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Bukittinggi, Indonesia.  Walk down Jalal Ahmad Yani, the main  drag of this hill city of 100,000 at night, and the streets is packed with warungs, little stalls with an open kitchen and a few tables under an orange canvas canopy. Goreng means fried, and the most popular stands serve nasi goreng, fried rice flavored with soy sauce and garlic and green onions, and often topped with a fried egg. There's also a lot of mee goreng, fried noodles, which is pretty similar, but made with yellow noodles instead of rice. You can get a big order of either of these for about 80 cents at any of the stalls.

And then there are a lot of stalls devoted to ayam goreng, which means fried chicken. This looks a lot like the Colonel's fried chicken, extra crispy version. In fact, KFC-style chicken is so popular in Sumatra that there is a big KFC restaurant on the main Clock Tower square, a Texas Chicken franchise across the plaza, and lots of little ayam goreng pushcarts with names like AFC and CFC, stacked high with extra crispy breasts and thighs.

But there is plenty more variety to choose from - some of the warung cooks are from Java, and serve their own local specialties; others grill spicy sticks of mutton or beef sate over and open fire, accompanied by a peanut sauce.  (No pork - the local people, the Minangkabau are Moslem.) The flavors range from pungently spicy to sweet and salty, but the recurring flavors are garlic, chili peppers, coconut, and peanuts. At the more formal rumah makans or restaurants,  you'll see a stack of bowls in the window, each with a different dish of beef, chicken, fish or vegetables. One of the most popular in this area is daging rendang, beef cooked in coconut spices until the sauce thickens to a dark savory paste. If you dine in one of these restaurants, a small portion of every dish will be brought to your table, and at the end of the meal, the waiter will tally all of the dishes that you have actually sampled, and charge you for those. Food here is amazingly cheap - lunch for two typically runs from $2.50-$5, and a splurge at a fish restaurant in the countryside cost us $5 a piece, including a tall bottle of Bintang beer.

Food is everywhere here. Indonesia may be poor, but we saw little of the povery that you read about in Jakarta. Our guide, Pili, explains that the Minangkabau are a matrilineal society, and forbidden to sell their inherited property - so nearly everybody in rural West Sumatra has a little land, with some rice patties, a house, some chickens, often a fish pond - so few go hungry. In the villages, the latrine is two slats of wood on a frame suspended over the fish pond - an efficient way to recycle nutrients, but a bit perturbing to western diners.

The most memorable part of our six days in Sumatra, though, wasn't the food - it was the people - warm and friendly and unfailingly patient. Many wanted to practice their English, and when they learned that we were from America, they complemented us on our new president.