A becak pedicab finds a space inside the East West Oriental food stall in London.

Erditya Arfah swallows the last bit of spicy beef rendang (beef cooked in coconut milk) and wipes the sweat off his forehead as he listens to people across his table gossiping. It feels like home.

He is in London — nearly 12,000 kilometers away from his house in West Java’s capital Bandung — where most foods are considerably less flavorful to his Indonesian pallet. That was, until he found this warung (food stall).

A small sign reading “East West Oriental” hangs in front of a two-story shop on Charing Cross Road, near the Leicester Square tube station, just behind London’s busy Chinatown.

Tucked in the corner on the second floor, East West looks like a combination of grocery store and warung. There are only three tables to accommodate 16 people with only five main dishes to choose from.

But this does not prevent Erditya from visiting the place at least once or twice a month. His favorite is nasi Padang, and the rendang is very tender after having been cooked slowly in coconut milk for hours, and it is very hot — authentic Padang style.

He also likes to order batagor (fried fish dumpling) and wash it down with the famous tea Teh Botol Kotak, the best-selling drink at East West.

“[Coming here] cures homesickness. First, because of the food and second, because of the environment. It feels good to hear Indonesians sharing stories, gossiping and such,” says the 27-year-old writer and University of Westminster student.

East West is different from other Indonesian restaurants, such as Nusa Dua or Bali-Bali, because it offers full-blown Indonesian flavors. It does not tone down authentic recipes to attract more Western customers.

Firdaus Lanyau.The owner of East West is Firdaus Lanyau, 39, but customers simply call him Aa (which means brother in Sundanese).

Arriving in the UK in 1998 with his wife, Aa worked at Japanese auto supplier Denso before opening his first shop in 2002 in Wolverhampton.

“At the beginning, I was having trouble finding soy sauce. There I got the idea to open a small grocery shop,” says the graduate of the Bogor Agriculture University.

Besides selling fresh and packaged Indonesian foods, Aa’s first shop also offered Thai and Chinese food. For customers residing outside of Wolverhampton, he received online orders. However, it turned out that customers favored Thai and Chinese foods more than Indonesian cuisine.

In 2006, Aa opened another shop in Birmingham, where his family stays now, but it did not last long. The UK was hit by a credit crunch in 2008 and demand dropped as people tightened their belts. He had to close both shops that year and focus on his online business.

After a three-year hiatus, Aa decided to open a new warung in London in August 2011. In the metropolitan city, he believes he can survive by sticking to a strictly Indonesian menu.

“My target is not only Indonesians. I want to introduce authentic Indonesian food,” he says.

The day’s menu.With a small amount of capital, the father of three boys opened his London shop step by step. At first, he only sold groceries, before adding a table for customers. Now with three tables, there is more space for customers, while he is busy preparing dishes from behind an Indonesian-trademark wooden cart.

Another factor that attracts Indonesians to East West rather than other Indonesian restaurants is the price. Most of the main dishes are priced at £5 (about US$8) each, while customers may have to pay at least double elsewhere.

The restaurant not only draws Indonesians, but some Westerners also come to the warung and find the real beef rendang is very spicy. A woman was seen sweating as she ate rendang with the special green chili sauce.

Global weekly listing magazine Time Out gave East West four stars out of five in its review, saying, “The authentic Indonesian cooking steals the show [...] It really is a steal.”

When talking with The Jakarta Post, Aa kept busy with his customers. Dressed in a black apron, Aa served up dishes with the help of his three part-time staffers.

Born as a shy person, Aa says he has grown more confident since opening the shop. He has to deal with customers every day so he learns how to be friendlier, while suppressing his anger when meeting annoying people.

“It’s nice to meet different people, though some are troublemakers,” he says.

There is a reason why Indonesian food is less popular than the cuisine of its neighbors, according to Aa.

While every year the Malaysian government spends money to promote the country in Trafalgar Square, one of the most popular tourist attractions in London, Indonesian officials only spend funds by the end of the year with no specific aim.

“There’s a missing link between the government, business players in Indonesia and business players here. I expect the government or the Indonesian Embassy to boost [the promotion of Indonesian products],” says Aa.

“We have amazing products. Why can’t we display them on the shelves of Chinese grocerie stores? I don’t understand.”

In the UK, Indonesian food is less popular than that of Malaysia, Thailand or even the Philippines, he says.

While Malaysian and Thai restaurants dot London’s cityscape, there are only about five Indonesian restaurants in the metropolis.

Aa says he has a dream to have his own restaurant one day, but he is not in a hurry. He will focus on his current warung while grabbing a decent opportunity.

He wants to “bring Eastern flavors to the West,” hence his shop’s name.

For now, East West is more than enough to serve as a home away from home for Indonesians in the UK. Even Indonesian students in Edinburgh and Sheffield stop in while they are in London to savor the taste of rendang and say a brief goodbye to taste of fish and chips, while enjoying the comfort of Indonesian chit-chat.

“That’s the whole point,” says Erditya. “That’s why I can’t spend just half an hour there, just to eat. I could spend at least an hour.”

— Photos by Aditya Suharmoko