Krystyna Krassowska wants to take tourists and locals alike off Indonesia's well-tread tourist paths with her expedition guides. And do it safely and professionally. She talked to Bruce Emond.
 
Many of us have lost that loving feeling for the job at hand, if we ever had it in the first place. We envy the lucky individuals who get to do what they want in life, those who go it alone to forgo the usual home-work-home cycle to pursue what makes them happy.

Need an adventurous culinary experience? Put on your comfy shoes and casual clothes and head to the capital's long-standing food stalls to taste authentic Jakarta cuisines from tempo doeloe (the olden days).

Gado-gado Bonbin
If you love vegetable dishes, you can try Gado-gado Bonbin, which has delighted food lovers for 48 years, on Jl. Cikini IV, Central Jakarta. Bonbin is short for kebon binatang, or zoo, because the street was formerly called Jl. Kebon Binatang where the old zoo stood.

Lanny Wijaya, 78, established the food stall in 1960 because of her passion for gado-gado. "I started the business by selling es cendol (a chilled and sweetened coconut milk drink with jellied sweets) to students in the area because the stall is near schools," Lanny told The Jakarta Post recently.  "I later decided to make gado-gado to sell. I was delighted when so many people liked it," she said.

She claimed her peanut sauce was tastier than others because she fried the peanuts with very little oil. She sells a plate of gado-gado (a hefty portion), for Rp 19,000 (US$2).

You can also order other dishes: lontong cap gomeh is steamed rice cake with coconut-braised chicken, nasi rames is rice with many side dishes and asinan Betawi is pickled vegetables.

Gado-gado Bonbin, serving daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., has been getting positive responses from Jakartans. Citra, who works at an office nearby the stall, said she often bought the gado-gado for lunch.

"Two years ago, my office mates recommended this stall to me, saying it had the best gado-gado in town. They're right. I like the peanut sauce. The price is a bit expensive, but it's worth it," said Citra.

Mi Ayam Gondangdia
Perhaps you have already tasted gado-gado and need something more adventurous. You can go to Mi Ayam Gondangdia Lama on Jl. R.P. Soeroso (formerly Gondongdia Lama) also in Central Jakarta about 200 meters from Gado-gado Bonbin.

Called Godila for short, the noodle stall specializes in Mi Ayam, or chicken and noodles.

Established by the late Kurniadi in 1968, it used to be a popular hang-out for junior and senior high school students from SMP 1 Cikini and SMA 1 Jalan Batu.

Ari, a former student, said the stall was memorable because he sometimes took his girlfriend there.

"Last time I came here was about eight or nine years ago. I remember the noodles were great and today they still taste just the same. The fried wonton is also yummy," said Ari, 37, who came to the place for lunch with a couple of friends.

Mi Godila offers not only many noodle dishes -- wonton meatball noodles, fried wonton noodles, chicken mushroom noodles and beef with black pepper noodles -- but also Chinese food. You can sample cap cay, or mixed vegetables; sapo tahu, or tofu with sweet sauce; and fried rice.

The prices range from Rp 7,500 to Rp 48,000.

"We offer various dishes, but chicken and noodles remains the favorite item. We use more than 40 kilograms of noodles every day," said Ayong, one of the staff. Mi Godila serves daily from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Soto Betawi Bang Madun
If you like soup, then try out another Jakarta tradition, soto Betawi, a hearty beef soup with a coconut milk base. A popular one is Soto Betawi Bang Madun on Jl. Barito, South Jakarta. The late Madun, who started his business in 1960, was an itinerant soto vendor before setting up a curbside stall on Jl. Barito.

Madun's son, Malik, and Malik's wife Siti Fatimah, took over the business when Madun died in 1989. Customers said what made the soto special was the peanut sauce.  "Soto Bang Madun is pretty different than any other because the peanut sauce is tasty and thick," said Ardi, 33, a customer.

Siti Fatimah said she cooked up as much as 50 kilograms of beef each day to make more than 250 portions of soto.  A bowl of soto plus rice costs Rp 16,000. Chips made from melinjo or Gnetum gnemon, called emping, come with the soto. Soto Bang Madun is open daily from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. It also has a branch in Ciledug, Banten.

