Skip your breakfast and take a trip to Bogor
Skip your breakfast and take a trip to Bogor
BOGOR, West Java (JP): When my friend W suggested a
gastronomic tour of Bogor, I was dubious. "Don't have any
breakfast," she ordered. I ignored her advice and tucked into my
cardboard breakfast flakes.
As a child, W spent time with her grandmother who lived in
Bogor, so she bought a local perspective to our wanders. We
circumnavigated the famous Botanical Gardens to Gang Aut, Jl.
Suryakencana, stopping at Ngo Hiang just before the unfathomably
popular Dunkin' Donuts. Food was cooked on a pikulan (traditional
portable stove) between the shop entrance and the street curb.
W ordered and shooed me inside to a table. The interior had an
unusual scrubbed look. The service was fast. We tried Pangsit
Penganten, a clear chicken soup, shredded cabbage and sliced
chicken served with glass noodles and delicious fried wontons.
Ngio hiang was next up: a pork roll in a crunchy fried envelope
with a spicy peanut sambal and pickled vegetables. Then lumpia
basah. These are the mothers of all spring rolls: a very thin-
skinned crepe bundle of finely chopped egg and sauteed
vegetables. (A meal in itself)
Our bill, including drinks, came to Rp 21,000. The restaurant
closes at 3 p.m. -- presumably because all the food sells out.
The famous garden was our next stop. W drew my attention to
the small black fish in the pond which are served up at her
workplace for lunch. In the gardens we saw couples sitting
directly under screeching vampire bats and stopped to read
graffiti etched all over a cactus plant, all the while working up
an appetite.
I have heard of people traveling from Bogor to Jakarta for a
meal, but W used to play hooky from school and take a bus to
Bogor to satisfy her cravings for delicacies served at Cholenak
on Jl. Suka Mulya II/20. The street has narrow un-Kijangable
roads and as we approached, a brown sugar treacly aroma,
recalling toffee-making days, filled the air.
W ordered and made a halfhearted apology for the ramshackle
appearance of the verandah-covered area. "But it is homely," she
said. One would think so after coming here for 20 years!
At one stage during the cooking process, the owner and cook
Pak Hasim ran down the street to take a telephone call at a
neighbor's house.
We sat on wooden benches around a rickety table and enjoyed
Pak Hasim's interpretation of es kelapa muda: slices of young
coconut in a mocha-flavored syrup. The baked corn was not your
usual Puncak fare, but char-grilled corn kernels in a sweet and
sour sauce. For dessert we had pisang bakar and tape bakar --
chunks of sweet fried banana and fermented cassava, with strips
of young coconut in a brown sugar sauce.
After we settled the bill (Rp 14,000), Pak Hasim knocked down
some lengkeng (longan) from a tree in the front, while W helped
herself to a sawo (sapodilla) also from out front. The brown-
skinned fruit looks like a small potato, but has a glorious honey
taste.
Our final destination was the Food Station Meridiun on Jl.
Sukasari. Behind the counter were 10 or so young people spooning
chunks of fruit in a red liquid into plastic bags. "This is
Bogor's version of the West Java speciality asinan," said W.
Asinan is pickled vegetables or fruit. I chose the fruit
version. Back home, following W's instructions, I poured the
pickled fruit and vegetable chunks (young papaya, sweet potato,
pineapple, young mangoes and salak) into a bowl. I added the
peanuts (packed separately in the bag) and then crunched up a
krupuk keriting (curly chip). The complex mixture of textures and
tastes made it the best Indonesian snack I have tried.
So if shopping malls and seedy steak house pubs have palled,
skip breakfast and take a trip to Bogor.
-- Epicurus