Friday: Dinner at a "steakhouse." Meaning, some guy's house, where he happens to serve steak. No, really. Two weeks ago this was a nice house close to our office. One week ago, he opened for his inaugural night, and buys a bunch of steaks, chops a couple vegetables, throws them on his grill, and gives you a choice of three sauces to put on top. Not the biggest steak I've ever had, but pretty delicious, especially for a nation where steak isn't at the top of most menus. Oh, and this fresh Black Angus cost $10. Not bad at all. Throw in a couple of cold Bintangs, and it's officially Friday night. The entire French expat scene (or at least twenty of them) joined us in this guy's driveway for the meal, so if he's already this popular, this "restaurant" might actually turn into something. He might get sick of people traipsing through his living room to get to the bathroom, but I'm sure he'll work it out.
After dinner, Brian invited us to his birthday party at his apartment. We met his wife and their friends, and caught a glimpse of his adorable 4 month old daughter. For quite a bit less then my New York rent, he lives on the 9th floor of a high rise, with a balcony that overlooks Jakarta, airtight security, gym, pool, laundry, etc. Makes you want to become an ex-pat. Unfortunately because of my "curfew" (the gate is locked at 11 PM unless someone waits up for you), I had to leave before the candles were blown out on the cake so I didn't see what a true Indonesian birthday cake looks like.
Saturday, I went out first thing to try to find coffee. There is a Cafe de Vienna very close by, but it is unclear where the store is--the sign is above another sign for a ballet studio. However, I bravely walked into the lights-off-possible-ballet-studio to find a woman in a headscarf watching TV. She seemed slightly surprised to see me, but gave me a menu when I asked, which included iced coffee. While she was making it, I flipped through the menu and found three pages of different sausages--bratwursts, bacon, and so on,under the heading "pork sausages." I tried asking her if these were actually pork, but she didn't understand, so I decided to come back and try a different time. The whole place was a bit bizarre, and I am quite curious where these sausages come from, but it could be a nice way to bring myself out of pork withdrawal.
Skype failed me as soon as I finished explaining New York cheesecake with oreo crust to Alex and his mother. After finishing our conversation over the not-as-exciting gchat, I met Julia to go to the antique market, but while I was waiting for her, Hugh shows up on his way to go to a coffee shop he's been promising to show us for weeks. So once Julia arrives, we head to the mall (of course) where it is located, but by the time we get there, we are starving, and go to a place to get lunch instead. We decide to eat at this slightly Italian-looking restaurant called Pizza e Birra (Pizza and Beer). While Julia had two delicious looking iced cappuccinos and two delicious salads, Hugh and I order what we though (and what were described as) veggie and cheese calzones.
We get this: while it make look beautiful, it is actually very thin bread with some tomato sauce and an onion here and there smothered in sickly sweet balsamic vinaigrette. Not many veggies for a secret garden" pf vegetables. Oh, well. Probably will not be returning for the beer pong tournament.
After picking up iced coffee from Anomali, we finally headed out to the Jalan Surabaya antique market. Imagine a street with one side wall-to-wall small shops, alternating a few kinds: brass objects, wooden carved objects, china antiques (plates, vases, etc.) and batik/cloth/etc. Unfortunately for Julia, they ALL sold coins, and once she expressed interest in coins once they swarmed her like flies wherever she went. "I already bough coins, thank you" had absolutely no effect. I tried bargaining as hard as I had been warned to (literally sometimes cutting the price by a factor of ten) and it worked somewhat for me--I found a couple of beautiful hand painted brass teapots I wanted as a decoration, but the shopkeeper wouldn't budge on price. The next guy I tried wouldn't budge either for just a plain brass one, and I moved on. Five minutes later, he comes running down the street, lowering his price. I ended up going up 5,000 rupiyah (less than a dollar), and got it, though it wasn't as nice as the hand-painted ones. I tried shopping for some military antiques for my dad, and I'm glad I didn't buy anything--the items they told me were Japanese were upon further research actually Soviet. Anything for a buck, these guys.
We finished the day at Senayan City to get Julia some hiking shoes for Sunday and for sushi. Two groups of students asked to interview and take pictures with us, which I'm starting to get used to, I supposed (still think I should start charging!). We returned to Sushi Tei to get some sushi for dinner, and lo and behold, who walks by us but Hugh. Seriously, all roads lead to Senayan City. WE picked up some food for the long day ahead and headed home to get some sleep for our 4:30 AM wakeup to go to Krakatau Sunday....(to be continued....)
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