KennethT

Brought in takeout from my local Hunan place - rice noodles (buried), minced pork, homemade tofu

closed cell foam. I've never used them, but that's what NathanM used to use - but he was using for needle temperature probes which may be thinner than a syringe needle.

What kind of boat did you charter? Is it a sailboat or power boat?

Once in the airport, we checked our luggage and head to security. Right near the security area were a bunch of restaurants - one of them was a sate chain that we had seen all over the place, so we decided to give it a try. Inside, it's nicely decorated, including an area with these puppets for wayang kulit - or shadow puppets which we had seen in Jogjakarta: We had some kangkung (water spinach) Chicken sate with peanut sauce and sweet soy sauce Goat sate in sweet soy sauce - this was interesting - there was the standard cubed meat sate but also a minced goat sate - we had seen this in Bali, called sate lilit but this one was snappy - like it was in a sausage casing. It was delicious! All washed down with some fresh squeezed lime juice Security people move around on Segways and other hoverboard type things: Earlier, I had not-intelligently decided that I should bring the cobek/ulekan on the plane as a carry-on to try to minimize damage. So, we got two heavy cloth grocery bags from the supermarket (we already had one from our first fruit purchase) so I could double bag it to hold the weight, I wrapped the cobek and ulekan in lots of newspaper, put a thick layer of socks in the bottom of the bag, then the cobek and ulekan surrounded by more clothes so it wouldn't want to slide around in the bag. Of course, security wasn't happy that I was trying to bring 2 heavy blunt objects on the plane and made us go out of the security area to check it in. Luckily, right next to our airline's check in area was a guy stretch-wrapping luggage. I asked if he had a small box and after looking around, he found one, and we lowered the bag in which happened to fit perfectly. He then wrapped the whole thing up, creating a handle and all and completely embalmed it. All for 80,000IDR or about $5. Getting into the security area, you pass a nice plant display Lots of Indonesian travelers were posing in front of it for their photo. It's no Singapore Changi airport, but the new Terminal 3 in Jakarta is pretty nice. Our flight left on time (love you Singapore Airlines) and we had a couple hours in the Singapore airport transit area - I visited my favorite (but abhorrently expensive) tea shop, TWG to pick up some tea to hold me until Xmas time when I can get back there again. Even though they fed us on the 1h15m flight, I got a little snack while we waited for the long flight home. One crab and one shrimp nugget on a stick. Crab nugget. Singapore Airlines fed us well on the very long flight home and then finally.... Home sweet home, landing at dawn (on time). Thanks for reading!

Breakfast the next day: This is the serving dish of what they called "grilled chicken" but it's really ayam panggang - which, yes, means grilled chicken, but is different from ayam bakar which also means grilled chicken! Panggang is different because it is first stewed in a broth made from a bunch of herbs/spices (called a bumbu and typically contains chillies, shallots, garlic, kaffir lime leaves etc) but then it is grilled after that. This two step process is actually not that unusual in Indonesian cooking. Between making the spice paste (some dishes use 2 different spice pastes - one for each cooking method), stewing then grilling or frying, it's really labor intensive. Talking about labor intensive, this is potatoes balado: The potatoes are first double fried, then fried with the spice paste. My first plate: Ayam panggang, potatoes balado, green sambal (sambal ijo) and red sambal (sambal merah), shrimp chip, rice and puffed beef skin cracker-y thing. Awesome pineapple This is the soup station setup for soto padang, which is a beef soup made with spices, and also includes double fried potatoes, tomato fried shallots, mung bean starch noodles and then they float a couple of shrimp chips on top that kind of melt into it This was the day we were checking out, so after breakfast we packed and still had a lot of time before our flight so we checked out an art museum located in the mall next door. The museum is dedicated to a single artist - an Indonesian artist who was a political prisoner for years.

