Surabaya Snack Cart · Scissor-Cut Tofu Salad
Tahu Tek
Photo: Fhikri Latifi / Wikimedia Commons · CC0
The dish is named after a sound — vendors snip the fried tofu and rice cake into pieces with scissors right at the cart, and the 'tek... tek... tek...' of the blades became the dish's name.
Fried tofu and lontong rice cake are snipped into bite-sized pieces with kitchen scissors, then covered in a peanut sauce spiked with petis shrimp paste and chili, topped with bean sprouts and a shattering of shrimp crackers. Surabaya's snack carts cut each order fresh, the scissor sound doubling as an order call.
Why it's made this way: The tableside scissor-cutting is part of the show and gives the dish its onomatopoeic name, distinguishing it from every other tofu-and-peanut-sauce street dish in Java.
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Part of World of Street Food — 3443 dishes from 118 countries.
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