Padang

In every town and city across Indonesia you’ll find a restaurant with a dramatic curved roof sticking out incongruously amidst a flat row of shops selling woven baskets, motorbike parts and plastic household wares. Or, in more modest establishments, the window will be painted with a logo of a house with its roof sweeping upwards like buffalo horns. This is as recognisable an emblem for food as the golden arches in America. Unlike the fast food conglomerate, these nasi Padang restaurants are independent and run by people from West Sumatra, who have cooked their way across the nation.