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Do you guys actually eat the breakfast provided by the hotel when on trips? For me, it’s really one of those situation where I have mixed feelings. Because on one hand I really want to go out onto the streets and whack the kind of breakfast that the locals have everyday. On the other hand, the free breakfast provided by the hotel can be quite yummy….yet usually they don’t serve what the local eats but some kind of westerner’s breakfast like sausages, ham, eggs etc etc which I can eat in Singapore any time. It’s really one of those situations where I have to decide by tossing a coin.
But then again, in Indonesia, there isn’t a lot of choice for breakfast except some Kuehs or some kind of soupy stuff like they call it Mee Bakso. Well Bakso means balls and things like beef balls with noodle soup is quite popular here as far I can see. But really I can’t see how it’s comparable to our soupy stuff like Bak Chor Mee or Kuay Teow Soup. Well I guess soupy stuffs need a bit of getting used to and I can imagine Indonesians coming to Singapore and thinking our own Bak Chor Mee looking strange too.
Anyway when we were in Bandung, due to the fact that we had to check out early(we wanted to have more time to see the city before we leave for Jakarta), I didn’t have to toss any coin because the markets were probably not opened yet at that hour. So we happily headed to the breakfast lounge and were surprised to be greeted by Indonesian kind of breakfast.
I took a plate of chips with a piece of Ayam(chicken) and a bowl of Burbur(porridge).
Well if you’re wondering, yes people here do eat chips as part of a meal, I’m not exactly sure if it’s a side dish or staple but in most food places, they have a tray of chips and they can actually order it and eat it on their rice. Well it didn’t tasted too funny really to eat chips with porridge. It goes quite well actually, with the crispiness of the chips soaking into gluey porridge before it goes into my mouth. Now if this thing ever become famous in Singapore, then you read it from here first, Ok?
Back to Jakarta, one of my last meals here, I requested to whack the Ayam(Chicken). So I was brought to this restaurant called Pondol which is somewhere in a sleepy town called Grogol which is somewhere in the West Jakarta.
Now after lamenting how tiny the chicken pieces here were, in one of my last few opportunities, I decided to order everything at one go. Ayam Goreng(Fried Chicken), Ayam Bakar(Grilled Chicken) and Ayam Satay.
This place is really famous for it’s Ayam as I was told. During lunch time, you can really see the crowd just appearing out of no where and the staffs were just really busy getting all the orders and delivering food to tables. That’s the kind of sign that really tells me that people are all coming here for good reasons.
The Ayam here was quite alright except that I was faced with a new situation. I can barely tell which is the Ayam Goreng and which is Ayam Bakar.
They both came with the crunch that made our Ayam Penyet popular here and both doesn’t look grilled or fried. Anyway so now you can see that the crunch that we’re so familiar with when eating Ayam Penyet isn’t quite that native to Ayam Penyet. It’s just one of those things that they can add it to any Ayam dishes.
Ayam Bakar: 7/10  
The Ayam here was good which somewhat tasted more like honey chicken. The Goreng(crunch) wasn’t as fantastic though, tasted more like tiny pieces of deep fried flour. Nothing much to rave about.
While i was at it, I ordered a Gado Gado to go along and I must say that it’s totally different from what I know of Gado Gado and far from what I expected. First they don’t use satay or peanut sauce but a kind of chilli sauce to toss the entire plate of vegetables.
Gado Gado: 6/10
No sign of beancurd, egg or cucumber but yet with some strange vegetables which I can’t recognised, not an iota. Well the whole plate looked more like Acar to me. As I know Acar is actually a form of salad and here, they called Gado Gado a salad dish, so maybe that’s the missing link.
The satay here was well above par. We requested that the sauce be poured at the side instead and for once I finally can see how nicely grilled were the satays and it not only looked good, it tasted fantastic too.
Ayam Sate: 7.5/10 
One thing about satay here though is that the satay sauce seems to have a lot lesser peanuts added into it. So something I can definitely say for sure is that our Singapore satay sauce taste much better.
Pondol came across as one of those kopitiam style eating outlet where they’re quite serious about delivering good food at affordable prices and the tremendous crowd at lunch time is a testament to that.
Price: SGD$1.50 per dish
Recommendation: Satay
Conclusion: Not only super cheap but authentic. The kind of eating place where you wouldn’t need to worry about being overcharged.
Likes: Satays were grilled to perfection.
Dislikes: Gado Gado doesn’t taste like Gado Gado.
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wow ! what a feast !
the satay is very tempting and might taste even better without the sauce.
the gado gado…. looks so-so only…. weird combination.
its their own style i guessed.
if I am in Jakarta one of these days, I can eat this meal every other day.
The satay there, they put in pieces of chicken skin between meats, you see the black black strips which is charred fats. I think to make it charred like that the fire has got to be bigger, definitely more ‘unhealthy’ than Singapore’s version.
Gado Gado taste really strange, I think they use Kangkong for it. Somehow kangkong looked different there.
this place very famous for student’s pocket around grogol area. near Trisakti and Tarumanagara Uni.
With that price the taste of the food ok lah =))
That’s what I was told as well. Quality was not bad. Do you know of a famous Bakmie around grogol as well?