A record 85 restaurants take part in food festival

JAKARTA (JP): Ten Indonesian-food restaurants and 75 restaurants offering foreign cuisine are participating in this year's Jakarta Food Festival, which opened yesterday.

The number of restaurants offering local food in the six-week festival has increased significantly compared to that of the previous years. Seven restaurants offered local food last year.

"The increase is very impressive because Jakarta has become a target for foreign food businesses, including franchised restaurants," Wuryastuti, managing director of the Indonesian Tourism Promotion Board (BPPI), said yesterday at a press conference.

According to her, none of the 39 participants in the first festival here in 1994 had offered local cuisine.

Last year 60 restaurants took part in the festival.

The Ayam Bakar Taliwang, Bawakaraeng, Bengawan Solo, Dapur Sunda, Nusantara, Istana Sunda Kelapa, Bumbu, Pondok Ulam and Riung Kuring restaurants all offer a wide variety of Indonesian traditional food this year.

Visitors wanting to taste the food will be offered discounts between 15 percent and 20 percent.

The festival, which will end Nov. 30, was opened yesterday by Deputy Governor for Economic and Development Affairs Tb. M. Rais at Pasar Festival Kuningan in South Jakarta.

BPPI Chairman Tanri Abeng, businessman Setiawan Djodi and dozens of local artists were also at the opening ceremony.

Wuryastuti said the goal of the festival was to tell the world that Jakarta had many kinds of restaurants just like other big cities such as Singapore and Hong Kong.

"Our sponsor allocated US$1 million to promote the festival through advertising. We have advertised it in other countries such as Singapore and Australia," she said.

She said American Express TRS was sponsoring the festival.

The head of the Jakarta tourism agency, Fauzi Bowo, said the festival also tried to publicize Jakarta's restaurants to foreign tourists, and encourage the restaurants to improve.

"It aims to improve the restaurants' service and the quality of their food," he said at the ceremony.

He said the festival could also promote the restaurants to attract new customers.

Haryanto, an executive of Amex TRS, said that 16,000 transactions occurred during last year's festival. Of these transactions, 43 percent involved new customers.

There were 47 food stands at the Pasar Festival area yesterday evening where visitors could taste the samples on hand. (yns)