One can’t screw all day long and often you need some nourishment. I thought I would post a list of places I have frequented that other might like as well. My list is going focus on mostly local types places around the Kota mongering hot spots.

1) Tio Chiu Chinese restaurant – Mangga Besar 12 directly next too Siera (to your right if you are facing the entrance of the bar) and across from Bintang Mawar. This consistently serves prepared and fresh Chinese food with emphasis on seafood. If you like Batam pujasera food, you will like this place. The place is also versatile in that you can get a very tasty single dish meal for one (seafood Kwaytiau soup and fried rice are both very good) for about $3 or you can go with a group and get a bunch of dishes such as steamed fish, black pepper crab, clams in black bean sauce and spend only $5-10 bucks a head (depending how many hungry girls you bringalong). When you approach there is a “dirty” kitchen out front with non-aircon seating on the first floor. In the second floor they have an aircon room with three tables. Also, you can have food from here brought into any of the bars on this street. Sandman and I ordered a $4 plate of fried shrimp and found ourselves quite popular in Bintang Mawar!

2) Akiew Bakso 99 – This popular shop is on southside of Mangga Besar about 50 meters from the junction with Hayam Wuruk. Look for the small sign with the “99” above the front of the place. There are only open for the hours of 3PM to Midnight. This is a soup Kwaytiau restaurant and it’s awesome in my opinion. I probably eat here as much as any other place. What you do is pick either Kwaytiau (flat rice noodle), Bee Hoon (rice flour vermicelli noodle), or Mie (a round yellow flour noodle) or any mixture of the three you like. Then you can choose from the variety of bakso (meatballs), fresh beef, and other beef spare parts. You will be served two bowls; one bowl will contain your noodle cooked and tossed with a little oil and a spoon filled with fried shallots, and the other with your chosen protein swimming in a delicious beef broth. They are separate so you noodles don’t get overcooked sitting in the hot soup. They will also supply the table with a bowl of fresh cilantro and green onions. You can ask for free top ups on the vegi and broth. You dress this up with vinegar, soy sauce and a potent chili. My usual is a mix of Kwaytiau and Mie and my soup a mix of fresh slice beef and bakso urapt (ground beef with tendon mixed in) Your meal, including drinks, will cost about 20K. One time with Porker, he wanted to eat fried rice and they brought him a Seafood fried rice from next door that was out of this world. Damn I am hungry just thinking about this place!

3) Da Jia Hau Hong Kong BBQ – On Mangga Besar same side as Akiew Bakso 99 but a couple hundred meters before (021 628 5266). This place offers simple HK style bbq meats and meals for a reasonable price. Expect to pay four to five dollars for a meal here.

4) Bakmi Kepiting – Mangga Besar 8 (the street Travel Hotel is on) the second shop from the corner of the junction with Mangga Besar. This is a perfect place to replenish or fortify with a small meal for a Travel Hotel session. This places specializes in noodles with fresh crab meat and claws. Once again you choose your noodle type and whether you went it dry or fried. This place is very tasty and the crabmeat very generous. You meal will be two to three dollars here, while the comparable dish in Singapore will cost you $20.

5) Café on the second floor of Sparks hotel. The food here isn’t too good nor priced well. However, Do have a really good version of Gado Gado (Parboiled vegatables in spicy peanut sauce.) for 15K and they also serve decent cappuccinos and lattes for 15k.

6) Nasi Padang is a unique cuisine to Indonesia. In a typical Nasi Padang restaurant you will be brought a ton of little dishes stacked all over your table, with a big container of rice. The dishes tend have a lot of curries and be spicy. You can tastes the sauces for free and they only charge you for what you eat. The price range can be from quite cheap to about $10 a person. Garuda is one of the best chains of Nasi Padang restaraunts and comes in towards the higher price range. There is one Garuda on Hayum Wuruk one the same side as Stadium and about a block or two to the south. The food is better and fresher early in the afternoon.

7) If money in no object there is a group of restaurants housed in a building called “The Food Place” on Hayam Wuruk around the corner from the Jayakarta hotel. There is an OK Thai place, an expensive but decent Japanese place, a Pizza Hut, and the most popular is the Imperial Chef Chinese Restaurant. Imperial chef provides a huge range of well prepared Chinese food; seafood, dim sum, HK BBQ, noodles etc. The place is also open to the wee wee hours. The food is very good here but has gotten very expensive. One thing I love here is the Beef Kwaytiau in egg sauce. This dish is around 35K and can feed two people.

