SAN DIEGO — A fine dining experience you won't find anywhere else in San Diego County is located next to a school on a residential street in Serra Mesa.
Indonesian traditions
Warung Rie Rie is an Indonesian restaurant run by Chef Rie Sims and her husband Dave Sims. Guests dine in their backyard inside a traditional rice house shipped from Indonesia.
Reservations are booked a year out. The waitlist has more than 400 people on it.
"Every year, [we're] very grateful, we book a year out. We don't have any advertising, just word of mouth, all of our guests they all make reel videos, TikTok videos, it goes viral," said Chef Rie.
She said 'warung' means small, family-run business in Indonesian. The owner's name follows it.
Chef Rie said she and her husband ran a catering business for years. The couple met while Dave was living in Bali. They got married in 2011, and she moved with him back to his childhood home in Serra Mesa.
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Dave had fallen in love with vintage rice houses and had one shipped to San Diego, originally to be used as a home office. Instead, they decided to use it to open a micro-restaurant.
In 2021, Warung Rie Rie was the first microenterprise home kitchen operation also known as MEHKOs to be approved by the county. It serves up to 12 diners a night, three nights a week.
Chef Rie said success was instant. Two social media influencers booked a reservation right after the website went up. They posted videos of their experience dining in the rice house. Business took off quickly.
Chef Rie took me on a tour of the rice house and its surrounding lush garden.
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"80 percent of our garden, we use it for everything in our menu, in our dishes," said Rie.
"I like to utilize every single thing," she added. "Especially because it's so hard to get ingredients I need. Indonesian food uses a lot of herbs."
I sample the arugula. The taste is crisp, peppery and pure. I also try the edible flowers.
Chef Rie uses what we picked in the garden for the dishes she prepares for me in her family's kitchen. The couple has two boys, ages 10 and 8. They watch as she cooks.
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She makes an Indonesian Ahi Poke dish using sushi-grade Bluefin Tuna caught in San Diego.
She said her cooking helps teach her children about their Indonesian heritage. Her whole family still lives in Indonesia. They visit them regularly.
"What I have here, is all traditional-like grandma cooking, kind of way," said Chef Rie.
In 2016, she cooked for the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, while he was visiting Palm Springs for the ASEAN summit hosted by President Barack Obama. He wanted a home cooked meal and staff tapped Chef Rie to prepare him one.
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Her husband serves as host and server of the restaurant, which serves six courses.
"This is fun! My husband gets to serve me," she joked, as we sat down to eat a few courses.
She said, so far, they have had wonderful guests. People fly in from all over the world to eat there. She said there have been guests who flew in just to dine at Warung Rie Rie, and then flew out the same night.
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As we begin our second course, I realize forks aren't necessary.
"In the traditional family house, we eat with our hands, that's the best part," she said smiling.
The main course is a fish BBQ and it is a lot of food. The flavors are incredibly rich. The dish includes three cucumber cups filled with different sauces. Dave warns me the one on the far left, is sweet and incredibly spicy. He is right. All three of them, however, are delicious.
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Chef Rie said family comes first in Indonesia. It was her father who taught her how to cook. They were incredibly close.
"My dad [was] always telling me, when someone gives you food it means they give you their heart. Because they cook it from their heart," she said.
And she said, her heart, is full.
"I'm so happy and grateful for everyone that comes, I have friends all over the world now," she added.
The cost to dine at Warung Rie Rie is $220 per person.
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