Sop Sapi Berkah
The famous Sop Sapi Berkah (Berkah beef soup), located on Jl. Jeruk Purut in Cipete, South Jakarta, began serving Jakartans in 1970.

You can order a large portion of beef soup costing Rp 27,000 or a small one for Rp 22,000. You can also try their side dishes like pepes ikan (fish wrapped in banana leaves), fried tofu or tempeh and emping.

The stall developed a loyal following including public figures, said Rohis, 55, the stall owner. "I've noticed many similar beef soup stalls try to imitate mine, but I don't care. Because I believe plenty of customers will keep coming to my stall to taste my soup," said Rohis, adding that income from the stall may make it possible for him to go on haj next year.

Some people even make a special trip from their offices or homes just to have lunch there. Edi, 53, traveled about 25 kilometers from his office in Kuningan, South Jakarta, to have a meal there. "Even though the price is high, I don't mind traveling far from my office to have lunch here with my friends. The soup is so delicious and the service is good," Edi said.

Sop Sapi Berkah is open daily, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Triwik Kurniasari and Maulina Sartika Pravitasari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Are you eager to embark on a bit of culinary traveling this holiday season? Why not start somewhere closer to home? After all, Jakarta makes a great place for starting your own culinary journey. The city offers an endless variety of local and international cuisines for the whole family to sink their teeth into - provided you know where to look!

One specific group of food enthusiasts that should feel right at home in Jakarta is Japanese food fans. The capital is laden with hundreds of eateries serving Japanese delicacies such as sushi/sashimi or green tea ice cream. Yet another Japanese food variant low in fat and cholesterol content is shabushabu, a fact that the Shabu Shabu House restaurant at eX Entertainment Center would be keen to share with foodies all around.

Shabu Shabu House represents the hottest new taste and value in town, with specialties such as top-quality Kobe and Wagyu beef imported straight from Japan as well as US prime cuts and a variety of New Zealand and Australian cuts. For those who prefer not to eat meat, there are prawns and fi sh selections to gobble down, especially tasty with the eatery's new hot Kimchi shabu-shabu soup.

The shabu-shabu restaurant sports a modern minimalist interior with wooden accents. Its friendly and knowledgeable restaurant manager is always on hand to recommend great dishes for the family. Some of the more popular dishes here are Agedashi Tofu, grilled Shitake Maki, Shabu Shabu Kobe Beef, and of course the refreshing green tea and ogura (red bean) ice cream.

If your family fi nds sushi the most appetizing, one of the latest sushi bars to make a bold culinary statement in town is the one at the Buddha Bar in Menteng. Refreshingly comfortable and contemporary, the Sushi Bar at Buddha Bar serves sashimi, hand-rolled sushi and special creations from the resident sushi chef.

Not only sushi, Buddha Bar's restaurant serves a menu of Pan-Asian cuisine comprising everything from Chinese, Thai to Vietnamese picks. Signature dishes here include Buddha Bar Chicken Salad, Tuna with sesame and Shitake Vinaigrette, Filet Mignon "Teppan Yaki" style, Five Spices Grilled Chicken, and Lacquered duck and fresh Mango Soup.

Nine private rooms for up to 24 persons are also available within the restaurant for guests who prefer a more intimate gathering with family and friends. After tasting the best that Japanese food has to offer, the next item on our culinary journey agenda is to sample some good-old Down Under goodness at Outback Steakhouse. Outback has over 800 outlets worldwide including two in Jakarta, namely at Ratu Plaza and Pondok Indah Mall 1. At Outback, the walls are festooned with boomerangs, Aboriginal art and other items from the great Outback. Needless to say, this steakhouse gets many of its inspirations from the movie Crocodile Dundee.

Outback is a casual, family-friendly eatery serving high quality steak seasoned and seared to perfection. American-sized steaks are fl at grilled just like they do in Australia during a barbecue. Other must-tries include Cheese Fries, Alice Springs Chicken, and the delectably sinful dessert Chocolate Thunder from Down Under.

