RESTAURANT REVIEW : Indonesian Food Tamed of Its Exotic Intensity

I first learned to eat Indonesian food at the University of Wisconsin campus, of all places, as a student in a summer language program for Bahasa Indonesia, the country’s official language.

The program included sharing a dorm with our teachers, a cheerful bunch who spoke mostly in Dutch whenever we weren’t within earshot. The high point of the day, though, was dinner, a joyful, authentic affair that brought parades of exotic dishes none of us had ever seen before. The teachers cooked. We washed the dishes. It was a summer to remember.

So you’ll forgive me if I say it’s hard to get a decent meal in an Indonesian restaurant these days. Most of the ones I’ve had since suffer the comparison to ones cooked by my teachers, who were brilliant chefs. And you’ll understand when I say that Cafe Krakatoa, in spite of the explosive name, didn’t move heaven and earth for me.

But maybe it will for you. The food is generally solid and homey, prepared by a Chinese-Indonesian woman from Jakarta. There are lots of bizarre snacks and drinks to divert yourself with, plus the usual stir-fry dishes and stews that characterize this cuisine. It’s just that intensity of flavors--a trademark of Indonesian food--seems scaled down for public consumption.

The restaurant is housed in a boxy storefront kept dark most of the day by a tinted front window that faces west. But the ownership has done a good job making the interior bright in spirits. The low ceiling has been dropped further by rows and rows of translucent parasols, overlapping and strung together to create an unusual effect. The wood dividing the booths is hand-painted a sort of rain-forest green, with coolie-hat wicker lampshades suspended over each of the tables. The table tops, sheathed in glass, are cheered by fresh orchids.

You’ll want to start with some of those bizarre snacks that, for some reason, the staff serves on little paper plates (to go with the plastic forks you get for these courses only). Predictably, hardly any of them are on the menu, even though they are the most European things you find in an Indonesian restaurant (most of them are Dutch-inspired). But you won’t have any trouble spotting them. They’ll all be clustered together under a weird plastic bubble near the cash register.

Kroket is the most familiar: a potato croquette stuffed with minced ham that could well have come from Stouffer’s. Pastel is a bit more outre. It looks like an apple turnover but tastes like curried chicken. My favorite is bakwan jagung, probably because it makes such a wonderful foil for the unctuous peanut sauce that is used in Indonesia the way mayo is used here. It’s basically a spicy corn fritter, with toad-like bumps all over the skin. Bet you can’t eat just one.

When it’s more substantial fare you’re after, the best way to get a feel for this food is by ordering Indonesia’s national dish, nasi rames. It’s a plate consisting of a mound of rice surrounded by tiny portions of several dishes, and Krakatoa’s is generous: beef stewed in a spicy coconut cream (rendang); potted chicken with Indonesian spices (opor ayam); sweet, pungent pickled cabbage (perkedel); a boiled egg smeared in chili sauce (telur sambal); shrimp-flavored chips made from tapioca flour (kerupuk) and a vegetable tofu stew.

But if you want the more daring dishes, you’ll have to take risks. Pass up bakmi and nasi goreng (fried egg noodles and fried rice, respectively) and dive right into something such as dendeng blado. The heart of this dish is homemade beef jerky, but the soul is the devilishly hot chili sauce (sambal) the beef has been marinated in. It’s a dish as hot as lava.

On weekends, there are many specials: things such as fried pomfret and unusual salads. Call ahead for the house fried chicken, ayam goreng Krakatoa--one of the more unusual forms of fried chicken on this planet. It’s a dry, crumbly version of the dish, made to be mixed with handfuls of rice and chili sauce. The crumbly quality comes from serundung, a mixture of coriander, coconut meat, laos (galanga, a cousin of ginger) and fresh garlic. One plateful of the stuff will flavor about three pounds of rice.

Chicken like this is almost good enough to make a man forget his teachers.

Cafe Krakatoa, 8206 Van Nuys Blvd., Panorama City, (818) 997-6171. Lunch and dinner 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday through Monday. No alcoholic beverages. Parking lot in rear. MasterCard and Visa accepted for purchases of $15 and above. Dinner for two, food only, $15 to $25.

Suggested dishes: bakwan dagung, $0.75; nasi rames, $4.95; ayam goreng Krakatoa, $4.95; rendang, $4.25.