O'Hagan's Pub a spot of genuine Irish green
JAKARTA (JP): Despite the fact that it was only a few weeks ago that your reviewer was bemoaning the lack of a true Irish pub in this great metropolis, he is now pleased to be in a position to report to all the Guinness guzzlers out there that this lamentable situation has been addressed.
The capital is now home to O'Hagan's Pub, a green-as-cabbage Irish pub that with a bit of fine-tuning and filling out will be capable of going the distance with the best of them. According to our bartender, a mine of information if ever there was one, it had originally been planned to open the pub around the time of the May 1998 riots but that the plan was postponed for obvious reasons (the now refurbished Slipi Plaza across the street was looted and gutted in the mayhem).
Things are now, however, looking much brighter, he informed us (perhaps O'Hagan's knows something that we don't!), with the bar's recent soft opening.
Location: Hotel Menara Peninsula, Jl. S. Parman, on the right hand side if you are heading from Jl. Gatot Subroto in the direction of Grogol.
Hours: 5 p.m. daily until 1 a.m. Sunday to Thursday, and 2 a.m. Friday and Saturday, depending on the crowd. Happy Hour is from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. every day and gives you a 50 percent discount on draught beers (currently confined to Bintang), but not on spirits.
What's it got: The usual beers, and premium and regular spirits, with the promise that they are going to soon have Guinness and Kilkenny Irish Lager on tap. This immediately brings to mind promises made by certain other "Irish" pubs in Jakarta to get the black stuff installed some years ago, promises which have, unfortunately, remained unfulfilled. However, our bartender assured us that the kegs were already there and it was only a matter of waiting for FedEx to deliver the pouring equipment from Singapore. So, at this stage it would appear that it's just a matter of putting our feet up and biding our time a little bit longer.
Bill, please: O'Hagan's is pretty much unique in Jakarta in that it serves draught beer up in pint and half-pint glasses (the traditional measures in Ireland and Britain). A pint of Bintang draught will set you back Rp 32,000 while a half-pint goes for Rp 18,000. Meanwhile, a pint of Irish Guinness or Kilkenny lager (when they eventually come on stream in the, hopefully, not too distant future), will set you back Rp 50,000, or Rp 32,500 for a half-pint.
For a premium mix, that is a premium spirit such as Johnny Walker Black Label and a mixer, be prepared to cough up Rp 40,000. Given these prices, a 10 percent service charge and the ubiquitous government tax, O'Hagan's is by no means cheap (the prices are higher than they are in Ireland, for God's sake), so if you're planning a major shindig, make sure you bring your gold card along!
Here's looking at you: The fact that O'Hagan's is located beside the basement parking lot far from the glitz of the hotel above could be a little off-putting to some punters, especially as it's not all that easy to find. However, any doubts evaporate once you spot the traditional Irish pub front, only to return ten-fold as soon as you walk in through the solid timber doors.
The problem, you see, is that this particular space wasn't designed to house a pub, which should be cozy and convivial (it was probably intended for a storeroom or even an extension to the parking lot). As a result, O'Hagan's at the moment is a long, cold and high-ceilinged barn of a place that on first appearances would be enough to make any red-blooded Irishman hightail it out of there quick smart except for the fact that he had come half way across town to get there in the first place.
However, we were later on in the evening informed by the manager that the pub's bleakness was due to the fact that half of the furniture and fittings had still to arrive from Ireland. So, as in the case of the draught Guinness and Kilkenny lager, delivery problems were at the root of the issue.
The bar itself, like the entire pub at the moment, is also long, rectangular and pretty spartan (more delivery problems) but certainly has the potential to become convivial if only they would dim the lights a bit, which when we were there were more like those to be found in a KGB interrogation cell than a bar. Directly across from the bar is a pretty large stage bedecked in Irish flags, and a dance floor that remained completely empty and forlorn-looking all through our visit, which was understandable as the band had only started to pipe up by the time we were leaving (around 10 p.m.).
As for decoration, it is confined to a few flags, a map of Ireland and some wall-plate advertisements. But again, we were assured that improvements were forthcoming pretty soon on the decor front.
Odds and ends: For those of you who find knocking back the pints for hours on end a tad monotonous, there's a beautiful little pool table as you come into the pub, and there's also a dart board tucked away in one of the few nooks to be found in the establishment. There's also music on offer every night (mostly easy listening and '60s, '70s and '80s hits -- no Techno we were told decisively), with the most interesting development here being the Monday night jam sessions when musicians are invited to bring along their gear and give it a whack. Sounds promising!
Last call: O'Hagan's the way it stands at the moment is a pretty exposed and frigid place with its white walls and penetrating lighting, somewhat akin to the inside of a refrigerator, in fact. However, we were assured that this is all set to change over the next few weeks in the run-up to the pub's grand opening, provided that the deliveries from Ireland and Singapore arrive on time, that is.
Let's hope that they do for, in reality, O'Hagan's has great potential to fill the void in Jakarta created by the lack of a genuine Irish hostelry. So, come on guys, get all that furniture in, put the Guinness on tap and turn down the lights a bit and, as they say in Ireland, you'll be on the pig's back, or in other words, you'll be laughing all the way to the bank! (Bill Blade)