8) If you don’t like or can’t take Asian food, your choices for western food are quite limited around Mangga Besar. Inside Lokasari plaza there is a McDonald’s, KFC, and a Dunkin’ Donuts. There is also the previously mentioned Pizza Hut in “The Food Place” on Hayum Wuruk around the corner from the Jayakarta Hotel.

9) However, my favorite western food place is John’s Steak. This is a streetside warung about 50 meters from the entrance to Classics Hotel on Jalan Samanhudi Raya near the Pasar Baru. This is like a five minute taxi ride from Travel Hotel. They are open from about 6PM to Midnight. John used to cook in a 5* Australian Hotel Restaurant. He speaks perfect English and is an awesome host. The setting is primitive but he serves up the best dam $2.50 steak dinner I have ever had. He imports his beef from New Zealand. The guy next door serves up a real nice Iced Coconut drinks concoction. Across the street from John’s steak is a warung very famous for it’s Nasi Uduk – coconut rice with a variety of side dishes. I haven’t tried this yet but intend to.

10) Shopping center food courts. In most big shopping malls, there will be a decent sized food court with a variety of good cheap eats. I stay at the Novotel at Mangga Dua square and they food court right above the Carrefour is where I take the majority of my first meals of the day. Here there is an OK but not great Bak Kuh Teh (pork rib soup in tea broth and garlic), a good fish soup stall, a great stuffed tofu soup place, good Nasi Padang, a couple of western stalls, and good juice stand. If you are in Blok M during the day. The basement of the Pasa Raya shopping mall has the hugest food court I have seen, with tons of variety. One of my favorite days in Jakarta is to go grab an afternoon session at the 6th floor Melawai, eat late afternoon meal at Pasa Raya food court, and then return for a session with the evening shift at 6th floor Melawai (which starts at 5PM.) You will be drained and happy after such an afternoon.

11) If you want to good old pub grub you can find it some of the bars of Blok M Jalan Faletahan. None of the places are that cheap (expect to drop 8-10 bucks on a simple meal) but I thought the Sportman’s Pub served some good food.

12) My Favorite splurge food item in Jakarta is to hit the buffet at JW Marriott. This is one of the best buffets I have ever enjoyed. For $20 you get a great selection of Western, Chinese, Indonesian, Indian, Japanese, and a very extensive desert station. The food is generally very high quality and well prepared. They also rotate the dishes a bit and have various promotions to keep it from getting stale. They close around 10:30, but sometimes after 9PM some of the food will look a little tired. Also in the lobby bathroom, the toilet is equipped with the most awesome butt squirter. Taking a dump in the between courses is a dirty little pleasure of mine.

13) Last trip I tried the Jimbaran Seafood restaurant across the street from the Novotel which Blazers recommended. Some dishes were just ok and a couple extremely good. The ikan baker (BBQ whole fish) is the best I have ever had. Warning this place is a bit hot with not enough fans nor AC.

14) Burbur Ayam – This is a spicy thick porridge with chicked and other assorted stuff. This is a popular early morning dish and late night snack. There a little cart outside Crown Disco if you are leaving to catch a taxi. His burbur ayam absolutely kicks ass and is a perfect post disco snack, and costs about 60 cents.

15) Almost all the brothel bars in Kota will get you food from the street stalls for pretty reasonable amounts. One of my favorite snacks in Penjay is to have the girls get two bowls of very small cubed fried tofu. Lightly salted and hot this is an awesome bar snack. Cost either 5 or 10K.

Well this is all I can think of off the top of my head. Hopefully with these suggestions you won’t go hungry and get your palette will enjoy

I really want to try that cheap steak place. I blame my guide for not taking me there!

The food at the Marriott buffet is indeed fucking fanTASTIC, and the price isn't even half bad either. It's a fanTASTIC deal on the nights they have free wine, though, gotta time that better next time! The only problem with going to the Marriott, though, is that I eat so much I can't walk and my only desire after that is to take a dump and then a nap! Maybe I should also do the MongerX onsite, halftime dump to enhance the experience!

