Ayam Penyet from a Roadside Shack in Batam

I spotted this stall yesterday and made a mental note to myself to come down here when I got a chance. And this morning I still had a couple of hours before having to get on the ferry home, so I popped on down the street to see what was available. It was the usual wooden roadside shack with corrugated sheets overhead, flies swarming, and not much else around. They didn't have any soup available yet, but they said that they could do some ayam penyet. The lady went in the back to get the job done.

It was better than I expected. The chicken was fried perfectly with a thin and crispy skin (as was the chunk of tofu), while the sambal sauce helped facilitate their ingestion. Even more enjoyable was the little block of fried tempeh, which was just short of stinky to be flavorful enough to enjoy.

I was a bit confused about the orange bowl on the side, which looked like plain water but I assumed to be some kind of soup. When I took a sip, it turned out to be indeed nothing but tap water. The man saw me and immediately scrambled to bring me a little jug of water - only then did it dawn on me that the bowl was meant for washing my hands in, and probably wasn't the best thing in the world to be drinking. We'll find out in a little bit whether my stomach agreed with that or not.