Angke, Jakarta

Angke is pretty much one of the most (if not the most) well-known Chinese restaurants in Indonesia. This place fits hundreds of tables and is packed most of the time, even on weeknights. They serve Hakka food but as with most Indonesian-Chinese restaurants, there are certain localized elements to their cooking that somehow still make the dining experience unique. In fact this is probably the first Hakka restaurant that I've dine in which none of the Hakka staples I'm familiar with such as Hakka stuffed beancurd, "abacus seeds" and braised pork belly with preserved vegetables wasn't ordered.

Crispy eel stir-fried with vegetables. The red wine sediment that's generously sprinkled in some of their dishes are perhaps a sign of their Hakka heritage. It did impart some fragrance to their dishes and despite being stir-fried with vegetables after being deep-fried, the eel still remained crunchy and delectable. Very tasty.

Garlic prawns, best part about this is that the prawns are fully shelled, not just split down down the center sagitally as with some of the seafood restaurants in Singapore. The prawns were steamed to the right consistency and the garlic butter sauce was fragrant and aromatic without being overly salty.

Deep-fried fish topped with a black bean sauce and soft beancurd. This dish is JA's favorite here and was practically a staple when he was growing up in Jakarta. I can tell why he likes it so much. The fish was still crunchy and the sauce had this smokey taste which made it ever so delicious. The contrast of the crunchy fish and the soft beancurd was just pure genius.

Frog stir-fried with preserved vegetables. When I first heard the description of this dish, I was rather skeptical if it would be very tasty. JA's father raves alot about this dish and I know he is a man of good taste but I still had some initial fears. All fears and skeptism were extinguished the moment I tasted this dish. It was so good. The preserved vegetables were not salty, the frog flesh was tender and sweet and the sauce with the red rice wine sediment was just the thing for stirring into rice.

Braised sea cucumber was the last dish we had and boy did we have to go off with a blast. These had to be the largest sea cucumbers I've seen served at a restaurant. Each sea cucumber was at least about 15cm in length and more than half and inch thick. The braised sauce infused the sea cucumber thoroughly to make this a very juicy and delicious dish indeed.

Just a close-up shot to emphasize how thick these sea cucumbers were.

For dessert, we hit one of the local fruit stores to pick up some harum manis mangoes. I was pretty fortunate that my trip coincided perfectly with the harum manis season and if you're a mango fan like me, you'll love the harum manis variety. Harum means fragrant and manis means sweet and these mangoes certainly lived up to their name. Although the skin still remains green they are actually already quite ripe.

What a way to end my first day of eating in Jakarta, with some refreshing and super sweet mangoes.

D

Pondok Laguna, Jakarta

We're on our way to our next eating destination and I thought it'll be rather refreshing to mention abit about Jakarta. Jakarta traffic is quite insane (and I've been to Bangkok, China, KL etc). There aren't many traffic lights as well partly due to costs and I think the authorities also know that no one obeys them anyway. So the solution to most traffic problems are solved with roundabouts. There are so many of them in Jakarta and in the centre of each roundabout is always some sort of statue. Since there are so many roundabouts inevitably there are a lot of statues as well haha. Some of these are really huge and most of them aren't even related to any local themes. This one above is quite famous and is known to the International School students (such as those from JIS) as the "Flaming Pizza Man". Pizza.... hmmm...

Over the yonder we saw this huge fish in the sky. Pondok Laguna is another essential eatery to visit when in Jakarta.

They have the image of this fish on their name card as well and this is basically their signature fish. This "Gurame" fish is cooked in a few styles here.

How fresh is the fish here? They rear the fish in these ponds scattered throughout the restaurant. It's that fresh, period.

Since it was a rather warm day, I started my meal with dessert first just to cool off abit. This cendol was indeed quite refreshing. I thought the coconut cream wasn't quite thick or rich enough though but that could have caused by the dilution from the ice.

As I was still feeling quite warm, I ordered a coconut as well. Just thought it was quite interesting that they created a hole through the cover on top so the straw could stick out.

