Souped-up: The Perth restaurants taking diners on a regional Indonesian trip

Soup is for winter. Soup is for losing weight. Soup is for saving money. Soup is for using up leftovers. Soup is boring. Soup, in short, has something of an image problem.

Yet when considered through an Asian food lens, soup quickly goes from zero to hero.

Chinese hotpot restaurants are popping up around the metropolitan area at a terrific rate; ramen and pho establishments rise and fall according to the intensity and quality of their broths; and Burmese expats will gladly run the Mitchell Freeway gauntlet for their fix of mohinga, the country’s legendary fish stew. (Sometimes their destination is Girrawheen’s prosaically named Mum’s House Burmese Kitchen; other times it’s a low-key lunch bar in Wangara.)

Indonesian diners, meanwhile, are no strangers to the joys of soup. Or, as the dish is commonly called in Bahasa, soto.

“Soto is soothing,” says David Wijaya, the Jakarta-born chef-owner of Ah Beng Indonesia at Westfield Carousel.

“If I’m sitting down and having dinner with my family, a complete meal means that there’s a meat dish, a vegie dish and soup on the table. When that happens, everyone is happy.”

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To share that joy, eight metropolitan Indonesian restaurants have banded together to launch Soto Hero. This November-long celebration showcases the countless, comforting styles of soto (Indonesian soup) found throughout the archipelago.

So while local eaters and regular visitors to Indonesia may be familiar with soto ayam (chicken soup), Soto Hero gives diners a chance to taste styles that can be difficult to find outside their place of origin.

Haystack Cafe in Wangara, for example, is serving soto Bali, which starts with base genap (say it bah-seh rather than base geh-nup), the island’s famous turmeric-rich spice mix base.

Modern Indonesian restaurant Kayumanis in the CBD and Thornlie’s Bakoel will each present their version of Jakarta’s coconut milk-enriched beef soup, soto Betawi. (Java, the Indonesian island that Jakarta is located in, is also the birthplace of rawon, a black, murky beef soup flavoured with candlenut as well as Ah Beng’s contribution to Soto Hero.)

The crew at Maylands’ newly opened Mrs Lim Kitchen, meanwhile, is bringing soto Medan – a chicken soup with plenty of rich coconut action from the capital of Sumatra – to the party.

And if you are curious about other soup styles from Indonesia’s largest island, Siti Cuisine at the Gosnells Railway Market food court can oblige. It’s serving soto Padang, a clear beef broth bulked out with vermicelli noodles.

Rounding off the line-up are Langford’s KwikFud Cafe (serving soto ayam lobak, a radish, chicken and noodle soup from Bogor City designed to feed construction workers fast), and Raja Gurih, presenting another Bogor dish, soto mie ayam, a soothing chicken noodle soup.

In short, the Soto Hero line-up is a fine way to explore Indonesia without taking your passport out of your drawer.

Although all restaurants involved in Soto Hero are excited to showcase regional dishes and flavours, the program’s overarching goal is to celebrate WA’s burgeoning Indonesian food scene, and Indonesian cuisine more broadly.

Soto Hero is the first program launched by the newly established Indonesian Culinary Association of WA (Wijaya is the group’s president). The group is already planning future promotions and events.

Soto Hero runs throughout November at Ah Beng Indonesia, Haystack Cafe, Kayumanis, Bakoel, Mrs Lim Kitchen, Siti Cuisine, KwikFud Cafe, and Raja Gurih.