Yup, so I missed the StreetFest cosplay event last Sunday at Suntec City as I was en route to Jakarta to conduct a four-day training session for our Indonesian end users. Got to see a bit of Terminal 3 as I was flying by Qatar Airways. The restrooms at the T3 boarding gates had huge glass panels where you could look out to see the planes as seen from the above pic of the SIA plane.
Flying to Jakarta from Singapore took less than 90 minutes plus the service on Qatar Airways was good as I was given copies of both Straits Times and the New Paper to read during the flight. Upon arrival I jumped into one of the hotel transfer cab services and was warned by the cab driver, who spoke to me in a combo of English and Bahasa, to stay in the hotel and not go out due to the protests and demonstrations on the streets held over the hike in fuel prices.
Heeding his words, I spent my Sunday night staying in at the Park Lane Hotel at Jalan Casablanca and decided to eat in. If you happen to stay there over the weekend, do check out Stix, the hotel's steakhouse as Sunday is steak night where you can have a good piece of steak at half price. For about 200,000 Rupiah (about S$30 or less), I had a large bread basket (consisting of a bread loaf, two cheese sticks and several bread pretzels) for starters, seafood chowder served in a huge bread bowl as shown above plus a 200g Australian rib eye with a bottle of natural mineral water to wash it all down.
Plus, the service at Stix was outstanding and the steak was cooked to perfection! Yum! As for the subsequent days, lunches and tea breaks were provided by the client which were cool take away Nasi Padang lunch boxes and boxes of assorted pastries and rissoles while dinner consisted of local fare from the cafe at the nearby condo estate. Also discovered that Indonesian coffee is addictively good.
So in conclusion, food wise, if you like spicy fare, Jakarta seriously rocks!
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