ATL Maranatha, Kensington

Ayam goreng tulang lunak $8
Deep-fried soft bone chicken

EDIT: ATL Maranatha has closed

If fried chicken makes your heart skip a beat, have a defibrillator on stand-by for soft bone chicken. The Indonesian favourite, ayam goreng or fried chicken, is lifted to new levels of crunch at ATL Maranatha, a family-run restaurant on a quiet suburban street corner in Kensington.


THE SPECIALTY

Ayam goreng tulang lunak ($8) is fried chicken with soft bones you can eat. Why worry about extricating meat from bones when you can just eat an entire chicken leg itself, bones and all. The secret lies in pressure-cooking the corn-fed chicken quarters overnight ready for deep-frying the next day. The result? Earth-shattering batter, juicy flesh and brittle bones you can crunch on, from the ribs to the leg bone. The bones don’t taste of much – as bland as the bones you find in a tin of salmon – but there’s a bewildering sense of accomplishment involved in reducing a serve of chicken Maryland into nothing but a trail of stray crumbs.

Ayam goreng telur asin
Fried chicken with egg yolk $8

A DEEP-FRIED BONANZA

The fried chicken can be ordered with a salted egg batter or generous daubs of chilli sauce in hot or mild, but we liked the original the best, which is topped with a crumbling coral of deep-fried batter shards. Grilled chicken comes caramelised and a little smokier in flavour from the sweet soy marinade. Duck ($10) is also available grilled or deep-fried. All of them have bones you can crunch on.


Bebek goreng $10
Fried duck


Sambal goreng teri pete $12
Petai beans with fried anchovy

OTHER DISHES TO TRY

Try the petai beans, from the same pods you used to make stink bombs in primary school. Their bitterness is best masked with fried anchovy ($12), but they’re also available with prawns ($17) or served plain ($6.50). Cleanse the palate with sayur asem ($5), a sour tamarind soup and wash down everything with sweetened coconut milk drinks that double as desserts. Avocado ice ($5) and durian ice ($6) both come with chunks of fruit at the bottom.


Es duren durian ice $6 and
Es alpukat avocade ice $5


Es campur mixed ice $5

SERVICE AND AMBIENCE

Laid-back self-service is the order of the day here. It’s DIY everything, including writing your own order on the supplied waiters pad. Help yourself to cutlery or just roll up your sleeves and dig in.




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ATL Maranatha CLOSED
61 Todman Avenue, Kensington 2033
Tel: +61 (02) 9663 3410

Opening hours:
Monday to Saturday 11am-4pm and 6pm-9pm
Sunday 12pm-4pm and 6pm-9pm

This article is a copy of my second submission to Time Out Sydney as part of my monthly column in Food & Drink.

Related Grab Your Fork posts:
Fried soft bone chicken - Immanuel Cafe Restaurant, Ultimo

Kensington - Chairman Mao
Kensington - Grotta Capri
Kensington - Sushi Tengoku
Kingsford - Ayam Goreng 99


Time Out Sydney reviews:
Balkan Oven, Rockdale (Macedonian burek)
Durban Dish, Baulkham Hills (South African bunny chow)
Hijazi's Falafel, Arncliffe (Lebanese breakfast)
Island Dreams Cafe, Lakemba (Christmas Islands cuisine)
La Paula, Fairfield (Chilean empanadas, lomitos and sweets)
Sea Sweet, Parramatta (Lebanese sweet kashta cheese burger)
Sizzling Fillo, Lidcombe (Filipino pork hock crackling)
Tehran, Granville (Persian cuisine)
Tuong Lai, Cabramatta (Vietnamese sugar cane prawns)