Singkawang Cafe in El Monte Focuses on Borneo’s Indonesian Cuisine | Eater LA

"Opened in November 2018, Singkawang Café sits in a three-unit strip mall in El Monte in front of a badminton club and offers a compact menu (seven appetizers, ten Thai entrees and nine Indonesian 'Singkawang' entrees) that showcases Kalimantan and Singkawang-style Chinese-Indonesian dishes. I found choi pan—almost-translucent steamed dumplings made with rice and sago flour wrappers filled with chives and chopped jicama cooked with dried shrimp, topped with fried garlic and served with a potently spicy dipping sauce—to be a distinctive item not seen at other local Indonesian restaurants. The baso (bakso) is a mild yet well-seasoned meatball soup with two types of meatballs (beef and pork/mixed), thin vermicelli and flat rice noodles, triangular slabs of tofu, sliced scallions, fried garlic and thin beef shreds. Rujak is a spicy-sweet mixed fruit-and-vegetable salad of thinly sliced carrots, jicama, pineapple and cucumbers in a sauce of chili, palm sugar, tamarind and shrimp paste with ground peanuts and shrimp powder on top, and diners can choose their level of spiciness. Hakong singkawang—shrimp paste wrapped in deep-fried tofu skin with a sweet-and-sour sauce—comes across like a shrimp loaf, and Singkawang chicken curry features ultra-tender bone-in chicken and large potato chunks in a savory yellow curry broth. The owner told Eater that nasi campur (a meat-and-rice plate showing char siu influence) and jump mien (a bowl of egg noodles topped with shrimp, both crispy and seasoned pork, and fish balls) are the most representative dishes, and the owner hopes to add more Kalimantan items in the future. Because shrimp in the forms of shrimp paste, dried shrimp and shrimp powder is common across many dishes, anyone with shellfish allergies should read the menu closely and ask their server. Open daily 11 a.m. to 10 p.m." - Jim Thurman