August 7, 2025

Ibu Ruby’s Indonesian fare delights KL folk

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A welcome addition to Lucky Garden in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur, Ibu Ruby’s offers Malay/Indonesian street food, dishes that owner Muhammad Imran Abdullah (one of the co-founders of the Muslim-friendly Italian restaurant Positano Risto) grew up eating. Sitting right at the corner lot of a row of shops, the decor is simple, similar to a warung but better. The name of the restaurant is inspired by Ibu Ruby who used to cook for his family when he was living in Jakarta in 1979. Chef Afique, formerly from EQ Kuala Lumpur’s Nipah Cafe, helped to recreate the flavours, using fresh ingredients for the sauces and sambal pastes.

We had Nasi Ambeng which came with fragrant yellow (turmeric) basmati rice, some fried noodles, kangkung belacan, terong belado (eggplant), rendang ayam (chicken rendang), sambal and keropok ikan (fish crackers). We liked that the sambal was spicy (but not overly so) and the rendang chicken – nice and moist – different from the usual thick curry gravy associated with beef rendang but no less flavourful. This is a complete meal by itself, protein, vegetables (fibre) and carb on one plate. They tout to have the best Nasi Lemak around – leaving that for your own discovery and judgement.

We also had side dishes such eggplant, lawar bali (salad of sorts with grated coconut, cabbage, bean sprouts and French beans mixed with spices), gulai chicken and beef dendeng with sambal hijau (green sambal).

The veggies were not particularly outstanding – frankly, I’ve had better versions; chicken gravy was watery, more like a soup rather than a creamy coconut (santan) curry. Was not bad at all, but just different/unexpected. The dry-style beef won top marks with its crisp edges, well-marinated flavourful meat, amped up with the green sambal. I venture the other dishes are worth exploring further as the Paru Balado (cow lung) and Daging Rendang seem highly recommended.

The charcoal grilled sate was the highlight here and it was truly delicious. We had ayam madura and marangi as well as the lidah (beef tongue) madura. Very different from Malay style, Indonesian sate comes with different sauces, some sweetish, peanutty almost like local ones, one was almost like brown sauce, another reminded me of rojak sauce.

The biggest surprise was the beef tongue. Turned out amazing – braised until tender, yet still firm enough for a good bite, not gamey or raw-tasting at all. We didn’t get to try the beef and tempe sate as they weren’t ready yet (at 1pm). Next round.

Enjoyed the spicy and piquant flavours here, can’t wait to return for more satay. They also have different levels of spicy sambal – Sambal Hijau, Sambal Mangga, Sambal Tomato and Sambal Kelapa – not for the faint hearted! Even if you’re not big on Indonesian fare, the satay makes it worth an adventure.