The secret of shopping odysseys

JAKARTA (JP): Hans used to tease me about my shopping because I go distances to save money. I go to a shop downtown because the milk in that shop is Rp 500 less expensive than in the shop near my house. I'd rather travel from one end of Jakarta to the other than to give away Rp 500 for free.

However, Hans travels in all directions in Jakarta when it comes to shopping for his dinner parties. Once I decided to go with him on one of his shopping odysseys, but of course Hans had his objections. I coerced him to bring me by saying that he must share his secrets with his friends, otherwise if anything happens to him those secrets would be buried with him.

So one morning, a few days before his birthday party, we set out for Glodok, the Chinatown of Jakarta, where all the spices and ingredients for Chinese menus are available. Hans went to one of the stalls and started choosing things he wanted to buy, all the while grumbling about the poor quality. When he had everything together in a heap he started to bargain for the price. The woman calculated the amount and said, "Rp 75,000 for everything." Whereupon Hans showed his indignation and shouted, "What? 75? The most I am willing to give you is 50." A negotiation followed, in which the woman was willing to come down Rp 5,000 and Hans increased his offer to Rp 55,000. The negotiation then came to an abrupt halt as Hans suddenly disappeared into a crowd.

The woman told me he would be back soon and gave me directions to the place where he would be. I found him along a street where many food hawkers had their stalls. Hans was enjoying a meat dish with some satay. "I didn't have breakfast this morning," he said. He was certainly hungry, because after finishing the dish he went to another stall to order something else.

I suddenly spotted an old friend of mine, now a CEO of a multinational company. "So, you come here to eat too?" he asked me. "Best food in the world, whenever I am in this part of Jakarta, I come here and enjoy!"

My mouth fell open. Now, here is a man, whose office is within walking distance to some of the best dim sum places in the world, as well as chic and elegant Thai, Japanese, Vietnamese and American restaurants, and he comes here to eat at this muddy place where beggars prey on leftovers. But watching Hans eat made me feel hungry, too, so I settled for a bowl of tofu with brown sugar and ginger sauce, so delicious that I concluded that other dishes must be too. After finishing three bowls, Hans ordered tofu for desert and we walked back to the shop where the woman still had his goods put aside. It seemed that the food made him more lenient. He didn't bargain any further and just paid.

The next few days we went to places all over Jakarta to buy special foods, such as the Pluit fish market where we bought some nice, fresh seafood. Afterwards, Hans wanted to show me food stalls where the best food was served. "Try the stuffed tofu or the fishballs, which are so bouncy, you can play ping-pong with them". In another stall, we ate a bowl of noodles, this time from Belitung, with a thick meat sauce. Hans added a bowl of noodles from Medan with lots of seafood and from Pontianak with crab meat.

On the day of the party itself, we went to the Senen area, because Hans always buys fresh noodles and meat balls from a lady there. But again we did not stop where we had planned, because in a different shop we tasted some delicious otak-otak, a kind of grilled fish balls, and we also had some noodles served with beef tripe. After eating two bowls we finally went home with two doggie bags of lontong capgomeh (rice cooked in leaves with all the trimmings) and a portion of soft shell crab.

His cooking was delicious and all the guests enjoyed the good food and company. The spirits were high, but Hans didn't eat much and I may have been the only one who knew why.

-- Myra Sidharta