Eight hungry eaters decided to test out this Indonesian eatery - maybe the only one in the DC area.
We were drawn by a platter you can special order two days in advance with a minimum of four orders. So that’s what we did. It’s called litewan, and it consists of:
Rice with herbs and anchovies
Vegetables in tamarind soup
Collard greens
Fried chicken
Fried tofu
Crispy salted fish
Cucumbers
(I’m not sure if the accompanying sambal or tapioca crackers ever showed up)
Litewan:
We supplemented this with five other dishes.
Satay Ayam (chicken with peanut sauce and rice crackers):
Satay Padang (tongue with a thick yellow curry)
Indomie Telur Kornet (corned beef and poached egg over noodles):
Beef rendang:
Balado Telur (hard boiled egg with red sauce):
The first thing that struck me was how everything (except one dish) was served room temperature. And mostly bland.
When the tongue (an afterthought we ordered late) arrived, it was like manna from heaven. Finally (!) a dish served hot. The tongue was freshly cooked, the curry was fresh and hot and actually tasted like spices were used - though not hot spicy. This was excellent.
The hard boiled eggs have ‘intense flavor’ according to the menu, but this is entirely aspirational.
The noodles under the corned beef were like instant ramen.
The crispy salted fish was entirely without flavor. Dried fish! How is that even possible?
Tamarind soup as well as the peanut sauce were a touch sweet.
If I had made the fried chicken, I would not have been proud of it.
After the meal, everyone around the table picked out different items they liked, so my opinion might be quite different from theirs.
) But you’re right- the litewan was billed as special and while the presentation was special, there were too many misses.
