Unassuming Indo-Padi Restaurant brings the tastes of Indonesia to the U District

Run by a sweet, solicitous family from Semarang, in central Java, Indo-Padi Restaurant in the University District is a casual little cafe with small, clean tables and entrees that start at $6.25.

Open for a year, it attracts students, Indonesian immigrants and Americans who've lived in Indonesia.

Popular dishes include oxtail soup, grilled chicken with house special sauce, iced durian fruit and nasi campur, which is rice served with egg, dried fish, peanuts, eggplant, beef stew, potatoes and chile flavoring.

I had the nasi goreng ($6.25), Indonesian fried rice with chicken, egg and sausage.

		PAUL JOSEPH BROWN / P-I
	Grilled chicken with the house special sauce, foreground, and nasi campur, which features rice served with small portions of several different entrees, are among the most popular dishes at Indo-Padi.

Servers will ask how spicy you like a dish, but there's always extra chile sauce (similar to the bottled Sambal Oelek) on the side to spice to taste. The sausage turned out to be chopped hot dogs, but the fried rice, flavored with garlic, onions and spices, had a lot of pop and character. The plates were prettified with a small side of pickled vegetables and some shrimp chips.

The Sumatran-style noodles ($6.25) with chicken, egg and sausage (again, hot dog), came in a mystery sauce, mildly garlicky and tasty but without the heat of some other dishes.

I had high hopes for the ayam bakar kecap, grilled chicken with special house sauce ($8.85). Some of the meat was on the bone, some was tender white chunks, but the soy-based sauce wasn't as flavorful as I'd hoped, and really needed some of the side hot sauce to bring it to life.

Other dishes I aim to taste include nasi rendang -- spicy beef stew with coconut and curry overtones (7.85), tilapia with chile sauce ($12.85) and the gado gado, a dish featuring tofu, egg, potato, rice cake and vegetables in peanut sauce.

There's often a daily special and the restaurant has six takeout-only dishes for the super student-friendly price of $5.

But go prepared. They only take cash.