Traveling around Indonesia is not easy for a picky vegan like me and outside of Bali, I usually I relegate myself to bananas, dragonfruit, papaya and other fruits I can find on the way. But when you are hiking volcanoes that could possibly not be enough. Enter Gado-Gado, the nasi-adverse vegan's best friend . With the exception of an egg which I easily exchanged for extra tempeh , gado gado is vegan. It does have a sweet taste, that peanut sauce is full of sugar I'm sure. I live in Indonesia but I'm a little shy to say , I don't really eat Indonesian food often because of all the meat, egg, shrimp paste, sugar, fried food and white rice. But I do have an appreciation for it , I love tempeh and sambal and there are also yummy veggie dishes , you just have to find it and ask questions, which can be really fun. Indonesians are generally very chatty, kind hearted and curious people and did I mention I love this country so much 🇮🇩❤ So this gado gado was really delicious, especially with the addition of sambal I had procured from a street food stall the day before with my tempeh. Their own I didn't care for, it was of the watery variety. But their peanut sauce was zesty and warm and It was indeed a very tasty gado gado. So for this occasion, it was time to put one vegan dish on the map of Banyuwangi or even all of East Java where there is previously none! Making history here folks 😅 it was a hot #deathbyplastic mess and even #styrofoam 🥺 but honestly didn't have much hope for an alternative in this type of situation, it is standard to have a plastic pile up for each meal with each sauce in it's own bag. At Rp 15k ($1 usd) this was an exceptionally priced meal 😋
