Pasadena: Oxtail Noodles at Bone Kettle
crab fried rice
I finally made it over to Bone Kettle in Pasadena recently for lunch. I’ve been meaning to try this Indonesian spot for a while now.
For lunch (it’s only brunch if there’s booze and we were not imbibing that morning… er, afternoon), we ordered the crab fried rice, noodles with oxtail and pacel, an Indonesian salad with tempeh.
coconut water
My best friend got the lychee lemonade while I had the coconut water. I was going to try to dig out the coconut meat but after getting a splinter trying to push the top off, I gave up on that. Maybe if I had a hammer and saw…
In any case, as anyone who’s ever had coconut water fresh from a coconut will tell you, coconut water is good.
pacel salad
We needed a veggie so we saw the water spinach salad called pacel. It was actually mostly tofu and tempeh with a peanut-shrimp-tamarind dressing. I liked the chips it was served with.
pacel
I actually didn’t see much water spinach but there were three big pieces of greens so technically we did get some greens in.
As for the crab fried rice, I originally thought about the crab lumpia but carbs won us over this day. We could see the strands of crab but if you were expecting lumps of it, you were out of luck. Still, it was a big portion and the fried egg on top was nice. I could have done without the peas and carrots though. But I hate carrots.
oxtail
The noodles are presented with a bowl of noodles and the dish of protein of your choice from the options of top sirloin, chicken, tofu, etc. I knew right away I wanted oxtail. We also added a soft boiled egg which I promptly plopped into the lovely broth they pour over the noodles table side.
oxtail and egg now in the soup
The oxtail had plenty of meat and were rich fatty pieces. No bony oxtail here!
noodle lift
These noodles were nicely chewy. I wonder if they were made by Sun Noodle.
Overall, it was a good meal. I would be interested in trying those crab lumpia I missed out on last time and also coming back for dinner.
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