Loving spoonful of meat at Love's
JAKARTA (JP): A loving spoonful of meat at Love's restaurant/ Feasting to your heart's content at Love's restaurant/ Meat is a many splendored thing at Love's.
First impressions, of course, pack a powerful punch in luring a diner across the threshold into unfamiliar culinary territory. Or, for that matter, giving them the dietary heebie-jeebies and sending them off to chew the cud in tried-and-true dining pastures.
Which had been the case with Love's, a corner restaurant in the section of Taman Ria Senayan fronting Jl. Gatot Subroto, Central Jakarta. Heralded by its blood-red logo of a voluptuous heart, it gave this diner images of a corner cafe where teenagers could run helter-skelter, with raging hormones and unrelenting parental indulgence letting them play at being rebels without a cause.
Yet, after numerous visits over the past two years to other restaurants in the complex, Love's presented an intriguing proposition. At the strategically chosen low-intensity period of a weekday lunch, Epicurus ventured in to sample its vittles.
Decor? Except for the jarring sight of a stage in the center (there is a band in the evening), it was generally understated. The bar area leads off to the open plan of the restaurants, with low-seated rattan chairs and tables. Fringing the wall above the window views of the complex's manmade lake are several throw rugs showing a Native American warrior, spear poised at the ready.
"Cheesy," mused dining companion as he took in the aforesaid chief, although Middle American kitsch may be a better description.
The restaurant proved to be a meat market all right, but only in the sense of a dining establishment where carnivores get to feast to their heart's content -- and peril -- on assorted steaks, ribs and poultry.
It is down-home style cooking, if home was on the range in a farming community in the Midwest of the United States. There are no fried cheese balls, patty melts or deep-fried mushrooms on the menu, but other major comfort foods make an appearance.
Vegetarians, be warned. The menu is a copious paean to the devilish delights of flesh, including a rather startling photo of what resembled a mini wagon, groaning under the weight of various slabs of chicken, cow and other hoofed animals.
Choices were the Barbecue Beef Platter, with side orders of creamed spinach and barbecued beans, plus the Double Chicken Breast, accompanied by a baked potato and beans.
The heaped portions will not disappoint hearty diners, although others of more modest appetites may be overwhelmed by the feast trundled before them and the daunting task of finishing it all off, which is, after all, what a doggy bag is for.
We liked the food. The spiraling slivers of beef were tender and well-seasoned, and the chicken not overdone until rubbery. And we made a meal of our comfort-food appetizers.
Our only disappointment was the New York Cheesecake. Now, Epicurus, has had unfortunate experiences with this dish before, including one portion at a speciality restaurant where the "genuine" cake was so hard and cold that it must have been packed during a mighty cold winter in the Big Apple. Although Love's version was better than that sorry offering, it still lacked the crunchy Graham cracker crust as a stamp of authenticity.
Yet, unlike other restaurants of this ilk, Love's arrow is not aimed at saddling diners down with huge portions, with taste given scarcely a thought. Granted, Love's will not win any culinary awards for innovations in its field, but it is an eatery about filling diners up with good food, and sending them out the door with their money's worth (Rp 161,000, including a beer and coffee).
If you can stifle those jitters about venturing anywhere near the House of Representatives -- it is advisable to enter the Taman Ria complex through the entrance next to the TVRI compound -- then decide for yourself if Love's is such a many splendored thing.
-- Epicurus