Salatiga's university population supports a good variety of affordable warungs and restaurants. The local specialty is soto Salatiga — a clear, fragrant chicken soup with rice cakes, bean sprouts, and fried shallots that is the city's contribution to Java's vast soto tradition. Find it at any of the simple restaurants around the alun-alun or along Jalan Jenderal Sudirman.
The town also has a cluster of student-oriented cafes near the Satya Wacana campus offering coffee, light meals, and reasonable Wi-Fi — an improvement on the situation at most towns this size in Central Java.