I have only been to Indonesia once in my life and it was only for one day. Most of that day was spent sitting in a taxi in Jakarta's infamous traffic, sweating my balls off and agonising about being late for my meeting (on the way in) and my flight (on the way back). My experience of Indonesia was effectively limited to the airport freeway and the inside of an air conditioned shopping mall attached to a posh hotel. I ate Hainanese chicken rice for lunch in the basement of said shopping mall. So, before we start, I'm not pretending I'm a bloody expert on authentic Indonesian food, OK?
I am, however, relatively knowledgeable on the other culinary delights of South East Asia. The aforementioned Hainanese chicken rice is a dish that is quite beyond compare. Boiled chicken and rice sounds like something your Eastern European grandma would have made on a lean week during the war, but when the chicken is poached to juicy perfection in aromats so that the flesh is moist and the skin a gelatinous delight, and the bird is paired with rice cooked in the chicken liquor and condiments of chilli, sweet thick soy and ginger paste, it is quite something else. It is by no means a stretch to say that this simple dish, when executed well, would be one of those going through my mind if I were ever on death row and offered a last meal. Which perhaps explains why I do things like spending 15 minutes in the toilet in the basement of a shopping mall in Jakarta trying to get thick soy sauce out of my shirt instead of preparing for an important meeting.
Chicken rice, like so many iconic dishes from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and other South East Asian countries is, in my opinion, best enjoyed in humble surroundings. Does chicken rice ever taste as good as when eaten in a hot hawker centre on Maxwell Road in Singapore, with an ice cold sugarcane juice (pro-tip: less ice, with lemon) to cool you down? Does Vietnamese pho ever have the same depth, freshness and holier than thou Instagram-ready satisfaction as when you are slurping it whilst perched on a kindergarten-size stool whilst watching mopeds speed by in Ho Chi Minh City? I doubt it.
Which (finally, I hear you cry) brings me to Warung Malang Club, what can best be described as a divey Indonesian canteen on the second floor of a non-descript commercial building in (yes, you guessed it) Causeway Bay. The entrance is not what you might describe as grand. Pushing past the queues of people looking forward to shoddy Indian cuisine on the first floor leads you to a series of rooms which looks like a cross between a covert Nigerian banking operation and the office of a particularly unfortunate foreign diplomat, complete with knackered printers and a slightly apologetic-looking stand-alone office fan.
Counter intuitively, this shoddy entrance actually fills me with joy, because there are two possibilities at this stage. One: It will either be closed or obviously awful on first sight, in which case I can leave without even pretending to be polite or looking at a menu and can, instead, go across the road to Fujiyama 55. Two: It is the real deal.
Having read my previous disclaimer about not pretending that I'm a bloody expert on authentic Indonesian food, this, I am pretty sure, was the real deal. A few canteen-style tables and a small serving hatch, complete with a few of those stainless steel food warmer things containing pre-prepared delights behind a glass screen was a good start. The older Indonesian uncle picking his teeth and watching satellite TV in the corner without any obvious intention to spend money was a little disconcerting, but actually gave me comfort that this wasn't some naff tourist gaff.
The food is pretty straightforward. You get rice (nasi) and then load it up with whatever takes your fancy from the pre-prepared curries, vegetables and other dishes in front of you. There are also a few items you can order a la carte, like the famously peanut-heavy Indonesian dish of gado gado, but take my advice and stick to what you can see.
Post-gym workout, I was in a hungry and gluttonous mood, so asked the server to pile my plate high with the egg in spicy sambal, beef rendang and greens with tofu in a creamy curry sauce. I even got a little corn fritter for luck as, by then, my eyes were well and truly bigger than my stomach. The beef was, as it should be, stewed to a deep, dark, pull-apart consistency, the hard boiled egg in sambal was an unexpected spicy delight, the greens were tasty and did their job of making me feel slightly healthy and the corn fritter…well, being honest, the corn fritter was too much, but it was still pretty good.
Stopping briefly to digest my meal whilst absent-mindedly watching the Indonesian news on the TV, it struck me exactly why this place was brilliant. It hadn't localised at all. There was no pandering to local Hong Kong tastes – this place just does tasty simple food for people who want a taste of Indonesia. No frills, just bang for your buck. And serious bang at that - my meal was HK$62 and, on my many return visits, I have never managed to spend more than HK$85 with a soft drink, which is quite unbelievable value.