Pallu Basa in Makassar: Five Warungs, Two Variations, One Late Breakfast

Pallu basa is a dark beef-offal soup from Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi. Locals call it breakfast, but nobody eats it at dawn. Warungs serve it from about 10:00 in the morning until about 02:00 at night. People eat it once the day is well under way and coffee is no longer enough. The city judges each warung on its opening time, and on whether its soup has slipped.

The soup is beef offal cooked slowly: heart, lung, liver, spleen, intestine and sometimes tongue. Toasted coconut, candlenut and lemongrass go into the pot. The key ingredient is kelapa parut sangrai, toasted grated coconut, which makes the broth dark and slightly grainy. The cook adds a raw egg when you order, and it cooks in the hot broth. Rice comes on the side, with kerupuk crackers to crumble over the top and a piece of lime.

This field guide covers what pallu basa is, five warungs worth a visit, two variations, how to eat a bowl and what has changed in the past few years.

Pallu basa and coto Makassar

Pallu basa is a dish of the Makassar people. It is not Bugis food, and it is not Toraja food from the highlands. It also differs from coto Makassar, the better-known city soup that starts from the same beef.

• Coto Makassar has a clearer broth, and lemongrass leads the flavour.
• Pallu basa is darker and thicker. The coconut makes it sweeter. Taste the two together and you will notice at once that pallu basa is an offal soup.

The name means roughly "wet stew": pallu is "cooked" and basa is "wet". It ranks among the oldest recorded Makassar dishes, and kitchen writing from the colonial period mentions it. Makassar has kept the recipe to itself. A few places in Jakarta serve it, but the bowls there are seldom good, and the coconut is almost never right.

Five Makassar warungs for pallu basa

The list is in no order. Makassar has never agreed on a ranking. Opening hours and prices below date from when this guide was written, in 2026, so check before you go.

Serigala. The cook breaks the egg straight into your bowl and does not beat it first. Locals call this the Serigala way.

Onta. One family has run Onta for three generations. They toast the coconut for longer, so the broth tastes clearly sweeter.

Latimojong. This is the easy choice if your hotel is near Karebosi. Service is quick, and office workers fill it at lunch.

Hj. Maming. The cook cuts the lung into larger pieces. Expect the longest wait of any table in the city on Sunday afternoons.

Pasar Senggol. By 21:00 most sit-down warungs are closing, and this night-market stall takes over. Drivers and hospital staff on late shifts eat here.

Two variations: egg yolk and beef brain

Each of these belongs to Makassar alone. Both are worth knowing about.

Yolk only (kuning telur). Ask the cook to beat in only the yolk of the raw egg. The bowl turns richer and thicker, with less liquid. Hj. Maming does it on request as standard. Other warungs do not list it but will make it. It added €0.25 to the bill at the time of writing.

Beef brain (otak). The cook poaches the brain gently on its own and lays it on the soup at the end. Older customers order this version. Tighter rules on offal cuts mean most warungs no longer stock brain. At the time of writing, Serigala served it on Sundays only. Onta had it on most days if you phoned in the morning. In Makassar, the brain bowl is the closest thing to a festive pallu basa.

How to eat a bowl of pallu basa

The bowl comes hot. It holds the broth, the offal, the toasted coconut and the egg. At Serigala the egg is raw and whole. Most other warungs mix in a beaten egg before serving. Rice arrives on a separate plate. Kerupuk and lime wait on the table.

1. Stir in the egg if the cook has not done so.
2. Squeeze the lime over the soup.
3. Crumble two kerupuk on top.
4. Spoon rice into the soup as you eat. Do not eat it as a separate side.
5. Add sambal a teaspoon at a time. Makassar sambal is red chilli paste with plenty of garlic. The soup should not be fiercely hot.

To drink, order hot tea, or es teh manis (iced tea with sugar). Skip coffee and beer, because the soup is too heavy for either.

What has changed in the last five years

Earlier opening. Demand from office workers pushed warungs to open earlier. Many that used to start at 14:00 now open at 10:30.

Less buffalo lung. Cooks once used buffalo lung in the mix. It is now hard to buy, so most warungs use only cow lung. The change in flavour is small, but older regulars can taste it.