Java brings a lil' Indonesian cuisine to South Philly

IF YOU could go back in time and ask a 17-year-old Ferry Takili what the United States was like, he might tell you that it was a country filled with monsters.

Not in the boorish, self-serving "typical American" sense - we tend not to need any outside help cultivating that odious reputation, if we're being honest.

No. Literally, monsters.

When Ferry, now 39, stepped off the plane from his native Jakarta and laid eyes on an American airport for the first time, it was nothing but vile, otherworldly creatures in every direction. Vampires, zombies, witches, ghastly ghouls and ghosts, all eyeing up this wide-eyed Indonesian kid like he was the bloody odd one in the room.

"Whoa - what is going on here?" he remembers thinking. "Am I in a different world?"

Hell of a way to get introduced to Halloween.

Now a full-blown American, Ferry, who came up in Los Angeles but now calls Philadelphia home, understands even our weirdest customs well. But he's never let go of his Indonesian roots, a deep familial connection that led him to South Philly, and to the opening of Lil' Java.

Ferry is not a restaurant guy, nor does he come from a restaurant family. He describes his father and mother, who acquired their green cards via the Diversity Immigrant Visa lottery, as "regular Joes" - dad a warehouse employee, mom a certified nurse assistant.

In L.A., Ferry was employed in transportation logistics, a field he continued to work in once he relocated to Philly about eight years ago. He and his parents were encouraged to move here by his brother, who set up his family in South Philly about five years before Ferry's arrival.

The area's small but tight-knit Indonesian community appealed to him. "In Los Angeles, it's so different," he said. "Indonesians are more scattered, compared to here, where they're concentrated in one area: South Philly."

But there are far more Indonesian restaurants in Southern California, as compared to the mere handful of solid options out this way. (One, Sky Cafe, where Ferry first met his wife, Debby, over lunch, is two blocks away.) That might have been the motivation for Takili's mother to take over what used to be Malone's Back Room Cafe, at 18th and Ritner, with the aim of opening her own place.

But mom would end up backing out of the project and moving back to L.A., leaving it to her son and his wife to make their own.

Open since March, Lil' Java is positioned to appeal to multiple swaths of the South Philly population.

Debby, who's originally from Surabaya, on the opposite site of the island of Java from her husband's home city, is the chef. That means that the menu centers on her native cooking style, which leans on the complex interplay of spicy and sweet more heavily than Jakartan cuisine.

Such regional nuance is understood by native-speaking regulars who take their meals here, at Sky Cafe, or the nearby Hardena. First order of business for the Takilis, though? Getting non-Indonesians in the door - and showing them what this food is all about.

"Is your food like Chinese food?" That's by far the more frequently asked question among Lil' Java's slowly growing American customer base, which, of course, is heavy on paesans in this traditionally Italian neighborhood.

Ferry's answer: Kinda.

Like many Indonesians, there is some ethnic Chinese blood in his family tree, and you can see that influence peek out in such menu items as crab egg foo yong or kolobak, a sweet-and-sour pork. But it's just one of many traditions shaping the Indonesian culinary identity.

"In Indonesian food, there's a lot of influence - Indian, Chinese, then the Dutch, French," he said. "It's all mixed."

They're mixing up the approach in other ways, too. Lil' Java is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week, and they're serving a number of familiar specialties, like diner-style egg platters and hamburgers and fries, in addition to their core Indonesian items.

"Some American people, maybe they've never tried Indonesian, so they're afraid to come," said Debby, who, along with her husband, is happy to accommodate questions about their food. "So, why not come have grilled cheese, or a burger?" Ferry's known to sneak out Indonesian samples to customers ordering from the Yankee portions of the menu.

But Debby's real-deal cooking is, and always will be, the thing.

The famous Indonesian beef rendang, a balance of complex South Asian-style spices with sweet coconut milk, is a signature. Same goes for the batagor (chicken and fish dumplings) and the pecel dan ayam goreng, a plate combining rice and fried chicken with a salad featuring the vital Indonesian building blocks: peanut, palm sugar, garlic, lime leaf, hot peppers.

That last dish comes with a side of peyek - crunchy rice flour crackers with baked-in lime leaf, garlic and kencur, or galangal, both members of the ginger family.

Tahu tek, another common salad, is egg, tofu and bean sprouts with a peanut sauce darkened with shrimp paste, another quintessential Indonesian flavoring. And, speaking of condiments, Debby makes a number of hot sauces from scratch, each meant to pair with different dishes.

Though opening a restaurant was never in the couple's plans, it's worked out this way, and Ferry and Debby's family members have been eager to support, either as customers or on the other side of the curtain. Thursdays and Sundays are the days you're most likely to find Debby's mother, Kelly, in the kitchen, preparing off-menu Surabayan dishes for anyone who asks.

Ferry's come a long way from that airport terminal, filled with leering monsters. Jakarta's where he's from, but South Philly, and Lil' Java, is where he's at.

"We are staying here," he said. "This is our home now."