Restaurant: Layang Layang
City: Milpitas, CA

Grilled striped bass coated in spicy lemongrass sauce and wrapped in a banana leaf. Lemon wedges and sambal were also served with ikan bakar. This was my first time having ikan bakar; it had a very undescribable unique taste, but the texture of the black sauce reminded me of black bean sauce. Oh, and as I’m posting this and looking at the photo I took, I realize I totally missed the sambal for my ikan bakar, though I did get a lemon wedge…T_T…will have to try it again next time!

Ikan bakar is a generic term to refer various kinds of Indonesian and Malaysian dish of charcoal-grilled fish or other forms of seafoods. Ikan bakar literally means “burned fish” in Malay and Indonesian. The fish is usually marinated with the mixture of sweet soy sauce and coconut oil or margarine, applied with brush during grilling. The spices mixture may vary among regions and places, but usually it consists of combination of ground shallot, garlic, chili pepper, coriander, tamarind juice, candlenut, turmeric, galangal and salt. In Java and most of Indonesia, ikan bakar usually tastes rather sweet because the generous amount of sweet soy sauce either as marination or dipping sauce. While the ikan bakar of Minangkabau (Padang), most of Sumatra and also Malay peninsula, usually more spicier and yellow-reddish in color because the generous amount of chili pepper, turmeric and other spices, and the absent of sweet soy sauce. Ikan bakar usually served with sambal belacan (chili with shrimp paste) or sambal kecap (sliced chili and shallot in sweet soy sauce) as dipping sauce or condiment and slices of lemon as garnishing. (Wikipedia)