I was introduced to Bandung by a Madison resident. We had a wonderful dinner with an appetizer sampler and two entrees, both curries. It was fantastic. This was a few years back. I live in Milwaukee but liked Bandung so much that I introduced my...husband (a meat and potatoes type) to it. Surprisingly he loved the Daging Semur with beef. We made it a point to bring a cooler with us anytime we traveled in or near Madison and would bring home the Semur and an eggplant and tofu curry. We loved it. At that point, I should have given 5 stars. We have eaten their food about a dozen times. The second to last time, about a year ago, I ordered my curry and they left out the tofu, which, given the nature of the dish, left me with very little food but still a good sauce. We just ordered from here again a few days ago and I inquired about the mango curry. The person on the phone wasn't terribly helpful but did say he preferred it to my usual. He also answered correctly that it was in a yellow curry sauce (didn't have a menu when I ordered). We drove back to Milwaukee exepcting great things and both decided it may be our last Bandung experience. My husband's Daging Semur with beef was skimpy filling less than half of the container and had very little beef. The potatoes seemed to be reheated or reused in some way and comprised more than half of the dish. My mango curry was thin, a modest portion, but had little chunks of very, very old potato that were dark and wrinkly and tasted of old oil. I was pretty sure that they were left over and recooked perhaps more than once. The mango was overly sweet and mushy, some pieces very dark, but that was something I should have thought through before ordering, perhaps that it how it should be. The sauce was underwhelming. There were some other vegetables but they all seemed to be small overcooked pieces of onion and red pepper. The bulk of the dish was bamboo shoots, almost nothing but bamboo shoots which are pretty consistent everywhere. There was plenty of thai basil which I do love. They gave us one large container of rice and my husband limes rice so much we generally have to order extra. We ended up throwing some away as his dish was so small he didn't need much and we both found it way too sticky and in one large clump by the time we made the hour drive home. Again, maybe it was better when first made but given how clumped it was, I doubt it was properly prepared as we can eat day old rice without issue if made right. We both decided it was so underpar that we needn't bother making it a regular stop or a destination anymore. Too bad, we used to love it.More
