After arriving in Jakarta, the first place we headed to was for dinner! Andree brought us to a place called "Atlantis Seaworld" which has several restaurants, a water themepark and some shops.. It was around 9pm+ when we arrived so we can't see the themepark cos it was too dark..
The seafood restaurant we went to was called Bandar Djakarta!
Different types of dishes they have.. You can cook the seafood you choose in any style or sauce you want! It's similar to our ZhenFa Live Seafood at Turf City in Singapore.
Most of the sauces are free of charge, meaning you only pay the price of the seafood.. However for special sauces like 'Salted Egg Yolk' you gotta pay extra.
So while the 3 men wandered around choosing the poor creatures for our dinner, I took a short video of the place which I will try to upload at home in Singapore where my wi-fi connection is stronger cos it's taking forever to upload.
I know i know, maybe people who knows me knows I don't eat seafood. I really don't eat much seafood.. honestly. The only seafood I eat are:
- Fishball (made up mostly of flour)
- Crabmeat Sticks (made up mostly of flour)
- Soon Hock
- Crabs (they live on the land! only take a swim every now and then)
Pipimon says I am super fussy when it comes to eating fishes.. Like come on, I told him before my family used to own seafood restaurants and my dad kinda pioneered live seafood in tanks way back in the early 90s. I actually made friends with the poor creatures and named them! I remembered Lucy the Lobster, or Peter the Praying Mantis.. and Gary the Garuopa! They were my friends! But usually the next day they will 'disappear' from the tanks and end up in someone's table as dinner. :( So I refused to eat my friends and kinda build up a resistance to eating seafood.
I only eat selected fishes, but my favourite fish is the Soon Hock which is super expensive in Singapore cos they are quite difficult to catch and almost impossible to rear in a human created environment. Their English name is Marbled Goby but I prefer calling it Soon Hock!
My dad explained to me before on how the adult Soon Hocks live in the river mouth near the sea.. so they are typically river fish but can survive on seawater if needed. The Mama Soon Hock will swim to the marsh (which is usually near the river mouth leading to the sea) and lay eggs.. and the baby Soon Hocks will need to fend for themselves... It's difficult to rear them in human environment cos it's so hard to get the water content right and stuff.
I am not sure how true any of the above information are cos you know sometimes adults like to bullshit young children (like how I bluff my sister into believing that throwing tea egg shells on the grass will sprout mushrooms).. But it's what I remembered him telling me. But maybe that was 15years back when technology sucks.. cos I just did some simple googling online and managed to find a Marbled Goby mating & breeding course free of charge!! Click here to see! So freaking amazing can? Even have detailed information and pictures on what to do and how to breed your own Soon Hock! There's also pictures on adult Soon Hock on the website and you can see how a live Soon Hock looks like!
My favourite cooking method for the Soon Hock is to deep fry it and pour copious amounts of soya sauce over it.
Photo taken from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/varf/110160447/
My dad said the steamed version is nicer and it's 'wasted' to fry fish which is alive and killed just before cooking.. but who cares? I prefer this version and it's my favourite fish dish in the world! :)
Oh, a little known fact! When I was younger, I can taste the freshness of any fish just by nibbling a small piece. My dad was going through this phrase of trying to 'train' my tastebuds and keep steaming fishes for me to eat.. He will then ask me if the fish was undercooked or overcooked and how much longer should he cook it or how many minutes he should cook it before it was overcooked. Maybe that's why I am so adversed to eating steamed fishes. It's all his fault!
Oh, another little known fact! You guys know I love sharks right? I love the way they look, how they swim and hunt and especially the Great White Sharks! So cute and they have such black intense pretty eyes! I refused to eat sharks' fins soup for.. 12years and counting -- ever since I was educated by the Discovery Channel program on how Sharks' fins are non-nutritional and they are killed just for their fins and population fell drastically in the past decade.. blah blah, you can google and find out more information. But before I saw that program, I AM A SHARKS FIN LOVER! I used to order it from my dad's restaurant and pour it over my white rice and eat. I am so ashamed of my ignorance! But at least I learnt how to say NO. I remembered some of my schoolmates (shall not mention from where) snidely made a remark that I say NO to sharks fin because I "cannot afford to eat Sharks fin". Like hello? Dad owns seafood restaurant? Free seafood?! Duh. Some people can be so irritatingly dense and stupid.
