Brad
Google
Kaum is the Indonesian restaurant section of Potato Head on Third Street in Sai Ying Pun. The restaurant opening hours are 5-11pm (weekdays) and 11am to 11pm (weekends). Reservations recommended through their website or Chope.
We had a meal at Kaum recently that was just ok. We liked the casual seating area and good music. Atmosphere was nice, a good spot to meet up with friends after work. It seemed a good place for a long, lazy Sunday afternoon as well.
Menu features a range of Indonesia dishes from various regions of the country. We tried a handful of small plates including the Gohu Ikan which was a nice raw tuna dish. A lot of sweet pomelo was served in our bowl, overpowering the tuna at times. Otherwise, this was a tasty order.
We tried the Rendang Daging Sapi which was somewhat disappointing. The quality of the beef was just fine. However, we were surprised at the blandness of the Rendang stew flavour on the day. We both love richly flavoured Rendang dishes. The version is more sweet than spicy. That was unexpected.
Our next dish was the Gado Gado Kaum which was excellent. The veggies were fresh and the gado-gado sauce a delicious peanut curry flavour that we both really enjoyed. Garlic crackers were a nice touch. This was the best order on the day, a plate we'd happily reorder at this restaurant.
Lastly, we tried the Bebek Goreng - crispy duck sharing plate. This was just ok. The duck was quite dry and unfortunately not crispy at all. It was served on an interesting bed of veg with lemon grass. The durian sambal was moderately strong durian flavour and quite interesting. In the end, we were disappointed in the duck itself and would opt to try something else next time.
During our visit, we had a few cocktails from the Eksotika Bar. They offer an interesting range of traditional and fun cocktail concoctions. We found the Tropics Old Fashioned to be too sweet but a fair bourbon cocktail. The Negroni was well made, worth reordering. We also liked the Pisang Colada served in an aged coconut. This was sweet, fun and tasty.
In the end, we didn't have as much luck with Kaum at Potato Head as others have reported.We liked the restaurant but given the mixed food experience, I'm not sure they did enough to warrant a return visit anytime soon. Would happily stop by for a round of drinks from the Eksotika Bar though.