Bawakaraeng: Short on service but great food

"A fish to die for," gushes one connoisseur. "A taste of heaven" is another lavish accolade. Such is the homage paid to fried red snapper in sweet soy sauce, the crowning glory of Bawakaraeng, a restaurant specializing in the Makassar cuisine of South Sulawesi.

And well-deserved it is. The restaurant, located at Jl. Ampera Raya 16 in Kemang, is not exactly at a barren point on the gastronomic map ("What? Not another Kemang restaurant!"), but it also cooks up simple but wonderful meals that way upstage its dignified but cozy home-style decor.

The terse menu doesn't brim with quantity -- it's quality all the way. Even vegetables, side dishes and the ubiquitous ground chilies are enticingly classy, like superior versions of home specials. No wonder people usually come in throngs, often with family and friends.

In short, it's one of Epicurus' favorite joints, a kind of culinary reminder of why Europe came to this part of the world many centuries ago.

At Bawakaraeng, the search for spices never ends. Everything is worked from the ground up, based from good and fresh produce, and full of zesty flavors.

So kiss restraint goodbye and "explore", an entirely acceptable euphemism for "order as much as possible". We certainly did.

A worthy starter would be the fabled coto Makassar, a rich, honest-to-goodness fare which tastes like a cross between soto Betawi (beef and tripe in coconut cream broth) and semur, beef cooked in sweet soy sauce.

But since we're talking Indonesian style, it would be best to eat the soup on the side, together with the main dishes.

The aforesaid snapper still remains one of the greatest joys in Jakarta dining. This is fish at its most succulent, fried to crispy perfection, doused in sweet and sour soy sauce spiked with butter and vinegar and garnished with peppers, corn and bright red tomatoes.

Long after the fish had been demolished, we were still pouring what was left of the sauce onto our rice, wanting to savor every drop of this ambrosial epicurean feat.

The side dishes were no less impressive. Charcoal-grilled squid sauteed in sweet soy sauce and ground shallots washed over the palate like waves lapping at the shore. The portion might be small, but it took care of the three of us as well as it did the six of us many, many months ago.

Another smallish but smashing side dish was sweet corn sauteed with ground chilies and salted fish. It's like the afterthought you never talk about until you realize it's there -- and wow, what was it again?

The restaurant used to be a dab hand at beef too, judging from the long-time success of its Makassar beef satay. However, our first grimace of the evening surfaced at finding out that the beef was now slightly tough, and the sweet peanut sauce a mite listless.

But did it stop us from having fun? Not by a long shot; at Bawakaraeng, eating rice with lalap, raw vegetables, and sambal (ground chillies with shrimp paste) is already a heady experience.

However, don't expect much by way of dessert. The pisang epe, or grilled banana in palm sugar syrup, used to be quite a luscious tongue-teaser, a Malay classic, in fact. Note that I say "used to be" because this time the banana tasted like rubber.

But the only thing that may really work towards Bawakaraeng's disadvantage is the disjointed and arrogant service. We've had our orders confused a couple of times, but no matter, incompetence is still tolerable given all the strong points.

Lamentably, Jakarta is a place where the sight of an inordinate number of restaurant staff huddled together, doing and seeing absolutely nothing, is pretty commonplace.

But arrogance? One waiter whiffed past us, clearly saw us beckoning him, but kept sailing on with an upturned nose. Worse still, he's done it before (a fact we tried to overlook). The very same waiter came to us with our second order and slammed it on the table, shocking the living daylights out of us. Before we could say "Whaa" he had disappeared.

Another waiter unceremoniously intruded upon our intimate conversation, literally forcing us to place our last orders. Even after we consented, he made impatient gestures and left before everybody at the table had finished ordering.

He made a point to come back, that is, after we glared at him enough to melt a glacier. But he was poker-faced, resolutely oblivious to his impudence.

It's a pity that such a veritable palais du cuisine should be marred by the lack of something so basic. In retrospect, previous qualms about the lighting (spotlights from extremely high ceilings?) seem so petty in comparison.

That said, over the long-term Bawakaraeng may well trump all the current stars in Kemang, which opened noisily but will likely disappear in a few years or two. Its inspired dishes, cooked with care and passion, are enough reason to turn a blind eye to pouty and recalcitrant waiters. For now, at least.

Our bill came to Rp 108,000 for three, and it definitely paid to focus only on the food and the homey ambience.

-- Epicurus