Fantastic list of food venues, Mx, thanks for the time and effort involved. I am not at all the most adventurous Asian food gourmet, but you've never steered me wrong on any places I've tagged along to or any of the dishes you've recommended (even the fried bean curd from the street vendors in Batam -- good stuff!).

Re: western food, for some reason, Popeye's chicken is pretty damned popular in Jakarta, usually represented in most upscale malls. I do know that Indonesians really love their chicken (it's the most popular dish at McDonald's there), but whoda thunk that Popeye's would be all over the place in Jakarta?

BTW, so are A&W root beer restaurants, and the food THERE is absolutely NOTHING like I remember when I was a little kid. It's like some retarded version of Jollibee in the Philippines. They can't even make a decent tasting root beer float, the 'ice cream' tasted NASTY.

I'd also put in a plug for the breakfast buffet at the Mercure Rekso at Hayam Wuruk. The food was good and they had very good variety of foods on a daily basis.

Porker, ya gotta take good care of your guide.

Mx and I actually went to Johns twice while he was there. Fantatic steak, reasonably priced, very friendly and efficient wait staff and John himself is a very outgoing and friendly guy.

I liked the way we could buy stuff we wanted from other nearby stalls and our waitress would even go and get it for us.

Tio Chiu was also great. It was great having Crazier and MX ordering multiple Chinese dishes that I didn't even know WTF they were but enjoyed the hell outta them just the same.

Ah, the Pizza Hut. MX, remember our night there? You had a relapse from your battle with the flu and started to feel real bad when we were looking at the menu. And that was the night my little infection from AC manifested itself, so simultaneously, I was feeling real bad too. We were both hurting units in the taxi back to Sparks.

I can add a plug here for a reasonably priced western-style cafe that I took the GF to. It was called Tamani Cafe, and it was on Hayum Wuruk, past Stadium, but before where Millenium disco used to be (I've heard it moved?). Good grub, upscale, but not too expensive. Porker would be happy there.

The Sparks restaurant also served some decent room service food, for those of you too tired to bother going anywhere. Not that I'll stay there again until the noise issue is resolved....

Amazing that I was only there a week and ate at nearly every place you mentioned. I particularly love Tio Chiu and Bakmi Kepiting as good seafood doesnt get any cheaper than this and its quite tasty also.

Porker, yep them Popeyes are all over. The onion rings and red beans and rice are not bad, but the biscuits are an utter disgrace. Man I swear Popeye's maybe the most fattening food in the world.

I ate one of the A&W places once --- ughh never again. It was pretty disgusting

Also, the Pizza hut menu developed for local taste is really friggin' strange. I never knew thousand island dressing could be used as a pizza sauce.

Murasaki,
Oh man I was so fucking sick when at the pizza hut dinner. I think I went into my hotel room aftewards and didn't emerge for days. Kind of put a real damper on last xmas trip. And you are right the Ox Tail Soup from room service at Sparks ain't too bad.

Blazers,
After a week I ran out of fresh material huh. One thing for sure is that I am a sever creature of habit. If you come to Jakarta and you leave it up to me, you will definitely see Sari Ayu, Travel Hotel, Stadium, Siera, Bintang Mawar, Angrekk, and Sands. You will also eat at Bakso 99, Bakmi Kepiting, and Tio Chiu.

Places you won't see are 5* hotel bars like Tiguh Puluh, CJ's, and BATS. You are are also unlikely to see Blok Freelancer bars unless it's your first trip and I feel you need to see. Lot's of people, including some posters here, love these venues and almost exclusively use them. So you shouldn't rely upon me to get a complete or even well rounded picture of the Jakarta scenes. It's ashame that other hombres who frequent these other venues never post updates or info. My Jakarta MO is not the best fit for some and I these folks would enjoy these other venues more. But unfortunately, I have little interest or info on helping out along those lines. And there is precious little info on those venues here.

I do like to explore new places but I swear I am so slow about getting around to it. I swore to check out and do a session at Rasa Sayang like six months ago and still haven't done it. I love my Jakarta routines and usual path that its really hard to break that pattern. It would be great if others would post their experiences about these other places.

