On a very windy and wintery night in February, I went to Garuda in Swansea, where chef Suriyani Watcyn-Jones,(Ani) and husband Steve have been serving Indonesian food for 22 years. Based on St Helen’s Road, it is still the only Indonesian restaurant in Wales. As we walked through their inviting door, and leaving the red weather warnings behind us we were welcomed by aromatic smells, lots of chatter and a few corks popping.
It’s a small and cosy restaurant and the only unoccupied table was ours – a full house then at 730pm. The menu has been chosen with great care, and there is so much choice. It includes a variety of meat, fish and rice dishes, including satays, where the meat has been skewered, grilled and served with a tasty crunchy peanut sauce. Also on the menu are dishes suitable for vegetarians and vegans.
I ordered the Soto Ayam as a starter. It’s a traditional Indonesian chicken soup, with clear noodles, beansprouts and spring onions. You can learn so much from a restaurant by the soup they serve in my opinion, and I could have demolished a big bowl of this as a main course to be fair, but there was so much more to try.
We ordered the traditional beef rendang, a rich slow cooked dish which was described as HOT on the menu, and hot means hot (but if you want it toned down just ask) I also ordered the gule cod, cod cooked in spicy coconut milk, fresh chilli, turmeric, ginger, coriander, galangal, lemon grass, onion and salam leaf.
It was so good, a delicate balance of flavours. All this was served up with sticky coconut rice. You can bring your own wine if you like and there are soft drinks, teas and coffees available too.
Indonesia is the world’s largest island country, made up of over seventeen thousand islands, and you can taste it’s food at 18 St Helen’s Road Swansea SA1 4AP.