I went to this place, southwest of Center City, after watching a video by JL Jupiter. If you don’t know about his You Tube channel, he is the African American Mark Wiens, Philly version. I love his videos.
I chose this place because so many other of his other videos feature places closed on Sunday.
We got three versions of Martabak an Indonesian folded bread. The first two were a fry bread stuffed with pork and egg. One topped with chilies and the other with cheese. We loved both, though the chilies are indeed serious…
I’m surprised pork was one of the fillings. I’ve only come across murtabak offered from Muslim vendors and pork wouldn’t be an option. I know Indonesia has other religions but it is a Muslim majority country and murtabak has Arab origins.
Pork martabak can be found in Chinese-Indonesian communities and in areas with large non-Muslim communities. I’ve seen it in Bali and places like Manado where pork is more commonly eaten.
The menu doesn’t say anything about what is in the martabak, just the toppings. When I asked I think she said pork, though her English was not much better than my Bahasa Indonesia…
In the same morning I went to the SEA Market at FDR Park, took a break at the Barnes Foundation (excellent air conditioning, BTW), and late afternoon hit this place.
I am intrigued to hit more of these kind of places that we do not have in the DC area.
We do have quite a few Yemeni places in my area, though I haven’t seen martabak yet. Thanks for the info, and I will definitely ask around.
Indonesian cuisine has this strange naming oddity for the two very different food items:
martabak asin (meaning “savory martabak”) and martabak manis (“sweet martabak”).
Martabak asin evolved from Middle-Eastern (most likely Hadrami/Yemeni) origins - folded, filled breads with egg/onions/spices and meat filling.
Martabak manis is of Chinese-Fujianese origin. Known to the Fujianese/Hokkiens as ban chien kueh (慢煎粿), it is a large, heavy pancake filled with crushed peanuts, sugar, and butter.
Legend has it that the pancake was invented by General Tso Tsung-tang (1812-1885), the same Qing Dynasty military personage who was commemorated in General Tso’s Chicken, a popular American-Chinese menu item. General Tso did NOT invent that chicken dish but, apparently, he did invent this one.
General Tso Tsung-tang had started his military career during the Taiping Rebellion in the 1850s. During a military expedition in Fujian, when his army ran out of food rations, but where sugarcane and peanuts were found in abundance, he’d asked the army chefs to fill pancakes with sugar and peanuts in order to feed his troops.
On the menu at Martabak OK in Philadelphia, they list martabak manis and martabak telor. No explanation. I could see that the first was sweet and the second savory, but no explanation that they were different in the kind of pancake/bread being used. Also, the menu only lists the topping for the savory ones, not the filling.
The dishes change a lot, but the rendang, the collard greens in coconut broth and the veggie fritters are memorable. There was an eggplant dish I really liked also. Everything I’ve had there has been good, these just stand out in my mind.
