A Sundanese pancake of rice flour and coconut milk cooked in a small clay pan over coals, which gives it crisp, lacy edges and a soft, spongy centre. It comes two ways: savory, topped with oncom or scattered with scallion, or sweet, doused in kinca, a warm sauce of palm sugar and coconut milk. It is a Bandung street and breakfast staple, and is distinct from the thinner Javanese serabi.
Surabi belongs to the Sundanese highlands and is closely identified with Bandung, the West Javanese capital, where it is a beloved breakfast and snack sold from small clay-pan stalls. It is one of an old family of rice-flour griddle cakes found across Java; the Sundanese surabi is typically thicker and spongier and traditionally savory, while the Javanese serabi (or srabi, as in Solo) tends to be thinner with a custardy coconut centre. Its precise age is undocumented, but it is a long-standing regional staple.
Crisp, browned, almost lacy at the rim where the batter has caught on the hot clay, turning soft and full of little holes toward the spongy middle. The savory kind is gently salty with the smoky funk of oncom or the bite of scallion; the sweet kind is eaten swimming in kinca, the warm palm-sugar-and-coconut sauce soaking up into the holes. Best eaten hot, straight from the pan.
A batter of rice flour and coconut milk, sometimes lifted with a little yeast or coconut water, is poured into a small, deep clay pan and cooked over coals with a lid — heat from below crisps and browns the base while the trapped steam cooks the top without flipping. The porous clay and direct charcoal heat are what give the lacy, well-browned edge and the open, spongy crumb that a flat metal pan struggles to match. Sweet versions are finished with kinca, made by melting palm sugar with coconut milk and pandan into a fragrant syrup.
Variations
The two classics are surabi oncom (savory, topped with seasoned oncom) and surabi kinca (sweet, with palm-sugar sauce). Modern Bandung stalls pile on dozens of toppings — cheese, chocolate, sausage, banana — turning the old griddle cake into a customizable snack, while traditionalists keep to oncom or plain with kinca. The Javanese serabi is the thinner, often sweeter cousin.
On the Palate
Where Surabi sits in the Indonesian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4How it's made
7 steps · 25 min active + 15 min waiting
- 112 min
Whisk rice flour with coconut milk and a pinch of salt into a smooth, pourable batter and let it rest.
- 25 min
Heat a small clay or heavy pan over charcoal or a medium flame until hot.
- 31 min
Pour a ladle of batter in and cover with a lid.
- 48 min
Cook undisturbed until the edges crisp and brown and the centre sets full of holes.
Watch outCook covered and undisturbed until the edges crisp and the center sets full of holes — the trapped steam cooks the top, so no flipping; those holes are the sign it's done.
- 52 min
For savory, scatter seasoned oncom or scallion over the top before it sets.
- 68 min
For the sweet sauce, melt palm sugar with coconut milk and pandan into a kinca syrup.
Watch outMelt the palm sugar with coconut milk and pandan into a fragrant syrup — cook it just to a pourable kinca; over-reduced it hardens as it cools.
- 72 min
Lift the surabi out and serve hot — savory plain, or sweet doused in kinca.
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