Indonesian street food are usually cheap, offer a great variety of food of different tastes, and can be found on every corner of the city.
Street and street-side vendors are common, in addition to hawkers peddling their goods on bicycles or carts. These carts are known as pedagang kaki lima. These food hawkers on carts or bicycles might be travelling on streets, approaching potential buyers through residential areas whilst announcing their presence, or stationing themselves on a packed and busy street side, setting simple seating under a small tent and waiting for customers. Many of these have their own distinctive call, tune, or noise to announce their presence. For example, bakso sellers will hit the side of a soup bowl using a spoon, whereas nasi goreng sellers announce themselves by hitting their wok.
In most cities, it is common to see Chinese dishes such as bakpao (steamed buns with sweet and savoury fillings), bakmie (noodles), and bakso (meatballs) sold by street vendors and restaurants, often adapted to become Indonesian-Chinese cuisine. One common adaptation is that pork is rarely used since the majority of Indonesians are Muslims. Other popular Indonesian street food and snacks are siomay and batagor (abbreviated from bakso tahu goreng), pempek (deep fried fish cake), bubur ayam (chicken congee), bubur kacang hijau (mung beans porridge), satay, nasi goreng (English: fried rice), soto mie (soto noodle), mie ayam (chicken noodle) and mie goreng (fried noodle), taoge goreng (mung bean sprouts and noodle salad), asinan (preserved vegetables or fruits salad), laksa, kerak telor (spicy omelette), gorengan (Indonesian assorted fritters) and bakwan (fried dish of beansprouts and batter).
