bakwan kapasari

Bakwan kasar - Rp 4,000 each
Bakwan halus - Rp 4,000 each

Surabaya in the eastern part of Java island is a metropolitan and typically densely populated. It is also the only city with an international airport in the vicinity of Malang. By vicinity, I mean about 2-3 hours drive away.

Whenever I go back to Malang to visit my relatives, I would inevitably have to go through Surabaya. This time was no different.

The journey to get to Surabaya had been long, the flights had been interrupted by turbulence and transit times had felt like it would never end. I love travelling, but by a cruel twist of fate, I've always been cursed by the worst motion sickness.

So, when I got to Surabaya, food was not the first in my priority.

My dad, who came to pick me up, suggested we should go to Bakwan Kapasari first, as had been planned. So, off we went.

Bakwan Kapasari has been selling its famous pork meatballs for a long time, since 1931 in fact. It started as a small mum & pop business, and has now expanded with a few branches dotting the city.

The reason why we picked Bakwan Kapasari, rather than the thousands of other good restaurants, is because to me there's something nostalgic about it. My relatives from Surabaya would, more often than not, bring these meatballs when they came to visit Malang. With the takeaway, they'll separate the meatballs from the broth, so that the meatballs won't get too soft soaked up in the broth all day. Only when you're ready to eat, you would heat up the broth and plonk these plump meatballs in.

Nasi - Rp 6,000

When I was young, I was always fascinated by the cubic shaped meatballs. I thought, how odd, all the other meatballs are round, after all they are meatballs, not meatcubes. How did this one get to be like this? But, the question would always soon be forgotten, when my young mind was too preoccupied by eating them.

These cubic shaped meatballs are called "bakwan kasar", which consist of mostly sinew and tendons. Whereas the normal round meatballs, called "bakwan halus", are mostly made of pork meat.

Fried siomay - Rp 6,000 each

Turns out the bakwan (english: pork meatball) was just what I needed for my unsettled stomach. The broth soothed my stomach, the rice filled me up, the fried siomays tantalised my tastebuds, urging me to keep going.

So, I did.

Bakwan Kapasari
Jalan Mayjen Sungkono 23
Surabaya JAWA TIMUR
Open 7 days 10am-11pm