Jak food 3

Fried kwe tiaw and Teh botol. What else can I ask for?


Bakso

There was a little more time to saunter the streets of Jakarta this past trip. More time to walk and go deep into the streets to where the locals consider the food good!

I was introduced to bami (beef noodles) and bakso (beef balls). They make really good light meals - allows you uto eat every 3 hours - especially when on a short trip like this! :P What topped off the expeience was the ambience. Dingy coffee shop, very warm noon sun beating down on zinc roof, gas stoves burning, sound of the chopper boards, customers waiting in line, everyone perspiring except the cooks, stall owners and their assistants scrambling behind the scenes to get their piece of art done... No complaints!

Apa Kabar 2

Ah... back from Jakarta with pictures to show. The project I was sent there for went well and had good reviews!


This is the view of from the apartment I stayed in. It's part of this huge mall + apartments called Taman Anggrek or Orchid Garden. This shot was on taken on a Sunday when the traffic isn't as bad as the rest of the week.

So back to the food. I was introduced to even more of the local treats! Will be posting them throughout the week so stay tuned...

Apa Kabar!

Imagine this. It's 11:45pm, way after closing hours in a mall in Jakarta, Indonesia. I stole a chair from an open-concept Starbucks store and am just right outside of the coffee cafe checking emails and posting this blog. :O)

No pictures yet, but let me tell you that the food's great but the traffic's real bad! 60% of my day is spent on the roads... till I post some pictures...

Salam!

Jak food

I was down in Jakarta a couple of weeks back for a shoot. Was collecting clips for a documentary on someone's life that I'm producing. It's been a good 20 years since I last set foot on the capital of Indonesia. It's been too long to be able to compare how it was before but the one thing that struck me was the food!

The best street side food that is shelved neatly in the yummy food department of my brain is something they call Martabak. Looks exactly the same as the Peanut Pancake ("Mee Chiam Kway") that they have in Singapore, but once you let your teeth sink in to one of these... you know it's ooooh so different. ;P I think it comes in three standard versions: egg, cheese or rice chocolate. But hey, if you know you don't have the time, have the vendor arrange all three neatly tiered on one pancake!