Anyway, back to the topic.. I made Pipimon pose with the tanks before we went into the restaurant.
Walking through the huge outdoor dining area, I was awed lah! Struck speechless cos the place is damn freaking huge! I dunno how many areas it's divided into.. but they whole place was packed! And Andre said there is only 1 boss, meaning he owns the whole place and business is booming! Earn like siao!
This is the kitchen where the servers wait for the food and briskly whisk it off to the tables.
We were sitting at Table 49!
I did not take much pictures of the place cos it was very dimly lighted.. but it's big! Andre says it's the most famous place for seafood in Jakarta.. To imagine how famous, it's like the Seafood Centre at East Coast Park in Singapore.. but instead of several restaurants under different bosses, this place only had 1 boss!
We ordered fresh coconut spiked with fresh orange juice while waiting for our food.. strangely the combination kinda works.. and their coconuts look damn ugly on the outside (bumps and brown stains) but the meat is soooo tender and soft! See? Never judge a coconut by it's husk!
Pipimon came here before with Andre and he told me that there are probably over 100 employees at the place.. which I put a guess at close to 200 including the kitchen staff and security (yes they got security guards! mai siao siao!).. And even though the place is so huge, they almost never serve the wrong orders because they got a good system going on.. like dedicated staff to a certain area, ample servers that are eager to serve you and they are super nice! I always have to wave like a mad woman in a restaurant to get noticed, so much so I always ask someone else to call the waiters cos I am always invisible to them until it's time for the bill.. But in Bandar Djakarta, all I need is to look up from my dish and almost immediately there will be a server making eye contact at me and smiling and waiting to see if I need anything.. It may sound obtrusive like they are hovering (something I HATE!) but they are blended into the background and just appears when you need them and won't disturb you until being called. AMAZING!!! I love this place! I hope all restaurants in Jakarta are the same!! Hahahaha! 9 more days to find out!
Finally the food arrives! :)
Black Pepper Crabs!
Salted Egg York Crabs!
Umm.. they are actually more dishes but I am only posting these two cos it's all I ate. Yups! I was devouring the crabs while the others feast on prawns, fishes, calamari and stuff. They let me eat all the KONGS! (Pincers) But I am polite enough to offer them 1 Kong each.. hahaha! In the end I ate 4 Kongs out of the 6! Woohoo! Pipimon let me eat his share. Super happy!! My fave part of the crab is the pincers cos there's more meat and less shells. :D
This is Andre! He is just 1 or 2 years older than me. Ladies! He is single! ;)
This is Efendy, Andre's uncle. (Mother's brother) Super funny guy!
After feasting, here is the end results!
We ordered 3 medium crabs, 2 fishes, 1 plate of calamari, 1 plate of prawns and some other side dishes with lots of drinks.. I was expecting the bill to be quite high because after all, this place is where the middle class people comes to eat and entertain their clients.. and the normal working class can never afford to eat here with their meager salary. Of course with our "Singapore meager salary" we can still afford it.. Using the "Singapore pricing" I estimated the bill to be around S$250 in Singapore but since it's in Indonesia, I gave some discounts and guessed the bill to be around S$130 to S$140...
Before you scroll down, why don't you guess how much the total bill is?
Final bill was Rupiah515,000 which is around S$75!
I still think it's very cheap considering the number of stuff we ate! Super full like siao! Afterwards Efendy drove us back to Andre's house in his car before driving back home alone.
The moment I stepped out of the car and saw their house I was like "WOAH!". Pipimon saw it last year when the house was still under renovation, but he had a vague idea on the size of the place and I didn't. It's massive! And really pretty! I promise I will post more pictures of the house soon ok? Meanwhile, just imagine it to be like those huge house you see in a typical Hong Kong drama serial where the rich people stay.. Till next time!
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