Job Discussion Forums

[Cardinal Synn]

I find the flavours offered by Pizza Hut in Jakarta are rather dull. I think Izzi Pizza kicks its bot - far nicer toppings with extra bits like chillies and stuff. Yum. Nice cheese cake too! Wider delivery range as well.
It is nice to have a change from goreng and rice etc.
What do you like to eat when you're not going native? And where?
Tell me, tell me, tell me!!!

[ls650]

[bgreen15]

Personally i thought that izzi pizza was more authentically itialian food. I loved it and went there several times. Pizza hut is the Mcdonalds of pizza and is the same almost everywhere you go. Aku cinta Izzi Pizza !

[El Llama]

Yep, no contest - Izzi Pizza all the way. They have real ham and pepperoni, not that smoked beef nonsense that you get from Pizza Hut, and you can get booze. Defence rests, M'Lud.

When I get a curry craving, I head to Hazara on Jl. Wahid Hasyim (next to the Ibis hotel) and gorge myself on their little bronze pots of loveliness.

There are a whole bunch of good resaurants in Kemang but who can afford to eat there on a teacher's salary? *

El Llama

* Please, no posts such as, "Oh, I eat there all the time for I have a contract sent from heaven and you losers who settle for less than 15 million a month are all idiots. My boots. Kiss them."

My mental state is too fragile for that kind of guff.

[Cardinal Synn]

Glad we all agree that Izzi Pizza rules. McDonald's sucks knobs from hell of course and the one in Jl Thamrin is so near the above mentioned Jl. Wahid Hasyim, that you'd need to have had poor and unsuccessful brain surgery to even contemplate eating there when there are so many excellent alternatives within gobbing distance. Round the corner in Jl. Jaksa (sorry) the eating experience is somewhat reduced in stature, though BFC does some nice scran and it has a pool table. Papa cafe is only really good for watching saddo expat longtermers who stare at the Animal channel on TV, getting pished on 'tang and for meeting dodgey people for unsavoury reasons. When I visit Jaksa at night, I like to eat at a little outside thing stuck to the pavement with bits of string and tarpaulin, just accross the street from the Hotel Tator. Does excellent fish dishes.
I suppose there's something for everyone in Jakarta - and everything for someone. Huh?

[Cardinal Synn]

[ls650]

[El Llama]

Ok, since we're in Jaksa, why not give Ya Udah Cafe a whirl? A bit pricier than the Jaksa average, but it's run by a German so everything is clean and orderly and the sausages are good. (Stereotypes? Love them.)

On the flipside, what's the worst place you've ever eaten in Jakarta? Which place had you weeping, doubled up in agony, voiding from every orifice and begging to be put out of your misery? I made the mistake of getting mussels from some guy pushing a kaki lima round. I have given a sanitised version of their effects above...

El Llama

[Cardinal Synn]

Sorry is650, couldn't help myself.
OK, back to jakarta's food and Purveyors of. Yaudah on Jaksa is probably the best for its combo of reasonable food and excellent toilet facilities (compare with Papa cafe and BFC) but I find the staff in Yaudah a bit aloof. I do wonder a bit about Pedro (the improbably named Dunhill smoking Teutonic owner) and his staff policy of only hiring youngish females for waiting duties. Mind you, I'd probably do the same. I must have eaten everything on their menu by now and it's all pretty good stuff. I can't say I've had any food poisoning events in Jakarta as such, though I do make a point of avoiding shellfish and prawns, except, oddly enough in Yaudah - their garlic mussels are OK, though a bit dry perhaps. I think the most barftastic food I've eaten in Jakarta was something my lady got me from a kaki lima in our street once. It seemed to consist of boiled goat entrails and various internal organs, served with rice (of course), in a sauce. I had a hangover and it was a particularly hideous experience. I managed a couple of mouthfulls before I realized just how disgusting it was and spat it down the toilet. Of course, she loved it and wolfed down what I didn't eat. I have to say though, in general, my experience of eating in Jakarta hasn't been too bad. A little boring perhaps, but not too many 'orrible gagfests. I suppose i have had sate that resembled some kind of genitalia, but I was so hungry that I ate it anyway.
Maybe others have been less fortunate?