We ordered the tidbit of emping with sambal to start off the meal. Freshly fried emping with freshy grounded sambal, the fiery taste of the sambal is washed off with the cooling coconut juice enabling you to go back for more again and again.

Soup buntut (Indonesian oxtail soup) isn't really the specialty here but it sure does beats most Indonesian restaurants outside Indonesian handsdown. The flesh of the oxtail was boiled just right, soft enough to fall off the bone but not too soft that it's mushy.

This appetizer of deepfried prawn and beancurd balls were excellent.

The light crisp batter perforated to reveal juicy and crunchy prawns. Seasoned lightly with some spices (I tasted curry leaf), it provided just the right balance in flavor without overpowering the natural sweetness of the prawns.

Gurame fishead in curry. This curry tasted really good and is unlike the Indian fishead curries we have here. It tasted as though there was assam in it but unlike most assam curries, this had a rich coconut cream taste as well. Stirring the gravy into hot steamed white rice is almost a luxury by itself.

The star of the show. This deepfried gurame fish is so crunchy that you can even crunch down most of the bones. It's cooked by suspending it with wires into a pot of boiling oil hence creating this upright shape. This goes very well with the sambal.

The obligatory vegetable dish of stir-fried morning glory was a really tasty way to eat healthy. Piping hot from the wok, the wok hei effect stood proud in this dish. With such a great start to an eating holiday in Jakarta, I could only look forward to my next meal!

D

Bakmi "Orpa", Jakarta

Bakmi "Orpa" is practically an institution in Jakarta. This place has been around even before I was born. Their specialty is chicken noodles and their noodles are handmade. The original owner had passed away a few years ago and handed the reins over to his son. I've never dine here before when the original owner was around and although I've heard that they've dropped slightly in standard, I still went in with an open mind.

We started with some appetizers. This is Indonesian-Chinese shumai. I didn't really like this because there seemed to be more flour than meat in it but apparently that's how it's done here.

The stuff beancurd on the other hand wasn't too bad. It was served hot and went pretty well with the sweet and chilli sauce.

Although the noodles look rather plain and there seems to be not even much sauce in it, after my first bite I could understand why this place can get so popular. It was very flavorsome, the use of shallot oil also brought out a nice fragrance. The texture of the noodle was something else by itself, springy without being hard, delicate without being too soft and none of the noodles stuck to each other. There was no clumping at all. As with most restaurants in Indonesia, locally reared (i.e. Kampong) chickens are used here instead of generic coup bred ones. As such, the meat had a very nice texture and flavor. No mushy chicken flesh here. Well, as I mentioned earlier, I can't really make a comparison between the son's cooking versus his dad's but what I had; I liked, a lot.

The dumpling soup was rather bland in comparison to the noodles but it still had that sort of depth that you can only get from a good stock instead from just using mono-sodium glutamate (MSG). The minced pork filling was mixed with some fried shallots give it a unique flavor (something I will definitely try to replicate at home hehe).

Bakmi "Orpa" sees very decent business during the weekdays and busy crowds with queues over the weekends. Each bowl of noodles cost about 5SGD, which by Indonesian standards is very expensive but their long heritage and staying-power is a testimonial that they'll definitely be around for many more years to come.

D

Indonesian Cakes, Jakarta

Woke up the next morning to a view of Jakarta. By the way, the hazy bits aren't mist. It's pollution. Apparently, according to the WHO, Jakarta is the third most polluted city in the world.

Thanks to JA's parents for getting up early in the morning to buy some Indonesian cakes for our breakfast. There's such a huge assortment available here and everything tastes really good and fresh.

This two-toned, coconut pandan with brown sugar cake tasted excellent. The strong flavor of the fresh coconut cream used in this was quite evident indeed.

Another two-toned cake also using the brown sugar half but a half of coconut cream instead. I liked this a little more than the other one because the unsweetened coconut cream layer helped balanced out the flavors abit.

The stall that sells freshly made soy milk also fries their own beancurd. Savory hot beancurd with a crisp edge, this went very well with the manis (sweet) dipping sauce.

