Warung Kampung

Restaurant · Toronto, Ontario, Canada

About Warung Kampung

Warung Kampung operates out of the food court at Parkway Mall, 85 Ellesmere Road in Scarborough, Toronto, a setup that fits its name: warung is the Indonesian word for the small, no-frills street stalls that serve home style meals rather than restaurant presentation. The business began inside JD's Supermarket on Eglinton Avenue East before relocating to the mall food court, and it remains one of the few places in Toronto serving Indonesian food rather than the Malaysian or Singaporean dishes that more commonly stand in for the cuisine in the city.

The menu runs short and changes with a rotating weekly special rather than listing the long menu of a full sit-down restaurant, reflecting how labor intensive Indonesian cooking is for a small operation. Regulars include ayam bumbu bakar, chicken marinated in spice paste and grilled; beef rendang, simmered for hours in coconut milk and chilies until the sauce thickens around the meat; and a kale curry alongside whatever special is running that week, which has included tewel, young jackfruit cooked down in rich spices until tender. A lunch box combining rice with a sampling of the regular dishes is the most popular order. Among the sides, balado, an Indonesian take on seasoned beef jerky fried crisp, draws particular attention, and the kitchen's housemade green chili sauce, slow cooked rather than simply blended raw, is served alongside meals as a condiment rather than a punishing hot sauce.

Teh botol, a sweetened bottled jasmine tea common across Indonesia, is available to drink alongside the food. Because Warung Kampung runs as a food court stall rather than a standalone restaurant, the space is informal, with seating shared across the court; a quieter seating area one floor up from the main stalls offers a view down over the mall. For Toronto's Indonesian community, who have long found their cuisine underrepresented compared to other Southeast Asian food scenes in the city, Warung Kampung is one of a small handful of options serving dishes prepared the way they are cooked at home rather than adapted for a broader audience.

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Indonesian Restaurant in Canada

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