Cilok — West Java, Indonesia

Cilok is a small, round dumpling made mostly from tapioca starch, giving it a dense, chewy bite close to Japanese dango but savory rather than sweet. The name is a Sundanese contraction of aci dicolok, roughly "poked tapioca," a reference to the way the balls are pierced and picked up with a thin skewer cut from the midrib of a coconut palm frond. Sizes vary from a large marble to something closer to a savory meatball. The dumpling is tied to West Java and to Sundanese street food more broadly, sold from carts and bicycles that station themselves outside schools, in residential lanes, and at busy roadsides across the region. It is eaten as a quick between-meal snack rather than a seated meal, handed over in a paper cone or plastic bag with sauce spooned on top. The dough combines tapioca starch with a little wheat flour, garlic, spring onion and stock or water, worked into a firm paste that is rolled into balls and dropped into simmering water until they float. Vendors keep the pot warm through the day, adding more balls as customers arrive, and finish each portion with a spoonful of peanut sauce thickened with palm sugar and tamarind, sweet soy sauce, or a chili-forward sambal. Set against other tapioca-based street snacks of the region, cilok is distinguished by its savory profile and its close pairing with peanut sauce, whereas most of its tapioca cousins lean sweet and are coated in coconut. Its size and chew also invite comparison with bakso meatballs, though cilok is built from starch rather than meat, sometimes deep-fried instead of boiled for a firmer, golden version.