Teks: Wintang Warastri

Tri Haptiko Sukarso, also known as Tiko Sukarso, is the owner and chef of Kvlatresna, a cozy studio villa located at the outskirts of Yogyakarta. The villa is as green on the inside as it is on the outside, matched by Tiko’s expertise in plant-based nutrition as a raw vegan chef. Starting from four years ago, he had not look back and instead make it his mission to spread the benefits of raw vegan diet. We then spoke to him about his favorite plant-based meals, from cheese and crackers – vegan, obviously – to tempe koro and nasi megono.

Cheese and Crackers

Raw vegan cheese, it’s actually (made of) fermented cheese made of cashew mostly. And then dehydrated crackers. That come in so many variety of flavors; like sometimes with seeds, sometimes with garlic, some would be like carrot and tomato, some with kale, also flaxseed crackers.

Tempe Koro

Unlike tempe kedelai, tempe koro is so smooth. You know green mung beans, imagine this is like big mung beans. Because it’s thick and it’s big, and it’s smooth. Soybeans are chewy, but this one is silky smooth.

Rice and Daal

You know the Indian thali set, which is rice and daal and a lot of itsy bitsy of everything. It’s like chilli and rice, you know, like beans and rice. It’s like my comfort food – you know, warm daal with white rice, ugh it’s so good.

Nasi Padang Kampung

Those restaurants in the cities, those Padang restaurants they are actually following the diet of the Dutch Colonial you know, eating a lot of meat. But Padang people in the kampung, they eat rendang singkong, rendang nangka, rendang jengkol – those kind of things, it should be on the menu. But it’s just never been explored because well, people believe they need to eat meat.

Nasi Megono or Nasi Jagung

So in Jogja, nasi jagung is available like as a hawker food, and it’s actually a poor man’s food, where they can’t afford rice so they mixed a lot of grains, they mixed corn, singkong – nasi tiwul – they mixed coconut, it’s like nasi campur that is almost like an herb rice salad. It is actually a poor man’s diet because they can’t afford rice, but it turns out to be a very healthy and nourishing food. They do have it in wet traditional market, they sell it as a staple food, comprises of many different grains available, seasonal grains, and it’s so fragrant because it comes with shaved coconut.