VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Welcome to “INDONESIAN WONDER”, a daily segment featuring tourism, culinary arts, fine arts and culture from various regions across Indonesia. We will invite you to enjoy Touge Goreng in Bogor West Java.

Bogor, one of the cities in West Java is located near the capital city of Jakarta, just less than 1 hour drive from downtown Jakarta. It makes the city are mostly visited by Jakarta citizens or foreign tourists for their vacation, especially on weekends. You can enjoy various attractions in the rain city. There is a Bogor Botanical Garden which offers the wealth of Indonesian plants. Then, the Bogor Palace, Situ Gede, Sindangbarang Cultural Village and other interesting tourist attraction. After you are satisfied to visit various interesting objects in Bogor, its not complete if you are not enjoy the delights of various Bogor typical culinary.

During your culinary tour in Bogor, we suggest you to enjoy the sensation of its typicall culinary such as Touge or Toge Goreng. The main ingredient is bean sprouts. Usually the bean sprouts is processed infront of the buyers, using a simple stove. It does not suitable with the name, Toge goreng since it is not fried. Toge is sauteed, or boiled with hot water. Toge goreng then mixed with yellow noodles, pieces of ketupat or rice cake, and tofu. Then the ingredients that have been cooked is watered with tasty sauce made of oncom. The oncom sauce is sauteed that has been mashed first along with spices, such as galangal, onion, bay leaf, tomato slice, leek, chives, and tauco (soybean fermented paste), sweet soy sauce, orange juice, and salt.

When eaten, the taste is delicious. Toge Goreng is one of the typical culinary of Bogor as favourite culinary of many people, because it tastes good and the price is relatively cheap. It is only Rp.15.000 to Rp. 20,000 per portion. Usually toge goreng is sold by the street vendors, and some peddlers sell the food by using carts. Besides in Bogor, the culinary also can be found in other areas, such as Depok, Tanggerang and Jakarta.

The dish of Toge Goreng actually have tight history with the Chinese ethnic in Bogor rain city. An observer of Chinese history in Bogor, Mardi Liem, in a portion of Toge Goreng, almost of them use the term of hokkien.

Starting from tauto which is a fermentation of soy, then mie or noodles, and tauge or bean sprouts, all derived from the term of hokkien. This culinary is also believed has been born from the association of the Chinese people and European community. In Europe there is spaghetti with its incredibly sour of tomato paste. The menu was brought to Indonesia, by the Chinese traders. Before being brought to Indonesia, they had processed this culinary with some ingredients, such as noodles, tofu, tauge with typical sour tomatoes of China. As the time goes by, Mardi Liem said, the spread of toge goreng run from the western coast of Java such as Pandeglang and Banten. In this phase the menu was changed. The Sundanese people who are accustomed to the lalap or raw vegetables, choose oncom to replace tomato sauce. That was the segment of Indonesian Wonder for today with the topic “Toge Goreng”.