For dinner, we had wanted to try an Indonesian version of fish head curry since we enjoyed the Singapore version so much. I didn't think it was, but now I'm wondering if it was a Padang place. When we sat down, the came over with 2 huge trays full of dishes with plastic wrap over each and a label in the middle saying what each one was. Like a live menu. They came and went so fast, I wish I was able to get a photo of it. The fish head curry wasn't on the tray so I asked about it and the waitress got a big smile and then I also ordered 2 of what they called pigeon that I had read about. They rub the pigeon in turmeric and a whole bunch of other stuff and then deep fry the bird. There's no breading or crust or skin either. Unfortunately, I don't think either of us took a photo of them! I don't think they were the type of pigeons that we were used to. The ones we know are all dark meat, but these seemed smaller than any pigeon that we've seen and seemed like white meat. It reminded me of a big quail. Whatever it was, it was really tasty. In addition to the birds, we got: At the top of the photo is singkong (cassava leaves) that's been cooked in some kind of curry. The bottom is sambal ijo. Sambal merah Gulai kambing - goat in a thin curry made with a ton of spices like nutmeg, cinnamon and clove - I think this was probably the highlight and I definitely want to try to make it at home. The fish head curry. I have no idea what kind of fish it was - there wasn't nearly as much meat as the Singapore one, but what was there was juicy and gelatinous. The curry was very mild but really rich. It was thick and unctuous with coconut cream - so different than the South Indian style one in Singapore. This was probably the most expensive meal of the trip. The fish head alone was about 200,000IDR or about $12. The total bill was around $25. Once out of the restaurant, we called a Grab taxi and watched the street scene while waiting. The big puppet coming towards us was accompanied by a young adult asking for money. Up until then I don't think I'd ever seen anyone just asking for money - if anything at all, it's usually people trying to sell something.

For lunch, we had wanted to go to a Padang style restaurant. As I think I explained earlier, Padang is a region of Western Sumatra and the food from there is very popular in Jakarta. I even think I saw some Padang restaurants in Lombok as we drove by. Padang restaurants are the original fast food. Basically, the moment you sit down, a server brings a variety of dishes and places them on the table. You pay for whatever you wind up eating and when you're finished, they put the rest back for someone else. In addition to this, you can also order other things that would be made to order. This is one of the more well known Padang places in Jakarta, Rumah Makan Surya. (Rumah makan means "eating house"). Masakan Padang means "Padang food" This is what you see when first walking in: And as soon as you sit down, you get the layout: We're not exactly sure what everything was - Padang food does tend to use a lot of offal. A common dish is cow brain, but I didn't want to try it as I'm always a little worried about mad cow disease. We wound up eating the vegetable plate - which was red sambal, eggplant, string beans and a common Padang vegetable, singkong or boiled cassava leaves. In this photo, beneath it is sambal ijo - or green sambal made with green chillies and green tomatoes, which is not very spicy but goes really well with everything which I ordered in addition to what was brought. It arrived immediately so it was made in advance which is not surprising. At the top left, there's a finger bowl full of water - it's traditional to eat this type of food with your right hand, so the bowl is to wash your fingers beforehand and then when you're finished. We also had the brown slices to the right of the veggies in the main photo - here's a closeup: At first, we didn't realize what it was - I thought it was some kind of beef jerky that had been deep fried, but it turned out to be cow's lung which was delicious. Like a beef cracker - it was really dry and hard like a rock but you could bite off a piece easily. It tasted a little smoky and savory. My wife LOVED it! We also ate the beef rendang - Padang is supposedly the origin of rendang. The classic way to make it results in a curry so dry there's basically no liquid left whatsoever. So it's the meat covered in a heavy paste that had been cooked for hours. It was amazing. In the main photo, it's the super dark brown lumps on the bottom right. Finally, we also ate the shrimp balado as I can't get enough of balado.... The shrimp were shell on, but deep fried so the shell was nice and crispy.

Breakfast the next day: The hotel has an in-house patisserie, and at breakfast, someone came and passed around some of their wares: Some kind of pandan jelly on sticky rice Someone also came and passed this around: I'm not exactly sure what it was. The bottom was some kind of starchy thing - maybe taro. On top was a mixture of tofu, bean sprouts, chilli, dried shrimp and who knows what else..... Chicken balado with red and green sambals, some ok passionfruit, a squid ink cracker, a tempeh/kaffir lime cracker and a shrimp cracker with white rice. chicken soup (soto ayam) with mung bean starch noodles, sliced cabbage and tomato. I went back for more chicken balado - damn that stuff is tasty!

