Coto and Konro in Makassar

Makassar's two signature dishes are both beef and both take hours. Coto Makassar is a soup of beef and offal simmered with roasted peanuts, coriander and cumin, served in small bowls with ketupat, rice steamed inside woven palm pouches and cut into cubes; you squeeze in lime and add chilli paste yourself. Konro is beef rib, either in a dark broth coloured almost black by keluak nuts, or grilled and served with the same broth alongside. Both are eaten at any hour of the day. On the Losari seafront in the evening, stalls sell pisang epe, plantains pressed flat, grilled and covered in palm sugar syrup.

What you actually see

• Coto Makassar - beef and offal soup thickened with roasted ground peanuts.
• Ketupat - rice steamed in woven palm pouches and cut into cubes for the soup.
• Konro - beef ribs in a dark keluak broth, or grilled with it served alongside.
• Pisang epe - pressed grilled plantain with palm sugar, sold along the seafront.

When to go

Coto is eaten from early morning onward, and many stalls open at dawn and sell out by afternoon. Konro is more of an evening dish. The Losari seafront comes alive after five, when the heat drops and the plantain grills are lit. Makassar is hot and humid all year, and the wet months bring heavy afternoon rain.

Honest expectations

Coto is offal-based and the bowls hold lung, tripe and heart unless you ask otherwise, which not every stall will accommodate. Portions are small and priced per bowl, so a meal is three or four of them. The seafront is crowded in the evening and the water there is not clean. Traffic across the city is heavy from mid-afternoon.

Nearby

The old waterfront fort and the harbour where wooden pinisi boats tie up are both in the city.