So being Westerosi it's not an easy thing on this side of the globe, mainly in these aspects: food, beverage and clothing. Here, in which I think it will be a long post, I will expose my impressions regarding Indonesian culinary, how to handle it and also if it's possible to make your own food.
There are aspects about Asian diet/nutrition that are quite different from Western preparations; ingredients, flavors and techniques. It's fun to watch but can also be a struggle if you're not willing to let go what your taste learned, because first of all in this side Western style food is expensive as hell and it's not quite worth it... just a few places, so why to spend a whole lot of money when you can learn from new frontiers.
When it comes to street food mode, well I'm not going to lie, but here is the same food all day long, what you had for breakfast, you can have it for lunch and for dinner, there's no breakfast for dinner expression around here, either is nasi goreng, nasi campur, mie goreng, nasi pecel, masakan padang, gado-gado, sate or whatever, it doesn't matter you can have any of these meals anytime of the day. It's very rare to find a place (except in Bali and around) where you can get an actual breakfast as the notion of breakfast we all know and love. When it comes to breakfast food, it breaks down like this: sandwiches are a rarity, some cafes might have chicken or tuna sandwich, but forget about grilled cheese or just a casual PB&J, omelettes well those are not easy to come by either. So if you find yourself having fried chicken with rice and some veggies it's normal, if you're on the road you will probably have the same for lunch and dinner.
Living for a year or so around here, at the beginning it was interesting, but after a while it became a bit boring and also the fact the you might get homesick after the overwhelming mixture of flavors (most of them spicy). Although coming from Venezuela, where we rely on a very colorful and mixed culinary tradition, (not going to dig to deep on this one but mostly our food is very rich in flavors by combining local ingredients and traditional cooking with European techniques and flavors, it's an extraordinary thing). But coming back to the earlier point, yes there's a moment when you just can't stand another spoon of nasi.
Another thing to consider it's the spiciness of the food, mostly it will be spicy by default and probably already heard this before but if you ask the lady if something you're taking it's spicy and she says no or just a little, well then I'll leave it at your own risk. There's only a handful of preparations that are not hot as hell, so if you're not a big fan of spiciness, then be ready to become one because it's something you're gonna have to face in the streets, and even if you're already street savvy on the local culinary and already identify which ones are the spicy things and those that aren't there will always be something a little bit spicy on your plate... it's just an Indo thing. So just train your palate and probably it will be good to go. Although, in time it kind of grows on you. Another thing I would like to add, and I also think that it's sad, the fact that salads are not a popular thing around here, considering how cheap veggies are, you would think that salad would be a thing around here, but it's not, so if you're in desperation for fresh non-cooked veggies, most likely you'll have to end up in a fancy restaurant, make them youself or -worst case scenario- pizza hut's salad bar, because most vegetable are already cooked in most cheapo warungs.
But... not all hope is lost, there are some solutions and if you are living in Indonesia or just spending some months around the archipelago (and have access to a kitchen) you might have some chance of making some east meet west culinary melting pot -the universe knows I've had- I've managed to incorporate foreign flavors with local ingredients, for instance the "Indopesto", or even making our own bread (because bread here is awful and I'm immerse in a full campaign of not buying cardboard bread anymore!). So, every city counts with its own pasar lokal aka traditional market, here you can find fresh, cheap and an most incredible diversity of fruits and vegetables. Also beef, fish, eggs and the main lead character chicken. Some veggies are hard to come by, such as zucchini, paprika or bell pepper, but most big super markets have it.
As you can see previously I did not mentioned my good old friend pork, in the above list of animal protein. Well, Indonesia being a muslim country is not very warm on pork, but Chinese people is! So don't worry and just go to a Chinese warung or restaurant and ask them if they know where to buy pork (they know of course they do) usually it's in Pasar Besar (Big Market). Here in Malang there are two shops that sell it and you can stop by for ribs, pork chops, tenderloin and any part of the pork you might need.
About the usual suspects, ham (only some Chinese places have it and it's rare, very rare) cheese (an other rarity you might find plastic cheese, fake cheddar, awful thing and if you want the good stuff you have to pay at least 3-4$ for 100-200 grams, depending on the brand and the kind of cheese). Other dairy products are widely available but they don't come cheap either.
So now you know, if you're living in Indonesia just do some experimentasi and find some recipes you can modify some of the ingredients you can find locally. In case you're not a cooking expert just look for some easy recipes that are not hard to follow and you can have your own good old-fashioned meals at the comfort of your own house. Finally, if you're just passing by, well be patient and grateful and if it's in your possibilities indulge yourself, no one's judging except yourself. Finally, when you come back to your usual ways, most likely your're going to miss nasi goreng after all.
