Indonesian, Jakarta

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If you know me I'm not an adventurous eater and why would I? I don't want to spend my trip being sick from something my body's not used to. I took the advice of Rizal my hotel Concierge. I asked for an Indian restaurant but he recommended I try the local specialty Padang style food. Padang shares a likeness with Indian food and is very spicy. The texture is up to par. Padang restaurants don't provide menus but instead bring out a selection of dishes that have been prepared for the day and leave it at your table. Note of caution, if you're doubting you'll like it, don't bother trying it unless you're going to eat it all. You'll be charged for it. Only eat what you can or want.

I don't recommend a single person eat here since the selection can be overwhelming. Bring 1, 2, or more friends when trying this type of restaurant.

Favorite Dish: I tend to be vegetarian in foreign countries since I'm deathly afraid of meat preparation I'm not familiar with. I had a lot of the vegetarian options provided and a little of what I convinced myself was chicken (LOL). Overall, the food was not bad but I'd probably not return due to my closed mindedness with food. I'd return provided I had others to enjoy it with me.

Price varies by dishes consumed. Don't take more than you want.

This is another type of fine dining serving the Indonesian cuisine with great presentation. It offers various type of appetizers (vegetarian included), soup and broths (typical of Indonesian soups), seafood, chicken and duck, skewers, vegetable and deserts. The ambiance is also very relaxing but yet sophisticated. So it could easily suit for personal events or also corporate ones.
The taste of the food is not that excellent to my Indonesian taste, but it 's mild for most of the food that would suit any visitors who are not really familiar with Indonesian food. So this is the first start, before you could get used to the rich spices of the Indonesian food.

Favorite Dish: I really like tahu telor (fried egg and tofu with peanut sauce) , es the Kweni (ice tea with kweni, manggo syrup and kolang kaling) and satay ayam / chicken skewers with sweet peanut sauce.

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You can find kaki lima (picture 1: five legs: 2 wheels, a wooden leg for the cart to keep it standing, and the two legs of the worker who pushes the cart) almost everywhere in Jakarta and they offer a great variety of food; there is not high cuisine, but it is very good for a quick snack, and for a westerner, these are “exotic” tastes, strange soups, fruits or vegetables. .
On the street sides you find a lot of that sort of kitchens, and they make rather yummy food, like these bakpao, steamed buns (picture 2), stuffed with meat (Ayam, here, chicken); there is no risk for fragile westerner stomachs as the food is steamed for a long time; I would be more cautious with fruits, like, you can see on picture 3. These are not beer bottles you see on picture 4, but bottles of various sauces, usually rather spicy; here, they come with bakso, meat balls, with a broth and steamed rice or boiled noodles (mie rebus).
But what I like the most, is Padang style food, eating a variety of small plates, often spicy; here, on Warung Buncit street(picture 5), in a small shelter on the street side; these two persons were happy to share some impressions with the Bule; impressions about what the Bule thinks about food, traffic jams, Islam, whatever, people are curious, and having a chat whilst having a snack is nice. . . . Ah! No beer in that sort of “restaurant”!

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At the fifth floor of Pacific place building are a few restaurants, I hesitated and finally entered “Urban Kitchen” and did not regret my choice!
First, I had one of my preferred Indonesian dishes: sup buntut! (oxtail soup) and it was indeed very good, even better as it looks on picture 1, and soup comes always with rice and some side dishes (picture 2)
I was hungry that day and decided to take a desert; I took a tour in the restaurant: there are several outlets in fact, like a food mall, but small size, and higher class if I could say so, and I looked at food from Korea, Japan, Italy, French coffee, many sorts of Indonesian foods, and finally I decided to keep on Indonesian and ordered pisang goreng, fried banana. The waitress arrived with that: picture 3! Grated cheese on chocolate and banana. . . Eeeuuuuh! I was hungry and ate it, with help of one more glass of Bintang (Star, one of the local beers) and then a cup of tea.
Most customers of this Urban Cuisine are employees from the hundreds and thousands offices located in the nearby high rise buildings; it was quiet when I had lunch there (picture 4)

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Warung Solo is like a little village in the park where it is built; there a re a few pendopos, with nicely decorated roof tiles, typical from central Java, statues at the entrance of one of the pavilions, a nice atmosphere. I have been told that musicians play here on evenings; in several of the pendopos is an exhibition of old paints, old photographs, old publicity posters (even one with Javanese writing! picture 4).
I liked a lot to have a lunch here, taking my time, enjoying the food and having a walk in the park and look at the different pendopos.

I paid 25.000 RP for my nasi tumpang, and I had a jeruk panas (warm green orange juice) for drink (5000Rp). Ah, yes, in typical restaurants you do not get alcohol, so. . . . no beer!

