Monday morning

The delegates at the annual Indonesian Barbi-doll convention waiting for their flight back to Hasbro headquarters.

Sunday evening

Blueberry Pancake House and Bar – the on-site restaurant at our Jakarta Pusat hotel features a warm ambience and beautiful furnishings on top of sumptuous dishes.

The furnishings really are beautiful; rich, warm, deep mahogany woods and deep ruby décor. The greeting waiter was friendly and pleasant (two different things?) and spoke English. Now that’s not a prerequisite for a waiter in Jakarta but it certainly is a bonus. Sports channel TV’s played Bolton vs. Liverpool but that could be excused as Man U had played the previous day. I guess, though, they could have showed replays of the real footy. As we approached the door a lurking weird-o tagged along behind and joined us at the bar. I snagged a menu and we escorted ourselves to a table of our choice. The weird-o tried to inject himself in-between myself and Martini, who was oblivious to his presence, but I cut him off with a lithe body-swerve and he slid, Gollum-like, out into the dark night.

The menu was interesting, starting with sweet pancakes, and then moving to savoury pancakes, then crescendo-ing to a carnivore’s delight with multi-choices of good, teeth-sharpening, protein-over-dosing steak and other succulent meaty things. I chose pepper steak and had a rare old time ascertaining what cut it was going o be.

“Steak,”

“Well, yes, it would be, but what cut? Fillet? T-bone? Sirloin?”

“Ah, you want sirloin? This said while crossing out the order for pepper steak.

“No, I want pepper steak but I want to know what kind of steak.”

This continued and was eventually brought to a conclusion by Martini intervening in Indonesian and telling me, “Tenderloin.” Now, that wasn’t too difficult, was it? I told you he spoke English.

Now to drinks; the menu listed Guinness but the Blueberry Pancake house and Bar must have had a reciprocal agreement with Ya-Udah because Guinness was “off” but the local brew, Bintar, was on and was “more”, so a large one of those, please.

As we were waiting for service, Martini said,

“Don’t look. Don’t look. At your one-o’clock there’s a strange …”

I cut her off, “Yes, I know, a weird-o looking through the window at us.” Then I told her the body-swerve story. We moved on to brighter topics. Shortly after I noticed someone weird at a table facing us on the far side of the room; our weird-o had returned. Laptop before him, EPL footy in direct vision, he was behaving himself as all self-respecting weird-o’s should but I didn’t see him eat. It did cross my mind that it was Haloween and, maybe, just maybe, he suffered from a case of pernicious anaemia and ate people, but I let it pass.

Martini had ordered ox-tail and it came in a sumptuous stew, cooked to perfection but with just, slightly, minuscule-ly, fractionally, less herbs, spices and seasoning than would place it firmly in the total, all-over perfection bracket. My steak came on a sizzling platter shaped like its donor cow, along with a large side plate of veggies and French fries. These were proper fries; crispy outside, slightly firm and floury inside, and of a size which begged to be dipped, uncut, into either the ox-tail stew or the pepper sauce. When I had finished it I observed that I could order exactly the same and eat it again. Not because the portion was too small but because it just was so, so tasty.

Definitely a place to return to (to which to return?) and maybe next time I’ll try the blueberry pancakes. Need to get rid of the weird-o though.

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.

Saturday evening

Things started to go downhill from the start. I’d decided I would have a feast, starting with the Jumbo Bockwurst and all washed down by the “Sorted” house wines.

“Red wine gone.”

“White?”

“Gone.”

“Guinness?”

“Yes. More or less?”

“The largest please,” I said, smiling at the beautiful, endearing and improving mangling of English.

Ya-Udah’s quirky and amusing website says, “Where else in Jakarta Can you enjoy a pleasant glass of house wine…” Well, not at Ya-Udah, that’s for sure!

I had to choose “a side,” so, in the best interest of the origins of the Jumbo Bockwurst I chose German fried potatoes. Martini chose spaghetti Bolognese which was offered with the promise of, “an obscenely large helping of original YUB secret Bolognese sugo miced beef in a tomatoe sauce. Finely spiced with many herbs and oregano, sprinkled with parmesan cheese.” The waitress vanished then returned,

“No German fries.” Dismay clouded my face,

“No wines, no German fries. Do you have anything?”

“Everything.”

“Well, let’s go a tad east, cross the Maginot line, enter Paris (unopposed, of course) and have French Fries.”

Both main dishes arrived. Martini’s hot chocolate completed her order which, I know, is a strange combination but best not to judge her on her food choices as she eats like a horse and weighs 45kg! I pointed out that the hot chocolate was missing the listed enormous dollop of cream on top which amazed her as I hadn’t consulted the menu that morning. She also couldn’t stop giggling when the Bockwurst was plonked down but I’m not going to speculate on her reasons. I’d asked for mustard and black pepper so, just for luck, I asked for them again. Once slathered in mustard the bockwurst resisted my knife, then reluctantly surrendered. The resistance was explained because it was cold and undercooked. The fries were the cousins of the Maccy-D ones used to describe the Bumi Johar. Martini was more diplomatic; “They’re not very crispy.” Her Bolognese lacked the obscenely large helping of original YUB secret Bolognese sugo miced beef in a tomatoe sauce. It was not finely spiced with many herbs and oregano (many herbs and oregano??), but was merely meat, sludgily spread throughout the spaghetti, sans tomato, garlic, onion and whatever secret herbs and spices real Bolognesans “abracadabra” into their masterpieces. It was desperately looking like the menu tried but the kitchen did not. Yoda would have been appalled. Expectations were becoming slowly smothered in a sea of less than mediocre realty.

