Java Indonesian Restaurant - South Slope, Brooklyn, NY

We are going to Indonesia later this year and I thought it would be fun to have some Indonesian food in NYC. I googled the best Indonesian restaurants in NYC and Java Indonesian Restaurant came in at no. 2 on Yelp and showed up on some other searches. It is located in the South Slope of Brooklyn, quite a bit south of Manhattan, just north of Sunset Park and just east of Upper Bay. Our host was from Yogya on the island of Java and these were dishes from that region. 

We had just finished a Saturday matinee showing of Hamilton in the Theater District and caught a long Lyft ride to Brooklyn where we met Andrew. We ordered the 15 course dinner for three which gave us a good variety of food. 

Judy and I each ordered garuda, a mix of pineapple, mango and orange juices and coconut creme. It was good and I went through mine pretty quickly. 

It was a cold, wet evening, and one complaint about the restaurant is that it is drafty and the cold infiltrated the place. We kept our jackets on and were still a little cold. So our first course of warm soup was welcome. I believe it was mie bakso, egg noodle soup with bean curd, celery, scallions and tofu. It was perfect for a cold evening. 

Our next course was bakwan, corn fritters cooked pancake style. It was one of my favorite dishes of the evening. Simple, nice texture with a sweetish taste. Love it. 

Next was acar salad, pickled vegetables with cucumber, carrot and onion in sweet turmeric vinegar. Kind of bland, but okay. 

From here, my identification gets a little dicey. I believe the next dish may have been sayur santen, lightly battered broccoli and cauliflower cooked in spiced coconut milk and topped with bean curd. From here on out, only a few dishes really stood out. Nothing was horrible, but only a few dishes were quite good. 

I believe the next dish was kare ayam, curry chicken with potatoes in hot spices simmered in coconut milk. 

I believe the next dish was daging sayur, thin sliced beef wtih mixed vegetables, carrot and onions in garlic soy sauce.

Then sate bali, grilled marinated beef on bamboo skewers in soy peanut sauce. 

The next dish was one that was very good. I believe it was crispy fried codfish fillet smothered in Balinese red pepper sauce. I'm not sure I even realized it was fish, but it had a wonderful soft texture and a nice spicy flavor. 

The next dish is a pure guess. I think it may have been mie goreng, vegetarian Indonesian-style stir-fried yellow noodles with scrambled eggs. 

Then the next may have been sayur tumis, sauteed vegetables with tofu and tempe stirred in sweet soy sauce.

Next was sate madura, grilled chicken on bamboo skewers in soy peanut sauce. 

Finally, the other real good dish, was lamb. I believe it was kambing goreng, sliced lamb boiled slowly and topped with soy sauce, mushrooms and tomatoes. 

Our dessert was green coconut flan cooked in pandan syrup topped with caramel syrup. I liked it better than Mexican flan. This was sweeter and a little lighter. 

Overall, the meal was okay. The service was a little slow and we had a big wait between some dishes. There was nothing that grabbed me to really want to come back again. But it was a nice variation of food and one of the few Indonesian meals I've ever had.