I don’t usually travel a lot for work but this time around I was given the opportunity to go to Jakarta for a launch event and it was my first time there. Although it was only for two nights, being there in Jakarta opened up my eyes to not only how bustling the city was but the amazing food available there.
We were housed at Fairmont Hotel in Jakarta which was absolutely amazing and gorgeous. It recently had it’s official launch so the hotel was new. There weren’t that many people staying at the hotel but it was nice and quiet. But what amazed me was just the sheer size of it. The lobby was huge, extremely high ceilings and everything just felt spacious.
After checking in, our counterparts from Jakarta brought us for lunch. Traffic wasn’t too bad as it was a Sunday but we stopped off at a small shop lot buried deep somewhere to eat some local “nasi padang”. In truth, I am horribly bad when it comes to Indonesian cuisine. I went in with very little experience (actually none) and was trying to figure out what it was.
Over there, the moment you sit down, they will give you a plate of rice and then start putting dishes and dishes and dishes of food for you to eat. Being extremely blur, I just dug in and started eating. Only later did I know that the moment your spoon touches a dish, means we had to pay for the dish itself or plate. Thankfully the plates weren’t that large and certain items were counted as per item such as the fried bird. I say bird because I didn’t know what type of bird it was but it tasted like chicken.
There were plenty of choices and certain dishes were indeed tasty but because a lot of these dishes were kept in small plates, I can’t really say that they were extremely fresh and steaming hot. Definitely it would be a plus point if they could keep the multiple array of food hot to serve their guests.
After lunch we headed back to Senayan City to have a bit of walk to burn off the food from lunch. The mall itself was large and it had a nice tunnel connector which allowed us to walk back to the hotel without the need to walk in the haze.
For dinner I was brought to a place called “Pondok Sedap Malam” which sold the best pepper crabs about and seriously, it was delicious. The black pepper sauce was really thick and really complimented the fresh crabs.
We stuffed ourselves silly over dinner as well with plenty of seafood and I am amazed how everything tasted so nice with thick black sauce. It had a little bit of sweet taste hence my sweet tooth did most of my thinking for me.
After dinner we arrived back at our hotel and we decided to check out their rooftop bar. It wasn’t extremely packed but there were groups of people who were enjoying their drinks whilst looking at the amazing 360 degree panaromic view.
Breakfast at the hotel was absolutely amazing and the rest of my time there was spent working on the mobile app launch for BII Bank and our visit over to IndoSat where I was amazed at their transformation journey. Their refurbished floors look absolutely cool and I liked how the top management has committed to making changes to pave the way for the future.
One thing I learned about my trip there after the first day, it seemed that all we wanted to do was eat over in Jakarta. Definitely looking forward to my next trip there. I hope I don’t put on too much weight the next time I stop by.
*** Images straight out of my iPhone