What's next on the checklist? Food lovers would attest that one could never go wrong with Chinese. And if you're looking for an all-out Chinese culinary experience, the Harmony Garden Restaurant in Gading Serpong is just the place to go. Harmony Garden is a unique Chinese restaurant serving a menu of around 1,000 Chinese dishes that are constantly updated to be on a par with their counterparts in China. The restaurant also has a dedicated floor of VIP rooms with built-in digital karaoke system, perfect for all kinds of meals and occasions. So, what are you waiting for? Simply pack up the whole family and enjoy the best culinary treats that the capital has up its sleeve!

Andrea Tejokusumo, THE JAKARTA POST

For one group of Jakarta residents, Saturday night was the night when the city's former colonial grandeur appeared to return to life, if only for a few hours.Saturday's night museum tour by the group Sahabat Museum (Museum Friends) gave around 180 participants in Kota, West Jakarta, a window back to the 17th century, when the Dutch ruled and the city went by a different name: Batavia.

Sahabat Museum coordinator Ade Purnama said the community held its tours to teach the younger generation about Jakarta's history. ""It's good to know your own history, the history of Jakarta in particular, instead of always going to malls and ending up finding boredom there,"" he said. Museum security guards, standing at the entrance to Bank Mandiri wearing old-style military uniforms and carrying rifles, greeted guests on their arrival.

Sixty-two-year-old Woro Dhewati Soeparto said she was thrilled at the chance to go along with the tour. ""I'm an adventurer and I'm so excited about being here. It's not only the history of Jakarta I'm curious about, but also the scenery of the buildings around here at night,"" she said. Woro, who has lived on North Jakarta's Jl. Angke since 1930, was one of several older guests who joined the tour to get in touch with their feelings of nostalgia. Yvonne, 77, said she came along after being invited by her daughter, and said she was amazed by the memories that hit her before the tour even started. ""I'm recalling what it was like in the past, comparing what the bank is like now to what it was like (then),"" she said.

""There was a time when the bank's employees were very active. There were also so many Dutch employees here. But the bank is so quiet now,"" said Yvonne, who has lived in Jatinegara, East Jakarta, for her entire life.

The bank was established on Feb. 27, 1826, by the Dutch, who named it Factorij and made it the first local arm of the Netherlands-based Nederlandsche Handel Maatschappij (NHM). In 1960, 15 years after the Indonesia declared its independence, the bank was nationalized, ending its days as the bank for colonial planters once and for all. The government changed Factorij's name to the Cooperative Bank for Farmers and Fishermen, an institution focused on exports and imports. In 1968, the government changed the bank's name to Bank Ekspor Impor. In 1999, the bank changed its name again to Bank Mandiri, which was born after Bank Ekspor Impor, Bank Dagang Negara, Bank Bumi Daya and Bank Pembangunan Indonesia were merged together into a single state-owned institution.

Standing on 10,039 square meters of land with 21,000 square meters of floor-space, the bank remains a silent testament to the march of time. The building's most remarkable feature is it's 924-square-meter safe room.

After Bank Mandiri, the next stage of trip was a convoy of two-seater bikes driven by local bicycle taxi drivers. The bicycle rides took 10 minutes in thick traffic to reach the next stop on the tour, North Jakarta's Maritime Museum.

Standing on the edge of the port of Sunda Kelapa, the Maritime Museum is made up of antique buildings still standing at this once-great international port, including the historic Syah Bandar tower.

The 135-meter tower was initially built in 1600s and renovated in 1839, according to Bank Mandiri Museum historian Kartum Setiawan. Local people compare the tower, he said, to the famous Leaning Tower of Pisa for its own precarious tilt toward a main street. According to Kartum, the tower's off-kilter angle is the result of a combination of unstable foundations and the vibrations of passing buses and trucks.

