Sudi Mampir Brings a Touch of Indonesia to North Hollywood

It’s a jungle of tropical plants, ceramic parrots and Javanese shadow puppets inside Sudi Mampir in North Hollywood. Don’t let the big-screen TV, usually tuned to CNN, jar you back to L. A.--this is the Valley’s best Indonesian restaurant.

Start a home-style Javanese meal with krupuk udang, crunchy, palm-sized chips of tapioca flour flavored with shrimp paste; they’re as addicting as good potato chips. Or with martabak, a grilled pancake stuffed with ground beef, eggs and green onions. More adventurous palates might prefer otak otak, grilled fish paste rolled in fragrant banana leaves.

Sudi Mampir makes terrific satays, those miniature shish kebabs of chicken, beef or lamb, the best being the tender, flavorful lamb. You get two skewers blanketed in a rich, subtly spicy peanut sauce.

There is no multi-course rijsttafel here, but nasi rames provides a good short-course in this cuisine. It’s a mound of coconut-scented rice, with a spicy hard-boiled egg, rendang (beef stewed with coconut milk and ginger), fried chicken and tiny tofu cubes in a sweet chile sauce.

Nasi goreng, the Indonesian fried rice, makes an especially hearty and delicious meal. It’s a mountainous plate of rice stir-fried with crushed red pepper, eggs and a choice of meat.

I like it with gado-gado on the side. This salad combines fat cakes of pounded rice with tofu, bean sprouts, salad greens, boiled cabbage and a thick, rich peanut sauce.

Sudi Mampir’s large menu is stocked with dishes geared to its mainly Indonesian clientele. Ikan pepesan is a nice piece of tilapia marinated in basil and turmeric and steamed in a banana leaf. I find the strong herbal flavor a tad overwhelming. Ayam goreng bumbu rudjak is basic fried chicken, but smothered in a sweet spicy red sauce redolent of fish sauce and onions.

Soto mi is a rich oxtail soup crammed with long noodles and sprinkled with crisp fried onions. The best dry noodle dish is probably bami goreng: fried noodles with cabbage, bean sprouts, chicken or beef and a fried egg.

I occasionally like iced cendol, a tall glass filled to the brim with ice, brown sugar, coconut milk and pale green tear-shaped drops made from mung bean flour and fragrant pandanus leaf (that’s the cendol part). I never come here without ordering bubur ketan hitam, an incredibly good black rice porridge you can eat with brown sugar and coconut milk.

BE THERE

Sudi Mampir, 12728 Sherman Way, North Hollywood. 11:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Parking in lot. No alcohol. MasterCard and Visa. Dinner for two, $18-$28. Suggested dishes: krupuk udang, $1.50; martabak, $4.25; gado-gado, $5.75.