[hairyrambutan]

[Winmarr]

[Link H]

Good restaurants:

I think American Grill is a good deal. I don't know why they changed the name from 'Sizzler' in the era of boming American targets. For around 37,000 rupiah, you get an all you can eat buffet with spaghetti, fried rice, soups, ice cream, and of course salad. For around 40 at lunch you can get a chicken or beef patty.

I never eat at the Pizza Hut near Sarina because there are so many other interesting places around there. Na na Ban Te is good. It's in the same complex. For about 40k, you can get all you can get the Japanese buffet there. It's a raw meat buffet with vegetables and other items already cooked.

Pizza Hut--I had a decent Pizza Hut Pizza here once in Kemang. My wife and I had just come back from America where we delighted in eating a Pizza Hut pizza there. I don't think the problem here in Indonesia is the beef sausage so much as it is the fact that they put such a thin layer of sauce. When I went to Pizza Hut in Kemang that time, I said the pizzas at PH in Indonesia weren't good like they were in America because of the lack of sauce, and I asked for more souce when they cooked it.

Be careful though. I once ordered some sauce on the side at California Pizza and they brought it too me. I got a major case of diarreah. The sauce probably had tap water in it.

There are some good places to eat hidden in office buildings on Rasuna Sahid. One building there was a cafe called Ci-ci's or Ci-Ci's that sells a home-made style hamburger for 11,000. This is with a big beef patty, too. They serve grilled chicken *beep* and several other western entree's at similar prices. Gedung Lina, across from Imperium, has a restaurant on the 6th floor called Loteng. They sell burgers and fries for 11,000 and chicken taco plates starting at around 20,000. The food is not bad.


Gross stories: several years ago at Ambassador Mall, before it was crowded, I ordered a chicken burger from KFC. I was having a conversation with a friend and wasn't realizing what I was eating. After a few bites, I realized the chicken was raw! They had just cooked it long enough to defrost it. I took it back and all they gave me was a cooked burger. I should have wrote a complaint to the head office in America.

Here is another gross story. I was staying in a friends house. His maid cooked diner style hash browns and left the food sitting out for a long time as is the custom here. As I was eating, a delicious fruity taste filled my mouth. I stuck my finger in my mouth to pull out whatever it was that tasted so different from what I was eating. It was some kind of bug. Apparently, some bug that ate fruit from the mango tree or something else had gotten in my food. Maybe all that mango juice was concentrated in this bug. I dont' know what was grosser, the fact that I ate a bug, or the fact that it tasted so good.

I've had some other gross experiences. I ordered bakso outside of Jakarta Convention Center, I think, at a warung. They served it with entrails inside! Yuck. Chitlins. I also ordered some mie ayam at the Senayan stadium, and the meat used was crunched up chicken bones, which was some nasty eating.

Another unfavorite wartuk of mine is that really busy one in Tebet that wells Soup Konro and Tata Ribs. I don't care for the cummin-flavored rib soup too much. I can eat it, but it's nothing special to me. The food is overpriced, but the amazing thing is the place is so busy. I got upset when I ordered nasi goreng seafood there for 15,000 and they brought out, not a plate full, but this tiny bowl-sized portion turned upside down on a plate. I could not find a speck of seafood in it.

[Cardinal Synn]

Some interesting info there, Link. I still don't rate Pizza Hut, even with extra sauce. Back in the UK, my fave from Pizza Hut was a seafood job with nice big prawns that weren't over cooked. I wouldn't dare eat a pizza with prawns in Jakarta. I think part of the problem with PH for me, is that eating their pizzas reminds me of a certain naff school I worked at. It was very near a Pizza Hut and on any half special occassion, pizzas would be ordered by the boss for us low down scumbag teachers to feel grateful and humble at having our birthdays, leaving days or whatever honoured with such fine fare. Oh such fun days were they.