By Any Other Name
Pro Feels authentically intended.
Con Eating space isn't exactly intimate.
Pay
€€€
Per Person Tasting menu (not listed on the website) is €25pp, drinks included. Gratis: prawn crackers.
Find
Website https://www.sabornusantara.com/
ℹ️ Dietary info not on menu.
Access Step free.
In Short
Hopes. Authenticity. No more, no less.
Reality. Plenty of very tasty flavours, some perhaps toned down a little.
First Impressions. No frills entrance area, further defrilled.
USP? How many Indonesian restaurants in Madrid? Not many.
The offer in three words. It's all good.
Service! Welcoming, friendly and very informative.
Friend friendly? Discussion with staff should ensure you a v-friendly deal.
Rating for dating. Several in progress around us. But be ready to raise your voices against the background sounds.
Tip? 8%
Change one thing? The dessert on tasting menu.
Revisitability. Good.
In Pictures
Via Google Images
What's the story?
Nusantara is the old Javan word for archipelago. It effectively means Indonesia. So do we get traditional dishes? Well, there's no Dutch on the menu - no Rijstaffel. So what's in a name?
It's a promising sounding €25 for a 12-dish tasting menu/degustacion. So, here we go then:
The salad arrived first. A mix of mango, cucumber and apple chunks in peanut and chilli sauce. We love an acidic palate cleanser and we guarded this with our lives for the rest of the meal. It meets expectations perfectly and is essential to making the most of the avalanche of flavours coming your way.
Within moments a board - they like boards - of appetisers appeared. Our photo's not the beez neez, but should give a flavour. Satay was a little thinner than we like, but the sauce was rich and dark. Some cute vegetable pasties were good. Fried seafood slices - officially crab, although the texture felt more like prawn, were new to me. All three matched well with the sweet chilli sauce and satay.
Another board brought out five main dishes, plus rice. At this point we were offered prawn crackers and chilli paste, which was a nice touch, although the crackers weren't really needed, if we're honest.
So a platter of dishes. Let's run through them: a Green curry was properly creamy, while not too hot but nicely spicy. A good chicken-oyster sauce dish was my favourite thanks to the savoury smoky depth in the brothy sauce. Nasi goreng benefitted muchly from the addition of chilli paste. Stir fried provided some nice balance. Then there were two large chunks of beef rendang. We're jolly big fans of the flavours, but one of us really doesn't like the texture of rabo de toro which the chosen cuts came close to. It was a bit on the fibrous side, unfortunately.
Desserts aren't always a priority in cuisine from this quarter of the world. There's nothing wrong with flan. Madrid runs on it on weekdays. And, hello, this one came with spiced syrup which had a surprise kick. After all those savoury dishes, we couldn't finish the mini tablet slab of it.
Bottled Mahou is included in the tasting offer, but we started off with an enjoyable, light Indonesian brew. We liked it. Service is pretty good, with every component of every board explained, extra hot chilli paste and prawn crackers were offered too. Only bill-getting took a tad more effort, but things had got busy by this point and it came almost instantly after we made eye-contact.
It's a spacious, high-ceilinged dining room, but that means it gets loud and echoey as it fills up. An impressively varied range of customers - some knew their stuff and know the staff - a chef got a hug. That's usually a good sign, and there's a babble of at least three languages going on most of the time.
Sabor Nusantara has a down-to-earth, rewarding, and most importantly, well-intentioned dinner. We'd go again to explore more of the menu.
Pro Feels authentically intended.
Con Eating space isn't exactly intimate.
Pay
€€€
Per Person Tasting menu (not listed on the website) is €25pp, drinks included. Gratis: prawn crackers.
Find
Website https://www.sabornusantara.com/
ℹ️ Dietary info not on menu.
Access Step free.
In Short
Hopes. Authenticity. No more, no less.
Reality. Plenty of very tasty flavours, some perhaps toned down a little.
First Impressions. No frills entrance area, further defrilled.
USP? How many Indonesian restaurants in Madrid? Not many.
The offer in three words. It's all good.
Service! Welcoming, friendly and very informative.
Friend friendly? Discussion with staff should ensure you a v-friendly deal.
Rating for dating. Several in progress around us. But be ready to raise your voices against the background sounds.
Tip? 8%
Change one thing? The dessert on tasting menu.
Revisitability. Good.
In Pictures
Via Google Images
What's the story?
Nusantara is the old Javan word for archipelago. It effectively means Indonesia. So do we get traditional dishes? Well, there's no Dutch on the menu - no Rijstaffel. So what's in a name?
It's a promising sounding €25 for a 12-dish tasting menu/degustacion. So, here we go then:
The salad arrived first. A mix of mango, cucumber and apple chunks in peanut and chilli sauce. We love an acidic palate cleanser and we guarded this with our lives for the rest of the meal. It meets expectations perfectly and is essential to making the most of the avalanche of flavours coming your way.
Within moments a board - they like boards - of appetisers appeared. Our photo's not the beez neez, but should give a flavour. Satay was a little thinner than we like, but the sauce was rich and dark. Some cute vegetable pasties were good. Fried seafood slices - officially crab, although the texture felt more like prawn, were new to me. All three matched well with the sweet chilli sauce and satay.
Another board brought out five main dishes, plus rice. At this point we were offered prawn crackers and chilli paste, which was a nice touch, although the crackers weren't really needed, if we're honest.
So a platter of dishes. Let's run through them: a Green curry was properly creamy, while not too hot but nicely spicy. A good chicken-oyster sauce dish was my favourite thanks to the savoury smoky depth in the brothy sauce. Nasi goreng benefitted muchly from the addition of chilli paste. Stir fried provided some nice balance. Then there were two large chunks of beef rendang. We're jolly big fans of the flavours, but one of us really doesn't like the texture of rabo de toro which the chosen cuts came close to. It was a bit on the fibrous side, unfortunately.
Desserts aren't always a priority in cuisine from this quarter of the world. There's nothing wrong with flan. Madrid runs on it on weekdays. And, hello, this one came with spiced syrup which had a surprise kick. After all those savoury dishes, we couldn't finish the mini tablet slab of it.
Bottled Mahou is included in the tasting offer, but we started off with an enjoyable, light Indonesian brew. We liked it. Service is pretty good, with every component of every board explained, extra hot chilli paste and prawn crackers were offered too. Only bill-getting took a tad more effort, but things had got busy by this point and it came almost instantly after we made eye-contact.
It's a spacious, high-ceilinged dining room, but that means it gets loud and echoey as it fills up. An impressively varied range of customers - some knew their stuff and know the staff - a chef got a hug. That's usually a good sign, and there's a babble of at least three languages going on most of the time.
Sabor Nusantara has a down-to-earth, rewarding, and most importantly, well-intentioned dinner. We'd go again to explore more of the menu.