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Warung Solo is located in a nicely landscaped small park, and there is where you can try typical Central Java food. The dish I had was a nasi tumpang (picture 1), omelette with tahu, fried buffalo skin, mint and other herbs leaves, and rice of course; there are other recipes of nasi tumpang, and in Malysia, nasi tumpang designates rice wrapped in banana leave, in a conical shape. On the picture is what I got when I ordered nasi tumpang. At Warung Solo, you can eat on the terraces (picture 2) which run around the pendopos, (Javanese house), where the restaurant is installed. In the small park are a number of pendopos (picture 3) which are not all used as restaurant; so, a pendopo is this sort of house, with this typical roof shape, and a terrace around. Food is important in a restaurant, as are the beverages, but if the surrounding are nice, the food is better in some way, and eating on the terrace (picture 4), in a cool breeze, is a good thing in general life. . . no?
The food must be good, as many locals, people working in the surroundings have lunch here; it is a good sign. You cannot see the kitchen on this restaurant, but a big table where the food, already cooked is put in the plates (picture 5), nest to the cashier.


I paid 25.000 RP for my nasi tumpang, and I had a jeruk panas (hot green orange juice) for drink (5000Rp). Ah, yes, in typical restaurants you do not get alcohol, so. . . . no beer!

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If you feel hungry during or after visiting Sunda Kelapa harbour, you may look for a restaurant and see a tourist trap fast food near the entrance; I recommend to walk a little bit (200m ); 200m north of the harbour entrance gate, where the channel widens (where the first boat is moored, in fact!), walk to the east (harbour at your back), 150m, you cross Jalan Sunda Kelapa, and look for a house a bit 20 m back of the street, you will see the sign (picture 5) and the window with the flowing water!
It is a sea food restaurant, but what I enjoyed the most with my friend here was the kerang hijau (picture 1), green mussels which in fact are fresh water mussels! Prepared with lots of garlic, green and red pepper, ginger. . . . we left nothing, and we also had fried fish, very nicely presented (picture 2), with a plate of rice, of course.
Some celebrities (?) even leave autographs in this restaurant (picture 3), which really does not look like a must go place from outside. . . and inside, the staff was not stressed by lots of customers (picture 4). . . . and the eating room is just very ordinary. Important is the food, and here it was very good, I never had that sort of mussels before and I enjoyed a lot.

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This first “restaurant tip” is not a tip, only a short introduction to Indonesian food, from somebody who likes it a lot , but is also an ignorant about “masakan Indonesia” (Indonesian cuisine). When you walk in the streets of the big cities (but also in the small villages) you will almost always see people eating, people selling food; formal meals are getting more and more used with “modern” way of life (makan pagi, breakfast, makan siang, lunch, makan malam, dinner) but many people still eat when they feel hungry, and in Indonesia, you can eat at any time!
This is why, in my opinion, Indonesian food is not a “complicated food”, it is very often small platters, little meals, simple dishes, but always tasty, strange sometimes (for the foreigner!), and of course, rice is always present!
Best food is at food stalls, as the food is always fresh, as there are always customers.
In the residential areas, you can hear the call of the “kaki lima” (five feet/legs) who pass in the streets selling food (they are specialised in one sort of dish, usually) and the residents buy food; people do not always cook at home, but buy food in the street, either from the kaki lima, or go to the food stall next door.
For breakfast, eating local, is having for instance a “bubur ayam” (chicken porridge: sticky rice, peanut based sauce with fried shallots and garlic, and fried chicken), that makes a good start for the day, with a Turkish style coffee (picture 2).
But you can also start the day with bakso, meatballs in a broth, with rice, usually (picture 3), sometimes noodles.
One of the most common word about food in Indonesia is “Masakan Padang”, Padang style cuisine or food; this is a way of cooking but also a way of serving and eating; usually the waiters bring a lot of dishes (in small plates) on your table and you eat what you want (or can!) and you pay only what you ate; here, on picture 4 it is just the beginning of serving in a small restaurant.
In a bit more upscale restaurants, the Indonesian love to beautifully display the food, and here, (picture 5) the name of the dish is a modest “nasi bali” but just a little leaf of grass makes the dish more beautiful and appetizing. . . . Bali rice, it is the name, here, but there are certainly as many ways to make Bali rice as are many cooks. . . .
Ah! The first picture: “nasi timbel”, timbel rice, a typical Sundanese dish; the rice is wrapped in the banana leaf; in front is beef meat prepared in spicy rendang style, at the back, left is tempe, fermented soy beans, and right a piece of tahu, fried bean curd, fried vegetables in the middle and beneath the cucumber and tomato pieces, the wonderful very HOT sambal, red chilli sauce.
Selamat makan ! :))) (Bon appétit!)