Ayam Goreng is one of those places that was recommended to me by many of my readers and friends. Mostly, it’s raves for the tender, perfectly cooked chicken. So one blisteringly cold Spring day we head off for lunch at Ayam Goreng, in a busy restaurant laden stretch of Anzac Parade.
We walk in and it’s fairly busy. We sit down at a table for two on the side and take a look at the laminated double sided menu. Two choices are obvious, the chicken ayam and the margarine chicken (I promise the second choice is not just based on the name!). Most things are ridiculously cheap, Beef Rendang is $3.50 so we order a bit more than we normally would figuring we could take some away to eat at a later stage.
Writing your own order
There is a section of a lined pad and a pen where you write down your order and hand it to the waiter and you then help yourself to water and glasses and wait for your food.
While we wait for our food, we take in our surrounding, including plant with the longest branches you could imagine that stretch as long as the wall (ok there wasn’t much to look at).
Deep fried marinated chicken Javanese style (thigh piece) $5.50
The chicken is the first to arrive, a crispy golden thigh and drumstick piece (you can choose this or a breast piece). It’s fall apart succulent and perfectly flavoured with no dryness to it at all. I can see why it gets the raves that it does.
Pepes Jamur: Mushrooms wrapped in banana leaves, blended with onions, chili and spices $4
The mushroom pepes is a slender wrapped package in a banana leaf. Flavoured with spices and chili is interesting, not quite to my taste although my husband enjoys this.
Ayam Goreng Mentega: Deep fried 1/2 chicken with margarine and soy sauce $12
The margarine chicken arrives, a large plate with cut up chicken on the bone that has been deep fried and then covered with a sweet soy sauce. There’s some lettuce leaves on the dish and there is apparently 1/2 a chicken’s worth on this plate which is more than enough for two if you just ordered this and rice.
Beef rendang $3.50
The rendang is soft and tender, obviously cooked for a long time until it can easily be pried apart but I’m missing the complex spices and flavours and coconut that I usually like with my favourite rendang. Not bad by any means but I think the pick of the flavours is most definitely the chicken.The coconut rice is delicious, perfectly dry and scented with coconut and goes well with the rendang.
Coconut rice $3
We’ve obviously over ordered so we ask them to pack up our Margarine chicken in a takeaway container to eat at a later stage which they do. And we leave the restaurant into the bone chilling winds, clutching the container of Margarine chicken for warmth.
Ayam Goreng 99
464 Anzac Parade Kingsford
Tel: +61 (02) 9697 0030
Open: 11:30am-4:30pm, 6pm-9pm
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays
Vegetarian options: not many but you could always ask for meat to not be included in the noodle dishes
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18 Comments | Add your own
what an interesting place to visit. the food looks delicious
Ayam Goreng 99… A favourite among local Indo’s. Cheap and filling.
If you wanted to try a different kind of chicken, try Shalom a few shops down. They have various chickens with sauces. I recommend the bumbu rujak one, always great on the day, or microwaved the next day for lunch.
If I wrote down my order I’d never get fed because they couldn’t read it! How cool!
Oohh I want to try but others say it’s all msgness
Hee hee that plant must have been the most interesting thing before the food came out
What a good looking meal for soooo cheap!
The food looks delicious – and it is so cheap! A shame it’s too far to go. The margarine chicken belies its name.
I think I should visit here, it looks delicious, it’d be fun to do squiggles on the paper and see if they can understand it
Hi snooky doodle-It very nice for an inexpensive, tasty meal although it lacks romantic ambience
Hi iwanj-Cool! Thanks so much for the recommendation!
Hi blond duck-LOL funny you say that as I really tried hard to make my writing neat
Hi FFichiban-I have no idea if it is, I’m not allergic so I can’t tell if they use a lot. But it tastes good!
Hi Annie-The bill was a very pleasant surprise I have to say
Hi Cakelaw-I know, I was surprised at the prices too when I first saw them, when do you get food in a restaurant for $3.50 nowadays?
Hi Cappucino-LOL I wonder what they’d do if you drew pictures of the food that you want to order?
What I’m craving at NQN as a huge fan of this site!! –> I sometimes wish some of the photo’s wouldn’t be so ‘up close’. I don’t know if it’s just me that thinks that? Usually I am in awe of nearly all of the gorgeous photo’s here, but sometimes they’re so close you just can’t make out what it is because it’s just a highly magnified close-up of one small cross-section of the meal. I hope it’s ok I said that. I still think you rock!
I can hardly believe how cheap this place is! I mean a $3.50 dish? You can’t buy a beverage for that price at some cafe’s. I know I like butter better than margarine, but somehow, probably because I’ve never heard of it before. It has spiked (or is that sparked?) my curiosity.
Hehe.. I know of a few Hungarian households that seem to take pride in plant branches stretching forever..and they get ‘pinned up’ like Christmas decorations
I love the idea of writing down what you want too.. I’m not entirely sure why.. but I like it!
You’ve got to try the rice with Paha Bakar (grilled chicken thigh).
It’s the best and i get that EVERY time i go!
Hi lorraine, I love reading your blog! Your halloween posts came at a time when I was preparing for exams and I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw your goblin pies
Do come to Singapore sometime. There is ALOT of great (and cheap!) food here. Although I must say the prices for the dishes as listed seem pretty decent.
I liked your sea-salt caramel cake very much too. Very pretty!
My favourite is Ayam Kalasan or Deep Fried Marinated javanese chicken. Do you know that there is Soup Buntut (oxtail soup)? Also, try the Avocado Juice with added condensated chocolate milk.
I don’t like chicken in Shalom as these only fried then added spices or housemade sauces on top, not deep marinated. As these chicken are fried, these are dry. It may not be your liking.
If you happened come to Shalom, try the Fried tofu with peanut sauce + sweet soy sauce (Batagor).
Hi Maria-Sorry but that definitely isn’t going to change. Closeups are part of the food porn experience that I love and I think the captions underneath should be explanation enough!
I think they may have found a few misunderstandings and if you write it down, you can’t really dispute anything that way.
Hi Carolyn-Cool, thanks for the recommendation!
Hi Chloe-Oh hehe I’m so glad that you liked the goblin pies, they were so much fun to make!
Singapore is definitely on my must visit list and I have relatives that live there too. Just a matter of finding the time to do it but I recall seeing an Anthony Bourdain tv show where he visited Singapore and went crazy over all of the delicious food.
Thanks, I definitely recommend that you try it if you like sweet cakes
Hi lilia-Yes I’ve tried Sop Buntut but not here as we wanted to try the chicken as that’s what they’re known for. The avocado shake with condensed chocolate milk sounds interesting though!
OK that’s a good tip, I don’t like my chicken too dry as I sometimes find in Indonesian restaurants and from going on holiday to Bali.
What ridiculously cheap prices!!
Hi Y-I know, it’s like prices were frozen from the 90s!
I love this place!! I hadn’t been for ages and really wanted to go only to find that they were closed because of the Christmas break!
Hi Carolyn-Arrgh how frustrating! I hate it when that happens
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