WORLD CAFE ASIA

World Café Asia: Jakarta, Indonesia

Presenter: Bobby Chinn

Over 10 million people live in Jakarta, and it's a city where you'll find stark contrasts between the modern and traditional, rich and poor. High rise buildings sit alongside Dutch colonial buildings whilst shopping malls jostle for position within a rich culture of street food.

In this episode Bobby Chinn cooks 3 local dishes, the most famous being Indonesia's favourite Gado-Gado - a tofu and green salad flavoured with roasted peanut sauce, Semur Daging - a spicy slow cooked beef curry inspired by Dutch cuisine, and lastly Bakso - a popular beef ball soup as introduced by the Chinese. Bobby also visits Asia's largest mosque, explores Jakarta's historic Sunda Kelapa Harbour, takes a ride with local antique bicycle enthusiasts, and explores myriad means to get around the local traffic jams from rollerblades to heli-limo.

In the first part of the show Bobby visits Istiqlal Mosque, the largest Mosque in Asia. 90% of Indonesians profess to being of Muslim faith, in fact Indonesia has the world's largest Muslim population. The Mosque here is so vast covering 9.5 hectares it can accommodate up to 61,000 people. Bobby visits at one of its busiest times, Friday's call to prayer. Outside the mosque Bobby finds a hawker selling one of Jakarta's oldest street dishes Kerak Telor.

Then it's off to market to buy the ingredients for Gado-Gado which Bobby cooks outside a popular Gado-Gado café. The secret to a really good Gado-Gado is in the peanut sauce and Bobby prepares his own variation using crushed roasted peanuts, water, chillies, garlic, sugar, tamarind sauce, salt, and coconut cream.

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Next up Bobby sets off to explore the historic harbour area, Sunda Kelapa. Indonesia is made up of over 17,000 islands and the harbour here in Jakarta has a long history that stretches back to include Hindu and Arab Kingdoms, the spice trade, and 300+ years of Dutch colonial rule that ended in 1945.

At the Maritime Museum, one time home of the Dutch East India Company, Bobby joins local cook Arletta Danisworo to make her favourite dish, Semur Daging. The thing which differentiates this beef stew, from a Dutch beef and potato stew, is the liberal use of spices. Following on with the Dutch theme, Bobby joins the Ontel bicycling community who get together once a month to celebrate old bikes and dress up in period costume. They stop off for Ristaffel, meaning "rice table", a banquet that the Dutch invented to showcase the variety of Indonesian cooking.

Traffic is a major problem in Jakarta, and to circumvent the problem the Indonesian traffic police are currently road testing a new solution: roller blade police. They are gracious enough to let Bobby join them in action at rush hour. Next up, Bobby tries yet another means to beat the traffic - limo-bike - a safer alternative to motorbike taxi, which comes complete with helmet, yellow vest and a hair net.

Back off the streets and Bobby joins local chef Budhi at Restaurant Bakso to cook popular street dish: Bakso, a beef ball noodle soup. The Chinese brought fish and pork ball soups, but being a Muslim country, the Indonesians have come up with their own version.

In the final part of the show Bobby finds out about the lives of Jakarta's elite, visiting at an upscale modern art gallery. The programme ends with Bobby and foodie fashionista, Gwen Winarno sampling the variety of street food at Sabang Street night markets.

But wait... there's more! There is one way of getting around the Jakarta traffic problem that Bobby has yet to try, its called the heli-limo! Bobby takes off in a helicopter James Bond style from the roof of one of Jakarta's high rise, sipping a glass of champagne whilst the busy streets below gradually disappear from view.

Bakso
Gado Gado
Semur Daging