Singapore Franchises, Jakarta

Just some interesting Singaporean franchises that I chanced upon whilst I was in Jakarta. Indonesians make up a rather large fraction of our tourist population and as such it's not surprising that some of them have acquired a palate for some of our local fare.

Teck Kee Tanglin Pau, funny how I was almost tempted to buy something here although I've never ever bought anything from their Singapore branch.


Ya Kun Kaya Toast, at least it's heartening to some Singaporean expatriates that still they can get their coffee and egg jam with toast fixes in Jakarta.

Quite alot of franchises have come and gone over the years, apparently Boon Tong Kee was quite popular at some point but has pretty much fizzled out. I think the current rage now is Breadtalk. Starting a franchise is definitely a good way to make some cash but a lot has to be done on the research component to ensure that it'll not only be profitable but wouldn't just turn out to be another fad as well.

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Bumbu Den, Jakarta

Just an interesting random aside before we go to the food part. I saw this sign as I was exiting a mall, it was right next to the "No Smoking" and "No Pets" sign. I don't know if this was supposed to reassure me or not but a good thing I left my Smith and Wesson at home haha.

Bumbu Den serves grilled seafood North Sulawesian style and their specialty here is charcoal grilled grouper (as seen on their card) in a spicy chilli salsa.

The orangy chilli salsa in the foreground is the one used with their grilled fish. It may look quite mild but it's really quite potent and very tasty when mixed with freshly steamed white rice. The other salsa in the background is more like a salad and is rather mild.

Soto ikan (Fish soup), a lot of people would be more familiar with soto ayam which is the chicken equivalent but I was quite surprised that this fish variant tasted very good too. It uses similar spices to soto ayam and somehow that complemented the chunks of fish meat very well.

We ordered the extra-large version for their grilled spicy fish. Despite being a large fish, it was still grilled to perfection. The flesh was flakingly smooth and supple and it was fully cooked as well without being too dry. Now I can understand why every table here has at least one of these as well.

A side-dish of corn fritters. Freshly fried, these savory crackers went very well with the rest of the spicier dishes. Although the batter was crispy the corn kernals still remained rather juicy, not bad.

We ordered their crab specialty and was quite surprised to see that it was cooked in some sort of chilli sauce. We assumed that a North Sulawesian specialty would be grilled as well, I guess we should have enquired first before ordering. This tasted only pretty average, I still prefer the sort we get locally. Now I can understand why we were the only table with this as well haha.

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Nasi Udok, Jakarta

Apparently, nasi udok is another must-try in Indonesia. When it was first described to me, I thought this sounded like our local nasi lemak but it's actually really quite different.

There's a spread of semi-cooked food where you select what you want. Most of the ingredients seem to be soaking in some sort of brine-like liquid.

They had fresh petai here, so in the basket it definitely went. Petai is also known as "smelly bean" (臭豆) but it has nothing to do with smelly beancurd which is essentially made from soybeans. If it's of any use for clarification, its scientific name is Parkia speciosa. These were to be fried with beef.

Our little selection from the massive spread.

So all the food is thrown into a wok of oil for deep-frying. In this way, your food is always guaranteed freshly cooked since they're only cooked after you select your choice.

The sambal is freshly grounded here. Those mini chillies are extremely potent!

The man making swift work of the sambal.

Served just in time for the food.

The rice in nasi udok is very much like the rice in nasi lemak except it's just slightly more savory but alot more fluffy. Coconut milk is the base of its fragrance here as well.

Fried chicken and beancurd. The local chicken which has such a good bite and seasoned in that brine-like liquid was crisp without any need for any flour or batter. The crispy fried beancurd went very well with the sambal.

Beef fried with the petai. This dish is a clear winner, the beef although lean and deep-fried was still very tender and the petai exuded this unique fragrance and flavor. Very tasty.

Freshly stir-fried morning glory is always welcomed. It's good to have an obligatory vegetable dish in most meals but it's even better when it tastes as kickass as the meats as well!

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Cendol Elizabeth, Jakarta

I have no idea why this stall is called "Cendol Elizabeth" because it seems that it has always been this guy running it. Maybe his wife/sister/mother/girl friend is Elizabeth? Maybe he was Elizabeth haha! But the origin of the name didn't really matter because I was told he made a really kickass es cendol.

Whilst waiting for the cendol to be served, we had some teh botol. Teh botol is essentially a bottled sweet tea and is ridiculously popular in Indonesia. It's drank almost as a water substitute here.

