On some shelves on the right, there are packages of the sort of snacks that are just perfect with a beer (or three), and some weekend football - spicy peanuts with anchovies, spicy crunchy potatoes with anchovies and peanuts, spicy cassava chips, spicy tempeh chips with anchovies and peanuts, crispy sweet tempeh with crunchy potatoes and peanuts. But really, with a selection of 50 or more packages to choose from, the menus are parenthetical - no matter which day you show up, there’ll be more than a few dishes that you’ll carry to the counter to pay for, have bagged, and take home. Dishes that travel very well, and reheat even better - unless you can’t resist the aroma and decide to attack the chow lukewarm during the drive home.Īs is true of the very best of down-home cooking, Siu Chen’s dishes taste good at any temperature.ĭishes are posted daily on the restaurant’s website. She was happy to feed her many acquaintances until COVID-19 inspired her to expand her world to those of us who drive whatever distance we need to in order to confront long tables in the middle of the right hand of the two rooms that make up Medan, covered with boxes of dozens of dishes. A shopping jaunt through Medan will leave you eating Indonesian food for days this is chow that’s very hard to resist.Īnd really - why would you want to? Siu Chen has been feeding friends and family since she arrived in the USA in 1998. It’s the darnedest place - and also the best, with a menu of many (so many!) Styrofoam packed dishes, that change on a more or less regular basis. A grocery store that’s open afternoons, four days a week (Thursday through Sunday), when it’s mobbed by locals hungry for Indonesian home-cooking by a 75-year-old flavor master named Siu Chen, along with her two daughters, two sons-in-law, and two grandchildren - who can be found in this bit of Jakarta inside a former Chinese seafood café in the back of a Rosemead mini-mall.
![chef chen montebello chef chen montebello](https://s3-media4.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/zlk8oFlNLIfyl6YU_cuLEQ/258s.jpg)
It also isn’t a restaurant like I said, it’s a grocery store.
![chef chen montebello chef chen montebello](https://s3-media2.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/tjZLn8cso7Jh54SHCpVQlQ/258s.jpg)
![chef chen montebello chef chen montebello](https://s3-media2.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/103N4fGrvtMjk2IRPZfVpg/258s.jpg)
Medan Kitchen isn’t a kitchen it’s a grocery store.