Thanks for the comprehensive list MX and also for taking me to many of these places. I'm quite surprised at how good the food can be in this city.

John's steak is excellent and they use good quality steaks. They seem to serve the steaks topped w/sauces, which I'm sure you can ask for on the side.

Imperial Chef has excellent Chinese food, espec. dimsum, but like MX said, it's expensive. It's a great place to go around Kota during the wee hours of the night though. Soc and I tried several small Chinese restaurants located in Lokasari plaza and they were all pretty good -- one was called Madonna and another was across from McDs.

Ayam Goreng Suharti is a traditional Indonesian restaurant.

It is located on:

Jl. Wahid Hasyim 51
Jakarta.

Now, when I say traditional, the restaurant staff all wore traditional Muslim head gear, with the cloth draped around their heads and long gowns. The women would approach as you entered, join their hands together in prayer and bow and greet you in prayer.

They had food that I had never even heard of, or tasted, but it was very delicious. But the music coming from the speakers above , was, believe it or not-hard rock.

I told the two girls I was with about how extraordinary it was, to be listening to heavy metal music in a (supposed) traditional Indonesian restaurant.

I'm sure MetalBoots would be delighted to dine here. Definitely recommended for the hungry traveling adventurous monger who seeks variety in food tastes.

Master Bates.

A photo of this location will be submitted to Hombre when I return to the US.

Master Bates.

Oh yeah! I need to go to Indonesia then - just for this place! Heavy Metal Music brings out the taste in food ! Kewl deal man! Yeah I like my Food well cooked, but my Pussie'z RAW -

MB, You mean to tell me that there wasn't a single Denny's in sight?

Some updates.

Xen will be delighted to know that a Wendy's opened last week in Mangga Dua Square. It's in the back, on the same level as the donut shop. I was walking by on opening day, and split a gut laughing at the sight of the cewek dressed up as Wendy, red wig, freckles and all. Unfortunately my camera was in the room.

Also in Mangga Dua Square, you can get some decent shabu shabu or robatayaki Japanese grub at Sumibian, which is up on level 3 in the far left corner.

For those wanting to move up the scale and take a girl to a nice place for a date, I discovered Paparazzi in the Plaza Indonesia mall. The chef is Italian (as is part of the menu), and the grub was quite good. The restaurant is located on the main level, right next to the front entrance that faces the big roundabout on MH Thamrin. For those of you wanting some western fast food, the basement at Plaza Indonesia has plenty to keep you happy, including a Cinnabon and a Krispy Kreme.

And according to Jon of Jon's Steak fame, he is going to open a branch across the road that will focus on steak sandwiches. He'll be splitting his time between the two locations once it gets going.

Jon of Jon's Steak had to change the name of his restaurant. Apparently there is trademark law in Indonesia and someone else was already using the name Jon for a business and he could not use it.

Jon's Steak is now Joni Steak.

It is located Jalan KH Samanhudi. I usually give the taksi the address of Classic Hotel KH Samanhudi 43-45. It is block or two past Classic. If you are coming from Hayam Wuruk, it will be on your left just past Classic Hotel.

I cannot imagine a $3 tenderloin steak tasting any better than his.

Well here is an update on Joni Steak. This guy has really expanded. It is really fun to watch his business grow.

The kitchen has now moved inside and takes up an entire side wall. His inside area has now been completely redone and is quite nice inside with new tables and painted and styled walls.

He must employ like 30-40 people now each night. Some nights they are even busy enough to open the upstairs area. So they have the sidewalk, the expanded inside area and upstairs that they open when busy enough.

The steak is still as good as ever.

It even has a profile with a review at the following location:

http://www.sendokgarpu.com/dining/info/pasar-baru/central-jakarta/joni-steak/2022/

BURGERS: Sayang and I found a Fatburger at the 5th floor Plaza Indonesia Mall (just like home). Hard Rock Cafe is also in this mall and the food was expensive but good -- Lively atmosphere.

Ta Chia : Good Chinese restaurant next to Jayakarta Hotel with very good Bakut Teh (pork/soy sauce) and seafood fried rice. It is around the corner from Pizza Hut and located south, and 2 stores from Jayakarta HOtel.