A dash of honey: Jakarta's 'burnt' banana fritters a sought-after comfort food
Dki jakarta: "Madam, what is that? It is a burnt assistant fritter, please don't serve it to people.
"We don't like information technology."
Such was the feedback Nanik Soelistiowati received back in 2007 when she first introduced her round, seemingly charred banana fritters to hotels in Dki jakarta, where she was serving catering food.
Fast forward 10 years later on, her banana fritters known locally as Pisang Goreng Madu Bu Nanik (Mdm Nanik's Dearest Banana Fritters) is the bestselling product on Indonesian food delivery platform GoFood.
Today, as the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, the dearest fried banana remains widely sought-later and is still among GoFood's virtually popular products.
"When I look back, I sometimes shed tears," Mdm Soelistiowati told CNA.
Mdm Soelistiowati has always loved cooking and she started to constitute a nutrient catering service for hotels in Djakarta when her two children were small.
Her dear fried assistant was initially part of her catering menu, but when demand for the fritters grew, Mdm Soelistiowati decided to leave the catering industry and focused on building her beloved fried banana brand.
Many customers say her banana fritters are crispy and the honey melts in the oral fissure.
There are usually long lines of queues at her ane and merely outlet in West Djakarta. Sometimes people even take to wait for hours to get hold of the fritters.
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Sold at about six,800 rupiah (US$0.46) per slice, Mdm Soelistiowati's fritters are affordable but cannot exist hands reproduced, she claimed.
"Perhaps a lot of people now make honey assistant fritters, but theirs are not the aforementioned as mine. Because nosotros care most the gustatory modality, and I always put quality start," she said.
To make her fritters, Mdm Soelistiowati mixes bananas with honey, flour and salt.
She uses honey instead of sugar because her female parent had diabetes and Mdm Soelistiowati wanted her to enjoy the snack.
The hush-hush behind the successful fritters is that the bananas must be ripe enough just not as well ripe, she added.
Mdm Soelistiowati said if she does not have the right bananas, she would rather close her outlet – which has happened before – than selling fritters which practice not taste good.
A TENACIOUS ENTREPRENEUR
Apart from the quality of the bananas, the other undercover to Mdm Soelistiowati's success is her tenacity.
"I want to piece of work hard, and I was tenacious," the 65-yr-old said.
"When I was nonetheless catering nutrient, I but slept ii, 3 hours a day. Initially, I worked on everything. I delivered it myself, I looked subsequently the food (at the hotel) myself. Once washed so I had to melt again."
"I went shopping at the fish market myself, I woke upwardly at 3am in the morning to shop for vegetables … I once cruel into a drain at the fish market in the center of the dark. I did everything and I did not grumble because I like cooking," she revealed.
Even when the hotels complained nearly the advent of her fritters, she was not discouraged.
She explained that the fritters were not burnt; it was the honey that made them look blackness.
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People started to savour the snack and before long she received requests to sell the fitters at bazaars.
"When we start started, information technology was not easy," Mdm Soelistiowati said.
The big breakthrough came when Mdm Soelistiowati's two children, who work on the production and marketing of the production, decided in 2022 to put the production on GoFood, the new food commitment service owned by ride-hailing app Gojek.
DELIVERY PLATFORMS HELPED Business concern Abound
Pisang Goreng Madu Bu Nanik was one of the get-go merchants on GoFood and its product became a big hit.
When rival Take hold of entered Indonesia a few years later, they approached Mdm Soelistiowati to be a merchant on the app and Pisang Goreng Madu Bu Nanik became even more than popular.
Grab fifty-fifty wanted the product to exist on their food delivery services in other countries such equally Vietnam, but Mdm Soelistiowati declined for the time existence every bit she is afraid that she cannot ensure the quality of the snack.
Later, delivery service Paxel too wanted to offering Pisang Goreng Madu Bu Nanik on its platform.
With Paxel, the delicacy can now exist shipped all over Java isle and Bali on a same-twenty-four hours delivery service.
The banana fritters have also attracted many individual resellers, who purchase from Mdm Soelistiowati in Djakarta and and so sell them in other Indonesian cities and fifty-fifty away such as Hong Kong.
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Back in April, Mdm Soelistiowati decided to close her outlet to protect her employees also as customers from COVID-19.
She connected to pay her 50 employees and told her children: "Nosotros are not just looking for profit. Now the well-nigh important thing is to look later on our health."
During the 3-month closure, many kept asking when they would reopen and one time they did again in June, they recorded encouraging sales.
Mdm Soelistiawati, however, is tight-lipped almost how much she earns from her fritters.
Declining to reveal the quantity she is able to sell per twenty-four hours, Mdm Soelistiawati, all the same, said she needs ii pickup trucks of bananas every day.
Her ultimate goal is for her fritters to go global, and for people to know more nigh Indonesia and its food.
That is likewise why she always wears an Indonesian kebaya during public events.
"My mission is to attract foreigners to try our nutrient. And then, I desire to consign my love banana fritter to several countries i day."
Read this story in Bahasa Indonesia here.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/asia/indonesia-jakarta-burnt-banana-fritter-honey-bu-nanik-190581
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