After coming back from lunch and checking out my cobek (and trying to figure out how I'm going to get it home!) we had a bunch more fruit and took a swim in the pool. By the time we got back, it was getting late so we decided to go back to the mall as the 4th floor was devoted completely to restaurants - both dine in and food court style, called Food Avenue. It's set around twists and turns - it's hard to know how many stalls there even are!! We decided that you can never go wrong with sate.... This is chicken sate - at the bottom of the plate is a mixture of peanut sambal and sweet soy sauce, and spicy chilli sambal on the side. We also got some tongseng, which is kind of like a cross between a soup and thin curry. This one is coconut milk based and had a bunch of dried spices liek cinnamon, clove, etc. and had beef and pieces of cabbage.

Thanks @ElsieD and @MaryIsobel. Funny enough, my wife and I were both super picky eaters growing up! I wouldn't eat pizza (what kid doesn't eat pizza?!?) without taking the cheese off first! I would refuse to eat a hamburger for some reason, although meatballs with spaghetti were ok, and the only part of the chicken I would eat were the legs. About getting sick - unfortunately, I have an autoimmune disease and take medication which reduces my immune system further. So even when I'm home, I constantly feel like I'm fighting something but it's usually manageable. In fact, I was feeling like I was fighting something for weeks before we left, even though my wife and I were both quasi-quarantining for 6 weeks before the trip - which means that whenever we left our apartment, even just to the laundry room on the floor or garbage room, we wore N95 masks. I think whatever I had been fighting bloomed just from the lack of sleep and stress of traveling for so long. We're trying to rack up enough points to be able to upgrade our flight there to Biz class which has a fully lie flat bed - I'm curious if I can get an actually good amount of sleep, will I still have the same problems....

Interesting. Your diep ca looks, to me, more like rau ram. All the diep ca I've seen in Vietnam has more round, heart shaped leaves rather than the longer tapered leaves shown.

I'm continually surprised at how cheap things are there compared to home or even to places like Singapore which is already cheap compared to home. While I paid the hotel IDR100,000 (technically $6.06 at 16,500/$) I saw quite a few on the Indonesian versions of Amazon for like 65,000, so around $4! Incredible... Actually, I paid about $9 for the cobek because I gave the guy who went out to get it for me another 50,000IDR (about $3) just for him and he was so appreciative. He went back out to get a bunch of newspapers and stuff to wrap it with to get it home safely.

Nice. I wish I could find that garlic but I'd go through it like it were candy. Malaysian/Indonesian food uses a TON of garlic. One dish will usually use at least 5-6 standard cloves, so if I was making a dish plus a vegetable, I usually go through a whole head of standard garlic in one meal.

After putting away our haul (and taste testing a few mangoes and mangosteen), we spoke to the hotel staff again about possible places for a cobek. They said they'd get back to us by 3PM with more ideas so we decided to go for lunch. BTW, carving mangoes with a butter knife is a little challenging!!! We actually brought with us a scuba dive knife that would double as a fruit knife, but the hotel xrayed all the suitcases and made us surrender the knife while we stayed there. They gave it back to us when we were packing to go home. Ridiculously good mango One dish I had wanted to try was Rawon which originates from East Java. It's typically called a soup and one of the key ingredients is buah keluak - a nut that comes from Indonesia and Malaysia that is toxic before a lengthy treatment process. It's very difficult for me to describe the flavor of keluak - it's got an almost deep, fermented flavor (which makes sense since part of the treatment is being buried in ash for 30 days) but is also very savory. One place that is known for it is called Nasi Gandul Bu Endang. Nasi Gandul translates to "chubby rice" while Bu Endang is the owner - Bu is an honorific like Mrs. Rawon with all the fixins - it comes with white rice, sambal, lime and some mung bean shoots. They also brought us some fried tempeh - I don't know if everyone got them or if they went with the rawon. To drink is orange juice on ice. A better idea of the beef, and there were chillies in there as well as the keluak. I definitely will try to make this soup at home some day. The table setting - in the basket are more puffed beef skin crackers, a dish of chopped chilli and a squeeze bottle with sweet soy sauce. We also got: Ayam bakar - grilled chicken that came with it's own sambal (different from the one that came with the rawon). When we got back to the hotel, we went to talk to the staff about more ideas to get a cobek, and they presented me with one the size I was looking for! They were so nice!!! The bill for it was like $6 - but it's hand cut stone. One of the reasons they said they wanted to get it for me is because there are various grades of quality and they wanted to make sure I got the best kind. Some are cast from concrete, others are milled by a lathe but the best ones are known to be hand made out of a single, solid stone.

