Last Friday, I went there for the first time. I was exhausted after work and wanted to eat something substantial. From Tuesday to Friday, they offer reasonable lunch sets. The least expensive set Lunch C includes salad, rice, and chicken or vegetable curry and costs just 500 yen (one coin)! Since I wanted to have naan bread, I chose Lunch B (580 yen). With this set, you can choose curry out of three options (chicken, mutton, or curry of the day), and rice or naan bread. On that day, they had chana masala, my favorite kind of curry, for the curry of the day. I was very happy to have big naan breed and curry with many chickpeas.
In addition, they offered free coffee after lunch!
Today, I came to Garuda again to try other menu items. On Sundays, they don’t have the lunch sets they had on weekdays, so I ordered a la carte: Tempe Goreng, Rice, and Dal Curry. Though I had had a tempe burger or something like that at a vegan event before, it was the first time I had tempe at a restaurant. It is an Indonesian food made from fermented soybeans. Unlike natto in Japan, which is also made from fermented soybeans, it has no strong smell and is easy to eat. Tempe Goreng is fried tempe and eaten with sauce.
The sauce was sweet (without animal products), and fried onion was added on it. The tempe looked like home-made one, and the flavor reminded me of savory roasted soybeans eaten at Setsubun or Bean-Throwing Festival in February.
These are Dal Curry and Rice. This time, I wanted to have a vegan lunch. So, I asked the master of the restaurant if Dal Curry contains dairy products, and he made it without them for me.
I poured the curry on the rice.
The curry wasn’t hot at all. It was so mild that anyone would be able to eat it without problem. Personally, I prefer to hotter curry, however, I found the combination of bean curry and rice was very appetizing. Also this time, a cup of coffee was served free of charge.
In Garuda, they had ceiling lamps with interesting drawings. I asked the master of the restaurant if they represented Garuda though I wasn’t sure what Garuda was. I guessed right, and he explained that it is a half-human half-bird hindu god.
Though the master is from Nepal, he also told me that among the islands of Indonesia, Bali has Hinduism as their major religion. Later, I learned that the Indonesian national airline is called Garuda Indonesia. In Buddhism in Japan, Garuda is called Karura. Though we aren’t conscious of it, Asian countries seem to have much in common culturally even though fermented soybeans evolved into very different foods in Indonesia and Japan.
Asian Restaurant Garuda
Address: 225-32, Ike-machi, Naka-ku, Hamamatsu-shi, Shizuoka
Tel: 053-454-7524
Open hours: 11:00-14:30
17:30-22:00
Closed: Mondays
Access: 15-minute walk from JR Hamamatsu Station
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