupang.

Eating properly.

We slaughter animals, we catch fish, and we eat them. And in the West we eat the meaty, juicy, clean and easy bits. If we eat properly then it shouldn't just be chicken breasts, pork fillet and sirloin steaks on our plates. Eating properly is about learning to eat and appreciate a greater range of food items: chickens' feet, beef tendons, congealed blood, pig intestines, stomachs, and bone marrow are all foods I've enjoyed many times in Hong Kong and Thailand for example, but really have to hunt for in the UK. Beef tendons are so delicious why don't we eat them here in the UK? With beef brisket and vermicelli in noodle soup ('ngau lam mei fun' would be a Cantonese approximation) or fried with flat broad noodles ('hore fun'), the tendons elevate them to another level to be wonderful dishes with the juicy chunks of tendon - like jewels of Marmite jelly - glistening and nestling within the noodles. My palette has lost the yearning for these things, and to eat properly again, rather than going on an offal hunt (in rather expensive places in the UK for example), it would be far better to re-educate it with a prolonged stay somewhere in Asia.

Jus alpokat.

This green sludge is jus alpokat, or avocado juice to give it a basic translation from the Indonesian. (Advokat or alpukat are also Indonesian for avocado, though the first one can mean lawyer, and lawyer juice doesn't sound very enticing.)


I don't know how it is made, but at a guess it is something like an avocado, lots of condensed milk, and ice blended together; the brown streaks are chocolate condensed milk. I don't really care how it is made, but I think it is delicious. It's perfect with anything that has some spicy sambal, is a great stomach liner before something a bit oily, or is so versatile it can be a pudding at the end of the meal; highly recommended.

PS. Incredulously, the Lonely Planet Indonesia guide lists avocado juice in a list of four "We Dare You...specialities that make for a real culture shock" (together with dog in Sulawesi, durian, and Balinese pork offal specialities), which is just silly because whilst it's not everyone's cup of tea it's hardly different from very sloppy gaucomole.

The four condiments...

In Thailand, every table in every restaurant serving noodles (be they a roadside stall or the food hall in an air-conditioned luxury mall), you will find four small jars or pots containing the magic four condiments to sprinkle and splash on your noodles.

Here, clockwise from top left, are sugar (nam dtan/นำ้ตาล), fish sauce (nam pla/นำ้ปลา), dried chilli flakes (prik pon/พริกป่น) and vinegar with chilli (prik nam som/พริกนำ้ส้ม). (Don't get confused by the saucer of chopped chilli - that's for the duck web stew.)

When the noodles arrive have a quick slurp of the soup and then add to taste. The sugar, of course, is sweet, the fish sauce adds salt, the chilli flakes heat and the vinegar adds a little sour hotness. Once added, stir and toss through the noodles to get them to your liking. I add fish sauce, chilli flakes, vinegar and a tiny bit of sugar. My wife adds a good spoon of sugar, fish sauce, a generous pile of chilli flakes and a lot of vinegar. Everyone is different!

Our mission...

...to eat noodles and tell you about them.

We are going back to Bangkok soon and we will eat lots and lots of 'lad na' (noodles in gravy), 'kiew teo luk chin bpla' (noodles with fish balls), 'pad thai', 'kiew teo rieu' (boat noodles), 'kiew two ped' (duck noodles), ramen (Japanese noodles)...

Watch this space.

Our origin...

Why Noodle Bellies? A quick explanation. I'm Tim and my nickname at work is noodle belly - acquired through eating too many bowls of noodles in South-East Asia whilst travelling there with work (more about that later). I'm married to Porntip, from Bangkok (a noodle expert) and, as we are now exploring the world of noodles together, we are both noodle bellies.