journey to the land of fathers and mothers (chapter 2)

Why the title of land of fathers and mothers? why not land of maids and economical labours? lol okay bad joke bad joke... it's actually because in Indonesia, in their local Bahasa Indon, Mister is addressed as Bapak, and Madam is Ibu.. Yeap, all the elders there are your fathers and mothers, so hence, it's a land of fathers and mothers lol.... Luckily they short formed Bapak to Pak in most situations... and Ibu to Bu.... if not imagine everybody calling me Bapak Leyi, feel damn old all of a sudden weh hahaha but even Pak Leyi also I feel damn uncle ady la lol

So apart from the horrendous traffic and blood sucking airport crews, apparently there's alot of unexpected good stuffs in Jakarta. First off, the local cuisine. From what I know (disclaimer: forgive me if my travel facts are wrong, I just spent one week there only lah), there are few famous cooking style in Indonesia, ranging from Padang, Jawanese, Sundanese (hope I get the right spelling, but it sounds as what I typed >.<), local Chinese, and other fusion varieties. Padang food generally is towards the spicy variant, Jawanese more on the sweet tastings, while Sundanese..... erm... can't really remember already lol, but all the food there are really delicious and appealling, especially for a spicy lover like me =) On top of that, the raw materials of the food there is of good quality ~~ as most of the poultries there are the REAL kampung chickens, unlike not those so called kampung chicken reared in local breeding farms in Malaysia, and the seafood there, I tell you, is wonderfully fresh and comes in great size as well.

This is the salted chicken (same as the Ipoh Salted Chicken, minus the Chinese herbs ala Malaysian style). I tried this nice kampung breed salted chicken in a Hakka Chinese restaurant in central Jakarta, Angke Restaurant. Though my favourite is still the Ipoh Salted Chicken with herbs, the one that I had in Indonesia is HO HO Chiak, as even without the Chinese Herbs, the natural flavour of the chicken was fully awakened and great to savour with rice =)

This dish is called Ikan Gurame, a famous local cuisine, a highly recommended by locals. The fish is fried up and served with spicy sauces for dipping. The fish is sourced fresh and the local spicy sauce made was the perfect match to the plain fried fish.

Barbeque prawn. Forgot the name of this dish already >.<>

The fresh juices in Jakarta are must trys!! My favourite drink is the Pink Guava juice on the right. The whole cup of the drink, when I sipped it, it felt literally eating the whole fruit in liquid form ^^ I tell you, that's what I call a real fresh fruit juice man! My boss ordered Durian juice, and the drink looked damn creamy lol

All the juice drinks are made of fruit freshness, with well punched up fruit fibres, and without sweeteners~ just the natural way that everybody likes it!! The coconut drink is also highly recommended, fresh and instant thirst quenching ^^ Noticed my guava drink is seated on top of a dinner box? My company local reps bought us Padang food dinner for us while we are still working in the office hahaha (spot my calculator and Naruto key chain lol)

These desserts were snapped when I was having dinner at the hotel restaurant. Unexpectedly, the food there are also nice, compared to the typical hotel food, u know normally when we go makan in hotels, the food there is always felt like lack of something compared to the ones in outside restaurants. I did not take pictures of the buffet course dishes as I was too hungry to snap them down (always reach hotel late due to bad traffic >.<) My boss and myself enjoyed the desserts sections the most, as the varieties are all sinfully good lol. Normally we can get Black Forest cakes, chocolate desserts, nicely made jellys and flons (as per picture above), as well as chendol selections and other tarts, muffins, and brownies to spoil ourselves =)

so yeah, after the trip, I gain 2-3 kgs and my pants jadi ketat gilla lol

(to be continued)