Soto ESTO

SOTO (often called as sroto, coto, or tauto) is the name of one of many Indonesian food. It's the kind of food that almost every region in Indonesia has, in many different variations. But among those many kinds of soto, they have one thing in common, which is, composed of broth, meat and vegetables. So soto is more like a kind of soup, usually accompanied with rice. There are so many variations of soto, which are commonly differentiated by the meat ingredient in them. For example, soto ayam (chicken soto) and soto daging (beef soto).People in Indonesia also give specific names for many variations of soto, usually based on the location or region where the soto had been made, e.g. Soto Kudus (from Kudus-Central Java), Soto Surabaya (from Surabaya-East Java), Soto Makassar (from Makassar-South Sulawesi), Soto Betawi (from Jakarta), etc.
Soto can have a clear broth, a yellow transparent broth and a coconut-milk broth. The broth is the main part of soto, because it consists some spices like : shallot, garlic, turmeric root, galangal, ginger, coriander, salt and pepper.

This time I want to share about a kind of soto from my hometown, SALATIGA (this is a small town in Central Java, located between cities of Semarang and Solo) .
The name of this famous cuisine from Salatiga is : Soto ESTO. For your information, ESTO is the name of a legendary bus company in Salatiga. ESTO stands for : Eerste Salatigasche Transport Onderneming (it's in Dutch language, I don't know what's that supposed to mean....:p) .So, what's the connection with that bus company anyway?
Well, it is called Soto ESTO because people can buy this soto right in front of ESTO's garage. That's why people of Salatiga used to call it Soto (Garasi) ESTO, or Soto of ESTO's garage.
If you want to buy this soto, don't imagine of a large, comfort & cozy place to eat, cause you will only find a small-size kiosk-like booth. It's only opened from the early morning until 7-8 AM. You have to come early, otherwise, you won't be able to have soto as your breakfast. You won't find this soto in the afternoon nor in the night, because it's only sold in the morning.
This coconut-milk-broth soto is very unique. It's quite spicy and can make you sweat while you're eating it. Together with a glass of hot-tea, this soto will give you such a great sensation of breakfast. You can add some snacks too. There are things that called "kerupuk karak", some sort of crackers made from rice, or "perkedel", that made from potato or something like that (i'm not sure...but still I can assure you how delicious they are..), and many others.
You will feel "hot" when you eat this soto, let alone eating it with chilli..And when the place gets more crowded, that "hot"sensation will increase as you keep on sweating. This food is highly recommended to those who want to have a special-spicy breakfast in the morning.
So, when you visit Salatiga, don't forget to try this delicious cuisine....!!!


PS: it's popular for sure.... here is an example..(thx to adhitsuniverse)