Saturday morning

The following morning we were waiting to flag down a taxi when we glanced to the right. There, standing bright and orange, uncamouflaged, and displaying its signs and notices for all to see was a restaurant, right next door to the inglorious Bumi Johar. I promised to suss it out while Martini was at work. Which I did. Fantastic. A secret, hidden Jakarta gem. A potential culinary oasis in a chaotic, sidewalk-trapdoor sprouting desert of soggy, slimy, sticky, rusty fish and rice and Coke.

“Ya-udah” means “done” or “sorted’ in Indonesian slang and is one of the two words I know because it’s pronounced Yoda! The Ya-udah Bistro’s menu was almost the best I’d ever seen. That pinnacle is still occupied by the eccentric Friends Dining Lounge in Nanaimo, British Columbia. In fact Friends is such a delight that it warrants a post of its own. Ya-udah’s menu listed 121 choices including treats such as Bavarian Leberkase, The Great Red Snapper Fillet Steak, Chateaubriand, Pork and Cheese Krakauer, The Swiss Man’s Breakfast, and Barley Grischun “Original recipe” soup, all aurally tempting and most permeated with a distinct Germanic influence and flavour.

I always disapprove of “bottomless” as a description of women and approve of it in coffee, so I had four of the filter coffees at a cost of Rp 8,500 or around S$1.20. They were insipid, tasteless, lukewarm and weak, but they were accompanied by liquid sugar which is infinitely superior to granulated.

“What time do you close?” I asked the young waitress.

“Yes,” she replied, prompting me to wave to another waitress.

“What time do you close?”

Her blank look sends me pointing to my wristwatch, swirling my index finger round the dial twice, then dragging said finger across my throat in a, “my throat cut across, my tongue torn out by the root, and buried in the sand of the sea at low water mark, or a cable's length from the shore, where the tide regularly ebbs and flows twice in twenty-four hours,” gesture to denote, “What time do you close?” Her eyebrows lifted and her eyes sparkled with recognition,

“Ah, shut up!”

Well, I hadn’t said a thing with my second inquisitive attempt so I was momentarily miffed but I got the point and nodded.

“Twelve,” she concluded.

“Midnight?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Now, what is the password for the WiFi?”

She returned to the table with a small piece of paper with “Zealand30” written on it in ball-point. That was somewhat strange and coincidental but the total experience was on the good side of OK; brought down by the coffee but rescued by the potential and promise of the menu. Rose coloured glasses springs to mind here.

Friday

Bumi bummer! Check out this description:
The Bumi Johar Hotel - a deluxe boutique hotel - offers a rare and unexpected haven located in the heart of downtown Jakarta… ... Bumi Johar Hotel is a true luxury hotel located in the Central of Jakarta. Let us welcome you with a glass of Ice Toraja Coffee, Johar Juice upon arrival.

We booked the Bumi Johar hotel because it was cheap as chips and the one we really wanted wasn’t available. Once I checked in I realised why it was cheap as chips and they weren’t Hester Blumenthal baked in straw, deep double-fried and injected with tomato sauce, French Fries! They were more like end-of-shift Maccy-D’s left out on the table for an hour. And, no one offered me Iced Toraja Coffee or Johar Juice upon arrival.

Martini was working until late so when she arrived room service had suspended itself, possibly with a bed sheet and from the rafters. We turned left out of the hotel and wandered around the quaint, narrow, busy, dangerous, interesting streets looking for a suitable restaurant. The five-way intersection brought back memories of Athens so it had a place in my heart straight away. Potholes abounded and one whole meter-square flagstone was missing from the sidewalk with no guardrail or warning sign whatsoever. The vertical drop was around two meters into what looked like a septic tank! The drop from a hangman’s noose is less than that. Hey, your safety is not our responsibility, you should keep your eyes open and watch where you’re going; Athens all over again.

Street-side “restaurants” in Jakarta consist of a couple of plastic tables and chairs with a plastic sheet suspended over them in case of rain. The “kitchen” is a single pan-sized hotplate powered by a gas bottle, both of which block the sidewalk from any perambulating pedestrians who have to step into the road and risk life and limb (always thought that should be prioritised as limb and life, but whatever), with motorcycles on the wrong side of the street and cars weaving around other cars. Martini either wasn’t hungry or she knew a thing or two about Jakarta street-side restaurants, so I ordered what I thought was deep-fried fish and rice. Deep-fried, whole fish is my staple choice in any restaurant when I’m in Thailand or any Thai restaurant world-wide. I love it, especially the crispy skin. This was Indonesia, so not quite the same geographical or culinary territory. What arrived was a kind of fishy stew with soggy, slimy skin but the taste and texture of the flesh was actually quite good. The rice was rice. They know how to do rice in Asia unless it’s sticky rice, which you have to pick up with your fingers and roll into a ball before you eat it. This was rice-rice, so everything rice-related was fine. Original size and shape Coke bottles appeared to be exactly that; original – with copious layers of rust under the tin cap. I sent two of them back but the third and fourth appeared from a different direction, delivered by a different waiter and they displayed the same vintage of rust so, what the heck, everyone needs iron in their diet.

Night and day. No idea why the shy guy was sitting in the hole in the middle of the day.