Jogja Culinary Adventure: Rich Taste of Aceh Foods at Bungong Jeumpa

Hello my lovelies! How’s your Sunday going? Is it full of plans or rather slowing down? However it is, I hope yours is as good as you want it to be.

Today is a good day for talking about food. How fond are you of Asian food? Are you adventurous enough to taste one spicy food to another one?

When I was a kid, in order to teach me eating spicy food, my parents made a silly trick that actually worked. They said I should learn eating spicy food if I wanted to be able to say the letter R correctly. Guess what… my friends’ parents also said the same. So, my friends and I had such a competition on who ate the spiciest food.

“My grandmother made me fried rice with 5 chilies. It burnt my mouth!” One kid told me. As a reply I said, “Oh that was nothing! My dad put 10 chilies and I ate it all. No tears! It wasn't that spicy!”

Hahahaha… what a big mouth I had!

What’s the relation of the above story with my culinary adventure? Oh well, couple of weeks ago, when I was starving, I decided to eat Aceh foods. Aceh foods are famous for its spiciness.

Together with my brother I went to a restaurant named Bungong Jeumpa. This restaurant has red walls which seem to be a sign that they sell spicy food (according to me). I sat on one of the seats and ordered Nasi Goreng Daging and Teh Tarik whereas my brother chose Martabak Isi Ayam Kuah Kari and Es Teler.


Nasi Goreng Daging is fried rice with meat. The smell of this fried rice was nice. It reminded me of chicken curry. 


The taste was rich; rather spicy, savory and the sensation of the herbs clung on my tongue. The spiciness didn't really come from the chili but it was rather from the herbs.


A spoon, two spoons, three spoons… the more I ate the more I sensed the warmth of the herbs inside my stomach before… it burnt my stomach! Aaargh!

My relationship with spicy food is complicated. We have been together for so long in an on/off relationship. Suffering from gastritis, I shouldn't eat anything spicy but my life isn't complete without spicy food. I pretended that my lovely stomach didn't get burnt but it did and I had to take a medicine to get rid of it.

I had better experience with Teh Tarik. Teh Tarik is milk tea. They put iced cubes on my tea and it was soooooo good. It was such a perfect drink to have when the heat of the sun was hitting your head and you desperately needed a cold shower but no shower around.


My brother was not into herbs and their spiciness but he was happy with what he had. His martabak was less spicy than my nasi goreng. Martabak in this restaurant was pretty much alike omelet but this one is square and they mixed it with chicken. 


The taste of the herbs in this martabak was light. What made it oh-so-delicious was the curry sauce! Yes! I tasted it and I wished to have some more bites!


To accompany his martabak, my brother had es teler. Es teler is iced mixed fruit drink. They put slices of avocado, jack fruits, young coconut pulp, and I don’t know what else. There are syrup, coconut milk and condensed milk as well. Es teler is heavenly tasty but the one that my brother had was so so.


Apart from fried rice and martabak, Bungong Jeumpa has any other choices of menu. They have 21 variations of Aceh noodles, 21 kinds of roti canai, and any other menu with rice such as rice with duck curry, rice with fried chicken, and rice with rendang. The drinks are many as well; some juices such as apple juice, mango juice, watermelon juice and durian juice, milkshakes, vanilla float, Aceh coffee and etc. The price of the drinks start from IDR 1,000 and the foods start from IDR 4,000 (fried egg). The martabak my brother picked costs IDR 20,000 and my fried rice costs IDR 19,000.

That’s all I can share tonight. If you are into rich taste, put Bungong Jeumpa in your list together with Eastern Kopi TM – another restaurant I visited not so long ago.







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