Eating Out in Jakarta

Eating out in Jakarta is always an adventure. You can eat at the roadside warungs or even at the kaki lima carts. You would have to be braver than me, but you COULD if you wanted to. (David says he does) You can eat at any of the many restaurants in the malls and around town or you can eat at one the 5 star hotels and have food by a world-class gourmet chef.

David and I have a favorite Chinese restaurant we often visit. It is close enough to the house to walk if we want. Today we were out running errands and decided that Chinese dumplings were just what we wanted so we headed over to Din Tai Fung to get some dumplings. This restaurant has been voted by the New York Times to be one the top 10 restaurants in the world, in spite of that the prices are very reasonable, dinner for both of us is around Rp 180,000 or about $20. As we drove up we noticed banners all down the road advertising 50% off menu prices for the next 2 weeks. That can't be right we thought. Then we opened the doors and realized that all of the Indo-Chinese in Jakarta had beaten us to the dumplings. Sadly there were going to be no dumplings today or for the next 2 weeks. I have never seen such a waiting line… well except maybe the day the Burger King opened at Senayan City.

Disappointed as we were, we headed over to Plaza Senayan to see what restaurants were to be had. We accidentally stumbled onto another good place to eat. Bakerzinn had a wonderful menu (with pictures). David enjoyed a noodle dish loaded with garlic, bratwurst, and peppers. While I had an herbed puff pastry bowl filled with a creamy mushroom stew. Mmmm mmm mmmm it was as good as chocolate! I know, chocoholics, this is tantamount to sacrilege but golly it was yummy. The only thing we found a bit disappointing was we were too full for dessert. I guess we just have to go back for coffee and dessert another day.