Breakfast was included with our hotel in Jakarta which was a good thing because their breakfast buffet was AMAZING! It seems like the hotel had a lot of domestic travelers so they catered to them - there was also some western stuff available. clockwise starting around 5:00, this is beef skin cooked in coconut milk - soooo tender and gelatinous; sambal merah (red sambal); sambal ijo (green sambal); white rice, puffed beef skin kerupuk (so addictive) and the black thing is a puffed squid ink cracker. This hotel even had mangosteen at their buffet! This was just to start... I cleaned them out. Plus some decent dragon fruit. They had a rotating soup station - this was the chicken soup with mung bean starch noodles, daikon radish, sambal, fried shallots and they put some kerupuk (crackers) on top that kind of melted in. Clockwise from the top - more puffed beef skin, rice, fried fish with sweet and sour sauce, and I don't remember what the last thing was - I think it was tempeh balado. Balado, as we'll get into later, is a specialty of the Padang region of western Sumatra - but Padang food is super popular in Jakarta. My wife also got: From top left is a style of kerupuk with soy beans and kaffir lime leaves, saomai (like a Chinese shiu mai), some kind of sticky rice packet in banana leaf, and a squid ink cracker. After breakfast, we went down to talk to the hotel staff to get advice of where we could get the various things we were looking for. Our agenda for Jakarta was mostly shopping related - I had wanted to get fruit for the room - a high priority since we didn't have much in Lombok, I wanted to get a cobek/ulekan which is an Indonesian style mortar/pestle, and I was looking to see if I could find dried versions of the various chillis I had seen that are common in Indonesian food. For some reason, US customs won't let me bring in a packet of chilli seeds, but I can bring in a package of dried chillies that happen to contain seeds. The only issue is that Indonesian food doesn't use dried chillis much, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to get that part of the agenda. The hotel recommended a couple of different markets for the food items - one being a supermarket in the basement of the mall attached to the hotel. Jakarta has a TON of malls. I usually avoid looking for fruit in supermarkets - usually they're much more expensive than the local market and not as good quality. This supermarket was amazing - I could live there!!!! Various rhizomes and other stuff... Top left to right: finger root (I wasn't away Indonesian food used it much), kencur (I bought more of that), daun salam (Indonesian bay leaf) and kaffir lime leaves, candlenuts, garlic, and on the bottom was a couple different kinds of turmeric, ginger and galangal. This is a single clove style of garlic I've never seen before. I believe @liuzhou uses it a lot. Closeup of the fingerroot and kencur. Turmeric Taro Maybe 7 different kinds of mangoes!!!! Frozen durian: Selection of chillis: A closeup of some of the varieties: This is what they call Cabe Rawit - which is usually translated as Thai chillies or Bird's eye chillis - but they're much more plump than any I've seen in Thailand or anywhere else. Some are very short - maybe 1" long if that, others 2-3" What they call Cabe Keriting - which I gather is kind of like a cayenne - medium spicy but a lot of flavor. This is used a lot in balado dishes and is one of 3 chillies that go into Taliwang. Kecombrang - torch ginger flower Various greens - most of these are hydroponically grown - a lot of kangkung (water spinach). Fresh durian right at the entrance to the supermarket. We were walking through the mall when all of a sudden I said "someone is selling something with durian around here somewhere". The supermarket was around the corner and about 100 feet away! We bought the kencur, a whole bunch of amazing mangosteen (that I neglected to take photos of somehow), and a couple of 3 of the mangoes. We went back to the supermarket to get more mangosteen and mango every day. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) they didn't have dried chillies or the cobek. We tried a few houseware stores looking for the cobek but couldn't find anything.