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