Now this is what I call es cendol. It was way better than the one I had at Pondok Laguna. The coconut milk was very rich and thick, I could taste pandan in the cendol bits i.e. it wasn't just colored jelly. As a bonus, there were also slivers of young coconut flesh and jackfruit in it. Very refreshing on a hot Jakarta afternoon.

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Indonesian Street Food, Jakarta

After breakfast at Bakmi Tan, we took a walk down a nearby street that sells quite a lot of food in the morning. Even though the serve at Bakmi Tan was slightly larger than Bakmi Orpa's, one bowl of noodles is still hardly enough for breakfast so we thought it was a good idea to fuel up some more. Cakes are very popular for breakfast here and most stalls sell a mix of both traditional and Westernized cakes.

More cakes, it's always advisable to buy the stuff fresh because coconut cream goes off pretty quick.

More of those flour based Indonesian shumais.

If you're up for something more hearty for breakfast, there are some stalls selling mixed rice. Most people actually buy this to-go as a packed lunch.

Sate babi (Indonesian pork satay), bought some of this to-go as well.

I thought this inquisitive kid looked rather amusing as he was quite fascinated with my taking photographs of food that I decided to snap a shot of him as well heh.

Smelled the fragrance of this soto tangkar stall from a distance and decided to order a bowl.

It's primarily a beef-based soup, here's the man slicing up the ingredients before pouring the piping hot soup over it in a bowl.

Topped off with some emping, the slightly sweetish and savory taste of this was quite good indeed. It wasn't too spicy but in that way at least its original flavor wasn't overpowered.

The sate babi we bought earlier was really hot but it still tasted pretty good. The strong use of coconut milk in Indonesian sate is perhaps one of the most distinguishing characteristics which makes it different from the satays we get in Singapore.

Of course a meal has to end with some desserts. This is an assortment of Indonesian cakes that we bought home.

Indonesian ondeh ondeh (they call it something else here but I can't recall what it is...), they are slightly smaller than the ones we get in Singapore but the skin is alot thinner and softer and it still had enough sweet brown syrup within to make this most delectable.

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Bakmi Tan, Jakarta

After watching all that food on Indonesian Ironchef, I was feeling rather famished. I'm glad we left soon for some breakfast. I could smell the scent of good cooking from a distance as we approached this eatery.

Bakmi Tan is another noodle joint that was on the itinery. Noodles are quite popular as a breakfast item here. We actually tried a total of three noodle joints and at the end of the last one, I will reveal my verdict.

For starters we had some Indonesian otak, unlike the local ones we get here, this wasn't actually spicy and tasted more like fishcake. But a very fragrant fishcake though as I could taste the use of coconut milk in this. Not too bad at all.

A side-dish of fried wantons. The pastry skin in this is huge and the meat filling at the end is really little but I heard that's how it's made here, almost like a large cracker where the meat only makes a cameo apperance.

Fried meatball, this tasted greasy and salty enough to be tasty.

But like Indonesian shumais, there seemed to be more flour than meat in this. I would have appreciated a slightly meatier bite.

As with Bakmi "Orpa", their specialty here is shredded chicken noodles as well. This came topped with some crispy bits. I love crispy bits. The noodle itself was slightly less bouncy than Orpa's but a very nice flavor still shone through. This also cost less than a bowl at Orpa's and came in a larger serve as well, so I guess there was more value in a way.

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Ironchef?, Jakarta

Second day of my Jakarta trip, just woke up and still rather blurry eyed. I switched on the telly and saw this. Hey, this lady is eating, this is my kind of show.

Then I saw this setup and I thought it looked quite familiar, albeit odd, but still recognizable. I managed to just make out the words at the back "I-R-O-N C-H-E-F" Whoa! This was Indonesian Ironchef! Ironchef is my all-time favorite show.

This dude appeared and he was dressed most flamboyantly so I naturally assumed he was the Chairman of the Indonesian Kitchen Stadium. Nothing compared to Chairman Kaga though, somehow he just lacked that certain X-factor.

So this lady with a really tall chef's hat appeared and I assumed she would be one of the ironchefs. A female ironchef? Just realized that there weren't any in the Japanese production which I then realized to be rather odd since mum's cooking is always best haha.

They tell you what and how much of each ingredient is used when presenting the dish, making this abit more like a conventional cooking programme.

Judgment time, the suspense builds up...

The challenger won this time. I actually thought the ironchef would win since in the Japanese production they have a higher winning rate.

They actually have a breakdown at the end. I guess in some way, this is to give you the impression that there is some objectivity in the judging process haha. After all I can now go, "Wait... why did ironchef lose??! Ooh... she had less points in the "rasa" segment? Ok. It all makes sense now." Haha!

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