Have a Good Night! Enlighten Your Night with These Dinner Options in Jakarta

Good evening, guys. Such an exhausting day, isn't it? Well, hope you guys stay healthy and eating. If you are a student, I can make sure this kind of words from the lecturer, like "That is all for today, thank you for your attention and see you on the next class" was the 'happy ending' right? Especially when the class ended in the late afternoon or around 5 to 6 pm, that words sound 'powerful' for the student.

There are lots of activities that you can do after campus. Maybe, some of them choose to play video game with their friends, have dating (for someone who already have girlfriend or boyfriend), or having their own ' me time' such as sleeping, have a small trip, watch cinema, or even have a delicious dinner to make their day be enlightened in the darkest night. All choices are good, but if you choose having dinner, it is a wise choice to end your day. By having dinner, at least we able to being thankful for the small things in our life, especially when we are still capable to buy food for dinner. There is a hope to make us survive when we smell and taste the comforting food.

But yeah, sometimes problem is real. How often do we feel confused because we don't know what we want to eat in the dinner, right? So, in this blog, let me help you guys with my 5 foods suggestion in Jakarta, because the answer of "it's up to you" quite annoying when we were frustrated and exhausted.

Nasi Bebek

Nasi Bebek

Nasi Bebek are the Indonesian words that refer to a plate of rice that served with fried duck and sambal (Indonesian processed chili). Duck is a very common and affordable food in Jakarta. You can find nasi bebek easily starts from the streetside stalls/carts until the restaurants. In my opinion, duck is special because it tastes juicier, savorer, and the skin is thicker than chicken. You can find several variations of nasi bebek in Jakarta, the original one, Chinese style, and Madura style. 

The original nasi bebek is literally just fried duck with less seasoning. It is a classic and very popular simple dish. You can easily find original nasi bebek mostly at the streetside stall. If you like to taste the strong flavor, I will recommend you try my favorite kind of duck, there is Madura-style's nasi bebek (nasi bebek Madura). Basically, nasi bebek Madura is an original fried duck, but the additional authentic Maduranese spices makes this food different. The combination of the spices, rice, and sambal hit the tongue so different, you need to try by yourself. Then, last but not least, the Chinese style, which give you savory and little sweet flavor. Chinese-style duck usually is not fried, so this option is healthier even though the price of this kind of duck is expensive. 

Bamboo Patin

Patin Bambu

Even though Indonesia is an archipelago country, we don't just eat fishes from the sea. We also consume the fishes comes from river. One of the popular river fish that have consumed here is shar catfish or in Indonesia we call "Patin". As I know from my grandma about Patin, she said about the tricky process of this fish. If you are using wrong technique to cook Patin, it will smell so terrible. Despite the fishiness, if the fish well-cooked, this fish is very delicious.

There are several ways to enjoy this fish, but the popular one is soup. Several people are cooking this fish covered with yellow spices soup or pindang (spices food with the darker colour). But I and my family visited Taman Mini in Jakarta and found Patin that grilled with spices, aromatic, and covered by the giant bamboo. It tasted so great. The fish's flesh was juicy and not fishy, you also can feel the smokiness from the skin of the fish, the spices flavor also rich but not really strong. This kind of menu is very suitable to eat with family, friends, with a lot of rice. 

Nasi Goreng

Nasi Goreng

Nasi Goreng (Indonesian fried rice) is a remaining way when you have no more option to eat. This food also the most popular in Indonesia. It contains proteins like chicken, egg, sausage, meatball, crackers, and vegetables. In my district called Kalideres, West Jakarta, we can find more than 5 stalls that sell nasi goreng. Most of nasi goreng in Jakarta is Javanese style nasi goreng with sweet and savory flavor, but it is still enjoyable.

If I can suggest you, you can try the streetside's fried rice because the price is affordable. For the new innovation to eating nasi goreng, you can request to the cook to mix the rice also with noodle and kwetiau (rice flour noodle) in the pan. It will bring you the new sensation of eating fried rice. It will give the chewiness texture from the kwetiau and extra savory with the noodle. Extra delicious. 

Nasi Padang

Nasi Padang

Nasi Padang is a dish originally comes from Padang City, West Sumatra. Same as Nasi Goreng, Nasi Padang is also very popular in Indonesia. Nasi Padang's concept essentially similar with buffet, which means you can choose varieties of Minang's food you want to eat, like beef rendang, egg, cassava leaf, and many more. More foods you choose, more expensive your food would be. 

Fortunately, Nasi Padang's restaurant provides cheap package. Start from 13.000 rupiah, you will get beef rendang, jackfruits gulai (spices mixed with coconut milk), and cassava leaf with a big portion rice. You also can add another sauce freely as long as the sauces are available, like gulai or rendang. Nasi Padang is a perfection if you love the strong flavour.

Chicken Briyani

Palestinian Chicken Briyani

This is absolutely not an Indonesian food, because I ate this in a Palestinian restaurant called Emados Shawarma near my house. Yes, because I love strong flavor food, and for me the taste of chicken briyani here is perfect. The chicken are so juicy and flavorful, especially the rice also has good aromatic and rich of spices. You guys need to try this.

So, these are my recommendation to have dinner in Jakarta. Hope you guys enjoy your evening! Good night :)