""The tower will definitely collapse one day if no immediate action is taken,"" he said. The tower, he said, was a watch tower operated by the then Verenigde Ost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) -- the Dutch East India Company. Participants were then taken to Jakarta's poultry market bridge, a three minute bicycle ride from the Maritime Museum. Kartum said the bridge, which was built in 1628, once led directly to the poultry market.

Sitting in a state of disrepair, the wooden bridge crosses the Kali Besar River, which, in the days before cars, was one of the city's main thoroughfares. The bridge, Kartum said, was once an important connection between the east of the river, where the Dutch Embassy was located, to the west of the river, where England had its embassy.

"The bridge is now called the Jembatan Kota Intan (Diamond City Bridge) because it is where a fortress called Benteng Intan (Diamond Fortress) once stood,"" he said.

The journey took the participants back to the Bank Mandiri Museum where they enjoyed a live Keroncong Tugu music performance. Kartum said Keroncong Tugu's melodious songs were influenced by Portuguese marooned in the village of Kampung Tugu in Marunda, North Jakarta. The history of Kampung Tugu began, he said, when the VOC defeated the Portuguese in the Malacca straight, taking the vanquished Portuguese as prisoners and slaves.

""The VOC freed the Portuguese in 1700s after (the Portuguese), who were Catholics, converted to Protestantism -- the religion of most Dutch,"" he said. ""(The Portuguese) and their descendants have lived in Kampung Tugu in Marunda, Cilincing, since then."" The journey wrapped up with a history lecture on the Bank Mandiri Museum itself and the screening of a history documentary.

Mustaqim Adamrah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

For the past 25 years, 50-something Sachid, an operator at the West Setiabudi water reservoir in South Jakarta, has had to work 24 hours a day, five days a week. He never complains.

With a monthly paycheck of Rp 1.5 million (US$160), the father of five says the meager pay is not his main concern. What annoys him is how his efforts to maintain the reservoir have gone unnoticed by the city's public works agency.

"If any of the machines at the reservoir breaks down, it take weeks — even months — before anyone from the agency comes down here to fix it," Sachid said Saturday.

On this day, Sachid recounted his story to a group of city residents visiting the reservoir as part of a half-day tour of city's water resources.

Organized by the Jakarta Green Map community, Saturday's tour brought dozens of participants to the West Setiabudi reservoir and a 6-hectare lake in Ragunan Zoo, also in South Jakarta.

At both places, the tour participants not only learned about the history of the sites, but also the role they played in the water management system of the communities.

The Setiabudi reservoir, Sachid said, was built in the mid-1970s. It takes in wastewater and rainwater from Menteng and Kuningan, thereby preventing flooding these two upscale residential and commercial areas, respectively, particularly during the wet season.

In 2004, the government installed three machines at the reservoir to filter out solid trash and channel the water into the Ciliwung River.

Since 2007, though, two of the machines, along with the lone backup power generator, have broken down, forcing the operators to use the last machine very carefully.

"When the machine begins making a cracking sound, we turn it off immediately then start it up again later," Sachid said, much to the surprise of the tour participants.

After touring the reservoir, the group then took a Transjakarta bus to Ragunan Lake, the biggest lake at the eponymous zoo.

On the walk to the lake, the tour guides pointed out several tree species that were once common in Jakarta but had since disappeared due to rapid land and lake conversion.

After listening to several presentations about Ragunan Lake and the city's water management system, the group ended the tour with lunch.

Jakarta Green Map coordinator Nirwono Joga said the community held the tour to educate the public about the importance of conserving lakes and reservoirs in the city.

"Most people think of the water management system as just something that goes on in the background," he said.

"By getting more and more people to look closely at that background, we hope to make them realize and understand why it's crucial to conserve water catchment areas like reservoirs and lakes."

The schedule for the community's tours is available at greenmap.co.id or through the mailing list greenmapjakarta@yahoogroups.com.

Tour participant Rina Purwaningsih said she was glad she had learned about water management.

A UNESCO staffer and resident of Cilandak, South Jakarta, Rina said the tour was a rare chance to explore the inner workings of the city's water management system.

Hasyim Widhiarto, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta