Jakarta, Java, Indonesia (Part 2 of 3)

Hello Everyone!

This is the second of three planned dispatches from Jakarta, Indonesia. In this post I'll tell you about our Jakarta Night Walk excursion.

One way to really get a feel for a city is to walk through its streets at night, see the hustle and bustle, and sample some street food. In a place as exotic as Jakarta, this would require some exceptional bravery and courage to do solo, as nothing looks like what we're used to in the West. I've done walks like this when I was younger, but it was during my trips in the Air Force, and I had crewmembers (some more experienced than I) who could accompany each other and (sometimes) recommend good (i.e. safe) food to eat.

Jakarta Night Walk Tour

Viking put together a guided tour through the streets led by experienced local guides who knew most of the merchants we patronized for food. They knew their way around and could help us safely cross the busy, congested streets. The traffic doesn't slow down a bit at night. In fact, it seems even crazier and more congested than during the day. Click here for a video that shows what the traffic and our walk looked like.

Street Lined with Food Vendors

Rambutan - Hairy Fruit

We bought and sampled some rambutan, also known as hairy fruit. I'd had this at one of our previous stops, but enthusiastically had more tonight. The dark red ones are the ripest and sweetest tasting. The flesh is soft, kind of like the inside of a large grape, and quite sweet. There is a seed in the middle that you spit out after chewing all the fruit off of it.

Rambutan (Hairy Fruit) for sale

Rambutan Closeup

The flesh is soft, kind of like the inside of a large grape, and quite sweet. There is a seed in the middle that you spit out after chewing all the fruit off of it.

Peeled Rambutan

Bakpao

Next, we had Bakpao, soft, fluffy steamed rice buns filled with sweet or savory fillings such as beef, chicken, or vegetables. I sampled one with beef. It was very good. Quite soft and fluffy, the filling was savory and flavorful. Each bun was palm-sized and large enough to be a meal in itself. They cost about $0.50 each.

Bakpao Vendor

Martabak Telur

We moved on to a vendor selling Martabak Telur, a savory Indonesian street “pancake” made from very thin rice dough, filled with egg (often duck egg), vegetables, and sometimes meat, then folded and shallow-fried before being cut into pieces.

Martabak Telur Vendor

The process of making the Martabak Telur was relatively simple but fun to watch. Click here for a video of the process.

Making Martabak Telur

Martabak Telur

Martabak Telur

Martabak Maris

For dessert, we had another pancake-like dish, Martabak Maris. Maris means "sweet" in Indonesian, and true to form this delightful delicacy had a sweet dough, chocolate sprinkles, cheese, and sugar between two pieces of light and airy pancake batter. Delicious!

Making Martabak Maris

Martabak Maris

Durian - Hellish Smell, Heavenly Taste

Indonesia is known for Durian, sometimes called the king of fruit (at least by the locals). Most big hotels will not allow you to bring them inside due to their putrid smell.

The thing is, once you get it past your nose and work up the courage to eat the flesh of the fruit inside, you find that it is sweet and delicious. Durian can also be used to make sticky rice cakes, pancakes, and various pastries and rolls. I sampled some durian ice cream onboard the ship one evening, and it was wonderful. 

We saw this vendor selling them, so several of us told the guide we wanted to sample some, and he played along.

Durian Fruit for Sale

The smell of the whole (unpeeled) fruit isn't too strong, but when you get up close it can still be pretty off-putting.

Brave Man Getting a Whiff of Durian

Once you cut it open, the smell does everything possible to keep you from wanting to eat it. But persevere, take one of the seed pods, and chew all the flesh off it. Heavenly taste! But boy, do your hands stink afterwards...

Tasty Seed Pods Inside the Durian

Traditional Medicines and Remedies

One food we didn't try was cobra. I remember seeing this many years ago in China. The ritual is that they behead a live cobra at your table (or here in the street) and extract the blood into a cup of red wine. You then drink the wine/blood mixture. It's supposed to be the local version of Viagra... Having no need for Viagra, I politely declined.😊

Cobras

The vendor also had a number of other offerings for sale based on traditional medicine. The banner below mentions "cures for skin diseases inside and out", such as cobra blood, cobra bile, dried bile, cobra skewers, monitor lizard skewers, cobra/monitor lizard ointments and oils, and soft-shelled turtles. He'll also take specialty orders for bats, rabbit, etc.

Banner Advertising Traditional Remedies

After the walk we went to the rooftop bar of a local 49-story building to enjoy a few drinks and the view.

Jakarta at Night

Jakarta at Night

After marveling at the views, we hopped back on the bus and returned to the ship.

Tomorrow's Excursion

Tomorrow I'll be going to an Indonesian cooking class. Since I'm not very familiar with Indonesian food, I'll likely learn a lot! More to follow...

Cheers,
Jim