As we were driving out for our second breakfast (yes, the only way to eat enough on this trip was to create more meals haha), I managed to snap a picture of this little custard apple hanging off a little custard apple tree. Amazing how this plant can survive growing out of the gutter and still produce fruit. I could pretentiously go on about how this embellishes the steadfastness of the human spirit and all that jazz but all I was really thinking of when I saw this was, "Custard apple..... yum.... *drools*".

D

Rudy Martabak, Jakarta

Whenever I hear my Indonesian friends speak of martabak; it's always with great emotional fondess. They can wax such lyrical about martabak that I was certain this must be the food of the Gods. From their descriptions about the dish, I always drew parallels with it and our local min jiang kueh but if I was ever vocal about these comparisons, I would draw quite a few evils from them as well haha. The best way to see if this stuff really lived up to its name would be to have a taste; fresh, and that's what I got from Rudy's.

When I first heard "martabak" I thought of the local Indian dish of "murtabak" which is savory with minced meat bits. It was only through more queries and descriptions that I realised this dish was really a dessert. As you can see, the setup here is quite similar to that of a pancake joint, very assembly line-like.

You can throw all health consciousness to the wind when indulging in martabak. Each pancake is very generously smothered with margarine.

As I wanted to sample the purportedly best two flavors, I decided to go for a half-and-half. Here's some cheese being freshly grated onto one half.

The other is a mixture of nuts, chocolate rice and sesame seeds. Each flavor is also enhanced by copious amounts of condensed milk and sugar.

Although this may look abit like min jiang kueh and has some elements of it such as nuts and a batter pancake, that's pretty much where the similarities end. This stuff in all honesty, tasted rather mind-blowing.

Although there's cheese in this, it's not really salty. I don't even know what sort of cheese this is (the wrapper only had the word "cheesy" on it haha). It tasted like a blend of cheddar and mozzarella. The sweet condensed milk and sugar blended and melted in perfectly with the pancake to make this really very delicious.

Look at this baby. Just look at it. Chocolate, condensed milk, sesame seed, peanuts and margarine. You know there's enough grease in a dish if it soaks through the cardboard box. Seriously, if you are a true fan of min jiang kueh or any localized pancake you have to try a martabak from Jakarta at least once in your life-time. You won't regret it.

D

Hunan Kitchen, Jakarta

So when a close Indo-Chinese friend of mine suggested heading down to Jakarta for the weekend before he went back to the States, it didn't take long for me to agree. This friend of mine never appeared to be a foodie but the only food he'll ever rave about is Indonesian food. The spread of the mainland population reaches far and wide, so it's not surpirsing that they've reached Indonesia as well. As such, quite a lot of mainland eateries have popped up. I was actually quite surprised that my first meal in Jakarta was Hunan cuisine, but since I've never tried Hunan cuisine and was rather hungry, this was still very much welcomed indeed.

I actually quite enjoy eating various Chinese foods in different countries because I appreciate the localization of these foods. Jakarta has a lot of spicy and greasy foods. This serve of cold shredded potatos in chilli oil and spices was a great way to start the meal.

This is the signature dish of this restaurant. A pre-fried pig leg that is then braised in a thick sauce.

It was so tender that the main center bone just slipped out and after it was sliced by the server, each chunk was just a nice greasy savory morsel that went down with the rice very well indeed.

Hotpot frog in dried chillies and copious amounts of spring onions, onions and ginger. Soft and succulent, the freshness of the frog showed through with the sweetness in its flesh.

Dry fried string beans, this is very similar to the Sichuan ones except this didn't have fatty minced pork. It was still greasy and salty enough to be very tasty though.

The hotplate beef was pretty ok. Not really spectacular, in fact its taste reminded me of Westernized-Chinese food.

This was called Spicy Ayam Goreng which literally translates as spicy fried chicken. It tasted very similar to the spicy Sichuan chicken I had at Mapo Dofu Restaurant. Although this wasn't entirely boneless, the bones were crisp enough to be just crunched down.

Finished off the late dinner with a plate of fresh fruits. All the local fruits are tree-ripened making them naturally sweet and refreshing. I was promised an itinery of a lot of eating and in my next few posts, I'll pass on all these great eating experiences I enjoyed in Jakarta.

D