>Komodo — first time didn’t do it for me

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rendang taco

I wasn’t sure what exactly Komodo was offering really — is it Mexican? Indonesian? Singaporean? I guess there is a little of each. What caught my eye was the Indonesian offering of beef rendang in a taco. I make a mean beef rendang, or so I’ve been told, by my Indonesian friends and my Indonesian BFF’s mother no less, so I know what I’m talking about. I wanted to try it in a taco because in my mind, this would TOTALLY work, and with a cucumber salad? It could totally rock!!

Komodo taco photo by Florance Chung

I was waiting for my friends to arrive, but I was absolutely famished so I don’t pass out while waiting. I get the taco, it looks good enough, but when I looked at how pale the rendang is I knew that flavor-wise, it wasn’t going to be strong enough. I also didn’t catch the fragrant aroma it should’ve been emitting.  I took a bite and surely, there was just a hint of the rendang flavors, but boy oh boy, it should’ve been pounding out at least 10x more than what I was tasting. I liked how they even topped it with bawang goreng (fried crispy shallots), but the rendang need a hell of a lot more punch than that! There wasn’t enough sauce so the meat was a little dry — there is a lot of potential here, but right now it wasn’t doing it for me.

When my friends arrived, we also got the Komodo taco — seared skirt steak with jalapeno aioli and a Southwestern corn salad. It looked very colorful and appetizing and honestly, the corn salad was really good, but the steak was so dry (almost like jerky) that none of us wanted to eat the meat after tasting it.

meatball with romesco

The other thing we tried were the meatballs with romesco sauce, which is a Spanish pepper sauce. The pork meatballs were overcooked — the outside was too brown and the entire meatball was well….. dry! The romesco sauce was perhaps a variation of traditional romesco sauce because it didn’t taste like any romesco sauce I’ve ever tasted before. On the whole, this was another item none of my party enjoyed.

I may give Komodo another try sometime later — but for now, I’m kinda licking my wounds from wasted stomach space.

You can find Komodo at their website, on Facebook or follow them on Twitter

Komodo (Food Truck) on Urbanspoon