Adventure 41: Bandung

Bandung Indonesian Cuisine (website)
600 Williamson St.
3 Adjectives: Americanized, pricey, quiet.
Price: app (1-14) entree (9-16)
Authenticity:
Atmosphere:
Overall:
Other Opinions: yelp, madisonatoz, ...
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Happy New Year readers! Here's to a year of more unique and delicious restaurants to visit. I've been on vacation for awhile so I'm a little backed up right now. The next five-ish reviews should be coming out faster than normal.

After seeing a cool coupon in the Bucky Book - a buy one get one free at Bandung - I was quickly prompted to check out this restaurant. An Indonesian restaurant in Madison? How cool is that? I thought.

Bandung is located past the square (from campus) in a strip mall next to one of the most confusing intersections in Madison: the John Nolen - Williamson - Wilson intersection. The strip mall also contains several other Asian restaurants as well as Sardine. Upon arrival, I walked into a nicely decorated and quiet restaurant. The place was mostly dominated by couples and groups of four. Our waitress was very nice and knowledgeable about all of the menu items, and even pronounced all the dishes perfectly.

After some consideration, I settled on the bebek bakar or cripsy duck with garlic sauce (above photo). My boyfriend got the sambal goreng udang, a shrimp dish in candlenut lemongrass sauce (below). We also ordered the Lumpia, spring rolls, for an appetizer. The lumpia looked and tasted like a spring roll but was unfortunately rather small. The duck pieces definitely had a nice cripsy skin with a meaty interior, the way Asian duck is usually prepared. The shrimp were tasty but apparently few in number. While the food was overall good, it was not in any way distintly Indonesian. I felt like these dishes could be easily ordered at any semi-upscale fill-in-the-blank Americanized Chinese/Vietnamese Restaurant. In this case, this restaurant also happened to be on the more expensive end. Lucky for us, the bill was nearly half off due to our coupon.

Given the normal priciness of the restaurant, its distance from campus, and its unremarkableness, I would not really recommend it to anyone (unless you have a half off Bucky Book coupon). If you want something truly ethnic that far off campus, try Lao Laan Xang which is just a few blocks away.