In fabulous new feather at the Peacock cafe

JAKARTA (JP): Time was when Jakarta's finest showed their finery at the Peacock, the Jakarta Hilton's coffee shop. Rewind a decade, when fine hotels were few and far between, and the Peacock was the place to dine, check out other well-heeled diners and do one's own share of primping and preening.

At lunch or dinner, one might catch a glimpse of Guruh Soekarnoputra holding court, husky Wimar Witoelar tucking into some vittles or Juwono Sudarsono studiously perusing the menu at one of the banquets in the restaurant's back section.

A good place for celebrity spotting, but not necessarily the best venue in the city for delighting in cuisine from far or away. Especially its notorious buffet, a hodgepodge of Western and Asian food, but seemingly unable to get either right.

An indelible memory of a Peacock buffet from several years ago was a sampling of warmed-over potato croquettes (the thought still invites shudders) and the sight of what resembled frozen vegetables undergoing the process of dessication on a hot plate.

Frankly, the Peacock had gone to roost -- it had seen better days, like around 1976. With its crowds of diners weighed down by bouffant hairdos, safari suits and name-brand accessories in conspicuous prominence, it was tired, outdated and stodgy, a description which also pretty much summed up the fare.

Then, the competition arrived. Diners out were suddenly spoilt for choice in the gleaming hotels and theme restaurants which flourished in Jakarta before the incredibly dynamic economic gains were shown to be built on nothing more substantial than a wing and a prayer.

Through it all, the Hilton stuck stubbornly to its old- fashioned ways. For a long time, it could afford to: Hiltons all over the world are embraced by worrywart expatriates as havens of security and hygiene. They can coast on their collective reputation and still turn a tidy profit.

Thankfully, however, the Jakarta Hilton, albeit later rather than sooner, woke up to the need to do something a little different. And, more thankfully, this reform-mindedness, heralded in many an advertisement in this newspaper and others, is not as cosmetic as the nip and the tuck adorning the startled faces of its old guard of diners.

Swathed in the new addition lace curtains cocooning visitors at their tables and with the banquets replaced with leather sofas, the Peacock is showing dazzling new feathers (but poseurs will be glad to know that it's still mirrors, mirrors everywhere).

A victim of the wrecker's ball was the little delicatessen sandwiched between the restaurant and where the guest relations desk once was. Its replacement, a deli-cum-coffee shop, occupies contiguous space to the main restaurant, with a selection of take-out pastries, cakes and other deli goods, as well as dine-in sandwiches.

In proved to be a pleasant spot to relax with a delicious cup of Sumatran Mandailing coffee and enjoy a glance at international and local papers, the first indication that the Hilton, or its design team, knew what they were doing when they decided to sweep away the old for the new. The little touches, like the paper tag on the coffee cup telling how the coffee is grown, round out the experience.

Then it was onto the lunch buffet. Epicurus confesses to a heavy dose of skepticism before partaking of the selection, compounded by a colleague's so-so appraisal of the renovation. Yet, it proved to be a most pleasant shock to this diner's digestive system.

To paraphrase Henry Higgins, methinks the Hilton has finally got it, at least when it comes to focusing on a particular culinary theme -- Asian -- and sticking with it. Asia, from the soy-based cuisine of the North to the spicier climes of the South, may appear overly ambitious ground to cover in one buffet, but the objective comes off.

Served before the sparklingly clean cooking range with chefs cooking up a storm, the buffet is literally all over the place, from Indonesian favorites like jackfruit stewed in coconut milk, liver sauteed with potatoes and vegetable salad, to Thai fish cakes, chicken yakiniku, tandoori chicken, a lamb fried rice and even the bastardization of beef simmered in a traditional Balinese sauce.

The food looks and tastes fresh, with most of it prepared before diners' eyes. Once again, it is the little touches which win one over, from the sampling of condiments -- such as chutney, rait and Indonesian chili sauces, including one boasting pete, the ignominiously named "stinking" bean -- to jars filled with assorted local crackers.

Despite Epicurus' doubts, the Peacock proved to have changed for the better. The only bone which needs picking, however, was having a dirty plate left before me while legions of staff sashayed around seemingly oblivious to its presence. Still, at Rp 84,000, inclusive of tax and a cup of coffee, the renovated Peacock was well worth the trip through Asia's culinary pleasures.

-- Epicurus