We are pleased to feature a guest blog post from Caroline Gunawan a food blogger and a member of PERMIT, the Indonesian Student Association in China. Visit her blog at Foodiepelago.

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Ningbo, one of the biggest industrial and business cities in China has become the destination for Indonesian students who study abroad. Although these students enjoy Chinese international learning environment, missing their home food is a mutual feeling. Unfortunately, there is no Indonesian restaurant available in Ningbo, although a bigger city such as Shanghai has some.

Indonesian food has a great potential to be introduced in China, the most populous country in the world where many international students from different continents come to study. This fact motivated us at PERMIT to organize an Indonesian Food Stall on November 2 and 9, in conjunction with Indonesian Sports Day held at the University of Nottingham in Ningbo.

We decided to prepare and sell comfort foods such as nasi goreng (fried rice), bakwan jagung (corn fritter), bakwan sayur  (vegetable fritter), pisang goreng (fried banana) and wedang teh susu jahe (ginger milk tea) as beverage. Our plan was to set up a stall at High Street inside the university, where people usually pass by on their way to the grocery store.

It was very difficult to find Indonesian spices and ingredients here, but we managed to create a modified version of food from the archipelago by using chili and kecap manis (sweet soy sauce) as condiments.

With the help of PERMIT committee members and volunteers we cooked the food in the dormitory kitchen and ready to carry the food to the stall. Unfortunately it was raining heavily outside, so we had to take Plan B, selling the food in the sports hall, the venue of the Indonesian Sports Day.

To our surprise, we were completely sold out in minutes !!! At the same time, some Indonesian students decided to visit our kitchen to buy nasi goreng, bakwan jagung, bakwan sayur and pisang goreng fresh-from-the-wok. Not only Indonesian students, there were also students from other countries who popped in curious of our bustling kitchen. Some of them even asked whether we have sambal (hot relish), which unfortunately we did not provide. We offered them to try Indonesian instant noodle instead since many have heard about its famous umami flavor.

On the second occasion of the Indonesian Food Stall, we decided to make martabak manis (sweet thick pancake), a well-known Indonesian street food snacks. As a pair to the martabak manis, we offered teh manis Jawa, abbreviated as teh manja, an Indonesian beverage made of jasmine black tea and brown sugar.

The process of making martabak manis is quite time-consuming since after mixing the ingredients we had to give the dough a rest to get its special texture. In addition to time-consuming, it was also challenging since we needed several adjustments in preparing the dish by using electric stove and Teflon pan, a completely different method from the typical martabak street sellers who use a special pan.

Our filling for martabak manis was chocolate spread combined with chocolate sprinkles and grated cheddar cheese. As it is difficult to find cheddar cheese in Ningbo supermarkets, we opted to order it from an online store.

In Indonesia, martabak manis is usually sold at night, but we offered ours at noon in autumn weather. When the stall opened, we were directly inundated with orders for martabak manis and teh manja. Cooking crews were completely overwhelmed. Students waited patiently until all their orders were fulfilled.

In the end, the Indonesian Food Stall that we organized received positive feedbacks from students and lecturers alike. International students loved the flavor while Indonesian students satisfied their cravings for food from back home.

Although we still have a lot to improve in terms of food taste and service time, we hope to organize more food events in China with more on the menu to showcase the richness of Indonesian food and beverage.

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Images: claudio zaccherini/Shutterstock, PERMIT Ningbo