Arabian atmosphere fills De Laila bar

By Oliver Crowder

JAKARTA (JP): The entrance to this bar is through a half-sized wooden doorway unusually placed halfway up the wall. You have to step over the bottom bit while you duck. Walking through this antique carved doorframe, and being confronted by women in turbans, could give the impression of entering a harem, or some kind of theme bar.

In fact, De Laila, in the Patra Jasa building on Jl. Gatot Subroto, Central Jakarta, is more brightly lit than a lot of harems. Patrons find themselves in a large open bar area with a steel mezzanine across two sides. The owner is also involved with Tanamur's and JJ's in Tanah Abang, which helps explain this likeness. It's hard to say how deep the likeness goes just yet, as the bar has only been open since April. It is much bigger than its more-experienced older sisters, though.

Smiling strangely but benignly down from above the central bar is a huge Arab man kneeling on what could only be a magic carpet, outlined in colorful lights.

Caught off guard by this whole Arabic gimmick, my friends and I were ushered upstairs by a waiter who appeared in a turban and baggy white pants. He guided us toward some luxurious-looking red velvet couches, but, thinking them too lovely to crumple, we felt more comfortable standing at the bar.

Here, considering a game of pool on one of two tables, we soon became aware that small glasses of local beer were on sale for Rp 16,000. Spirits were cheap, also Rp 16,000, and mixed drinks cost Rp 23,000. Food is possible, too, and the kitchen is apparently open all night. There is the De Laila burger for Rp 26,000 and barbecued chicken wings with blue cheese sauce for Rp 20,000, but the closest they have to Middle-Eastern fare is a vegetable samosa with coriander chutney for Rp 15,000.

However, the most attractive thing on the menu is this sentence: All prices include government tax and service charge.

No more heated monologs with blank-faced managers about the ethics of only displaying to customers a fraction of actual prices.

No need to carry that bulky calculator around in your pocket to figure out how much they're going to hit you for at the end of the night.

I would move out of my pseudo-sanitary boarding house into a five-star hotel in an instant if only they would tell me how much I'm expected to pay for their services without that evil epilogue "plus plus".

We ordered a round of beers.

Theme bars can sometimes be a bit like a long joke: They start off well, but somewhere along the way lose track and get the mutton confused with the lamb.

Generally, De Laila bears out the Arabian theme, without overstating it, pretty well almost to the punch line. As well as the turbans on the bar staff, there are Arabian scenes, like 1001 nights, on the walls, soft, striped velvet panels, which sounds funny but do give off a Middle-Eastern feel, and to show that the designers weren't joking, the doorway to the toilets is hung with serious, heavy, crimson velvet curtains.

Then there's dangdut.

Saugi, our friendly waiter, explained that De Laila features three kinds of music: Spanish, Indian and Arabic. To the suggestion that the band also plays dangdut, Saugi replied unapologetically that this is "just like" Indian music.

The musicians appeared to work on a roster system. At any given time there would be at least five playing on stage, while others could be easily spotted throughout the bar in their hot- pink jackets. They did play a lot of that goes-with-anything dangdut, which had a following in one part of the crowd, but further into the night, there were also some Spanish tunes. At one point, some Middle-Easterners were dancing to what had to be Arabic music.

The place is open every day from 4 p.m. until "about" 4 a.m., and the band -- there are actually two -- is said to play right through. Presumably, if you walk in after work and they're sitting around smoking and trying not to get cigarette ash on their jackets, which would surely melt, they'll jump on stage just for you. The band is OK, and it is also possible to ignore the music in one of the more sheltered nooks.

The army of beturbaned waiters and waitresses are certainly friendly. They seem to be always on hand -- this could reflect the fact that they almost equaled the number of customers -- and are generally very professional.

However, it was difficult to get a good answer to what seems a fairly straightforward question. What does De Laila mean? Maybe something was lost in the translation, but all I could get out of Saugi was "a Middle-Eastern woman". Not much of a story there.

Perhaps she was Samson's lover and treacherous hairdresser. Another story, however, goes that laila is Arabic for night and the De in front just makes it sound better.

It, at least, attracts a fairly mixed crowd. On a recent Saturday night, there were many locals, a few drunk Europeans and a pool table full of Middle-Easterners. It was lively, with people moving around downstairs in the big dance area, but there was also a bit of empty space. Maybe this will be filled as it gets more established.