Manado cuisine  Manado cuisine or Minahasan cuisine is the cooking tradition of the Minahasan people of North Sulawesi, Indonesia. It is popularly known as "Manadonese cuisine" after Manado, the capital of the province, although other cities in North Sulawesi, such as Bitung, Tomohon and Tondano, are also known as Minahasan culinary hotspots. Manadonese cuisine is known for its rich variations in seafood, generous amount of spices, extra-hot condiments, exotic meats, and European-influenced cakes and pastries. Popular Manadonese dishes include tinutuan (Manado-style vegetable and rice congee), cakalang fufu (smoked skipjack tuna), cakalang noodle, paniki (spiced fruit bat), chicken or various fish and seafood spiced in rica-rica or woku spices, chicken tuturuga, and brenebon. Although not as popular and as widely distributed as Padang food and Sundanese cuisine, there is increasing awareness of Manadonese cuisine in the Indonesian cuisine scene. Numbers of Manadonese restaurants are growing in Indonesian cities such as Jakarta, Bandung, Medan, Surabaya and Makassar. Manadonese cuisine is marked by a mixture of native and foreign influences. Native Minahasan cooking tradition relies heavily on seafood as well as exotic bushmeats, and its heavy use of freshly chopped hot spices. It also demonstrates Chinese and European influences (especially Portuguese and Dutch), most prominent in soups, cakes, and pastries. Chicken and beef are commonly consumed. A significant number of Minahasans are Christians; the halal dietary law has thus not played an important role in the cuisine's development as it has for the Minahasans' Muslim neighbors on the Sulawesi island (the Gorontalos and Northern Maluku people). Pork, wild boar, and even dog meat and bat are hence more ubiquitous in Manadonese cuisine compared to other culinary traditions in the Indonesian archipelago. Manadonese cuisine is well known for its generous use of spices, sometimes making up more than half of the whole dish's ingredients. It has given the cuisine the reputation of being hot and spicy, often from the freshly chopped chili peppers added in. Common spices used in Manadonese cuisine include lemongrass, lime or citrus leaves, lime juice, chili peppers, spring onion, shallots, garlic and candlenut.