Sunday morning

Breakfast in the Bumi Johar is not an exciting time. The buffet choices are boring and lukewarm. The coffee tastes as if it’s been shipped in from the Ya-udah next door and, on this Sunday morning, 30 minutes before the scheduled finish, three dish choices were empty.

“Finish,” said the inscrutable waiter.

“Well, go and make some more,” I ventured, to which blank disdain joined inscrutability in a mesmerising cohabitation of Asian disregard for western dollars.

Martini ate three horse worth’s of whatever was left – soupy stuff, noodles, crispy things - and then we moved back to the Ya-udah to give it another chance. Sad, sad; expectations dashed on the rocks of eternal optimism. Will I never learn the lessons of life?

I ordered “Coffee and poached eggs on toast,” without looking at the menu, Martini also ordered poached on toast and an iced cappuccino which arrived with last night’s errant huge dollop of cream. It was to be the highlight of the Ya-udah experience. The espresso was dark, strong and slightly bitter, the coffee-milk combination excellently balanced and the creamy, slightly freezing ‘dollop’, suitably floating like a proud, silicon-implanted breast on the rib-cage of a precocious filly, guarding the refreshing drink just as it should. But not just as it needed, because the straw provided wasn’t long enough to reach the bottom of the glass so we (I insisted on sharing!) had to chose between leaving an inch or so of delicious cappuccino in the glass or risk spilling the remnants by tipping the glass and straw together. A small price to be paid for the best drink of the weekend.

The poached eggs arrived with the whites still transparent so I sent them back. When they returned they were suitably opaque with the yolks soft and inviting, in fact, perfectly poached, very fresh eggs. First time around would have been a good business strategy. The toast was made from a good, probably some kind of sour-dough, bread but between the eggs and the bread was ... nothing. Butter was requested, as was another missing ingredient; the “rich Hollandaise sauce” so deliberately described on the menu. Again, Martini was amazed at my recollection; I’d studied this menu in depth and detail. This was what had brought me back twice to Ya-Udah, giving it chance after chance to redeem itself and make realty and expectations coincide. It was not to be. The requested Hollandaise arrived weak, thin, lumpy, pale and lukewarm. Hollandaise emulsion is notoriously difficult to make but that’s why we buy it in restaurants where “professional” chefs can demonstrate their art. This particular sauce was a fascinating one because Hollandaise separates if the water over which it is whisked is too cold, and the eggs scramble if the water is too hot. This had both separated and contained segments of scrambled egg. The portions of butter added were obviously too large as the sauce had not thickened at all, and the total amount of butter also too large because the mess had curdled; quite frankly, a cosmic catastrophe of a sauce. Maybe that’s why they tried not serving it in the first place!

OK, one last chance because I had an appetite to feed; Grandma’s Apple Pie. According to the menu, "a must to round off your meal." Not bad, not bad at all. Not historic. Not exceptional, not outstanding, but fairly good. Maybe my expectations had hit rock bottom and this was a step up? The presentation was nice – a large flat plate with a soft-pastry’d pie in the centre, surrounded by a generous helping of custard and one dollop of vanilla ice-cream off to the side. The pastry had a slightly resistive, spongy feel to it and made me reminisce about my real Grandma’s pastry which was always historic, exceptional and outstanding. And she never measured anything, simply taking handfuls of ingredients and performing alchemy to produce pastry which transcended belief. Ya-Udah’s pastry’s ability to make me think of Grandma Bond’s pasty was a huge plus. Well done. The ice-cream was cold. “So,” you ask? Well, so was the custard, and I’m convinced it wasn’t meant to be. Nothing wrong with cold, lumpy custard and ice-cream when it accompanies my favourite - cherry pie – but I think this was supposed to be hot. If it was meant to be cold, it wasn’t cold enough and was thinking about threatening to consider melting the ice-cream.

Now the real black mark! Big, huge. This from the Ya-Udah website:

Our Smoking Policy

For smokers, we salute you: SMOKE! For non-smokers, please: NON-SMOKE!
We all get along as Ya-Udah is a classic indoor-outdoor restaurant, with a brace of ceiling fans to keep the delightful Jakarta air well-stirred. Smokers can carry on happily, without disturbing the non-smokers, who are in fact advised that if they are really serious about protecting their lungs from the dangerous effects of tobacco smoke, replete with poisons and carcinogens, that they pursue this line of logic to its natural end and refrain from breathing the air of Indonesia’s busy capital as well. Jakarta air is, one could argue, considerably more trying to the lungs than a few puffs of the heavenly weed.

Well, there you have it; total disdain for the comfort of customers, total ignorance of well-prepared food. Do, or do not; there is no try. Yoda was clear on the philosophy and the action. Ya-Udah is masquerading as a wanna-be Jedi-knight. The Force is definitely not with this one. “Sorted”? I think not. “Done?” The customers are being.