Banjar

The dominant plate — gudeg, soto, bakso, nasi goreng. Sweet-leaning palace tradition (kraton Yogyakarta), pan-Indonesian street staples.

Fresh raw vegetables (lalapan), karedok, sambal-heavy — the Bandung kitchen. Less sweet than Javanese, more herbaceous and bright.

Minangkabau coconut-and-chili tradition — rendang, nasi padang's parade of small dishes, gulai. Among the world's spiciest cuisines.

Distinct Hindu island — babi guling (suckling pig), bebek betutu, lawar, sate lilit. Built on base genep spice paste; ceremonial cooking is daily life here.

Jakarta-Betawi cuisine reflects the cosmopolitan capital region: Soto Betawi (creamy beef soup), Kerak Telor (Jakarta omelet), Asinan Betawi (pickled-vegetable salad), Gado-Gado (mixed salad with peanut sauce). The cuisine has Malay-Chinese-Arab-European fusion from Jakarta's 400-year port history.

Manado / Minahasan cuisine of North Sulawesi is Indonesia's spiciest regional cuisine — Ayam Rica-Rica (spicy chicken), Tinutuan/Bubur Manado (vegetable porridge), Cakalang Fufu (smoked tuna), Dabu-Dabu (raw chili sambal). Heavy use of bird's eye chilies, kemangi (lemon basil), and Pacific seafood.

South Sumatra's fish-paste kitchen, built along the Musi River. Springy pempek and its cousins — tekwan, model, laksan — dipped in a dark, fierce sweet-sour cuko, alongside tamarind-soured pindang fish soups and the coconut-rich mie celor.

The curry-forward, Indian- and Arab-inflected cooking of Sumatra's northern tip — fragrant mie aceh, fried-curry-leaf ayam tangkap, vinegar-stewed sie reuboh, and vegetable curries built on fermented pliek u. Spice-trade history in every pot.

The beef-and-broth cooking of the Bugis-Makassar coast — coto, konro and pallubasa, dark with keluak or rich with toasted coconut, ladled over ketupat. Sour pallumara fish soups, charred konro ribs, and the green-banana sweet es pisang ijo off Losari beach.

The island that gave Indonesia its satay — Madurese cooking runs on sweet-soy sate madura, clear beefy soto madura, and frugal, intense uses of every part of the animal, from trotter broth to banana-leaf-steamed duck.