This one was sent by a friend in Jakarta, Indonesia – thank you! What a day – so around 11am, people started flooding into the site! LifeHacker ran a story about The Ramen Rater and literally thousand of people have checked out the blog. Well, here’s one from Indonesia – Soto Koya Pedass. Pedas means spicy, so I guess Pedass means really spicy or it could be a nod to Turturro in The Big Lebowski. I have a feeling it just means really spicy. I’ve seen this kind of thing before – extra letters = extra emphasis, at least in Indonesian. Well, let’s dig in to this one!

Here’s the back of the package (click to enlarge).

The noodle block.

The seasoning powder. Usually these are paired with a chili powder packet, but not this time.

A light powder.

Seasoned oil.

Quite a nice scent of citrus and spices.

Koya powder. This stuff is interesting…

So upon some researching, I found that serbuk koya means Koya powder. According to Selby’s Food Corner, “Koya powder is made from prawn crackers, fried garlic and dried shrimp.” They mention sprinkling it on top of a dish at that link, so I am assuming that it is to be sprinkled on top as a garnish.

Finished (click image to enlarge). Added fresh broccoli, green bell pepper and onions, a hard boiled egg with some Cavender’s Greek Seasoning and some Dua Belibis Indonesian chili sauce. The noodles are pretty good – they break apart nicely and soaked up a good amount of broth. The broth was great – a combination of lime and other spices as well as a slight spiciness. This wasn’t bad but was expecting more heat. 3.25 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 089686917239 .

A commercial for the Sarimi Soto Koya line.

The street food in Jakarta, Indonesia is absolutely amazing – check out this guy – his restaurant is carried!