Jakarta culinary adventures – my favourite food experiences

When I wasn’t “flooded in” at my hotel during my time in Jakarta back in January 2013,  I enjoyed several culinary experiences, including a lot of outstanding Indonesian food.  In my humble opinion,  Indonesia’s culinary heritage offers the best food in Asia – I had to run and work out everyday to avoid rolling on to my flight home. So, aside from the incredible pork knuckle at Die Stube, here are some of my other Jakarta culinary adventure highlights…

Jakarta culinary adventures – the pork knuckle run

My time in Jakarta drew to a close so quickly it seems, and as I reflect over my four weeks in Indonesia’s bustling capital, it will best be remembered for four things; work, rain, traffic and food. Everyday I experienced a good healthy combination of these, but during my penultimate day last Wednesday, I was treated to all in bucket loads ….  so this blog is pretty much about these and getting to a dinner date with some colleagues – the pork knuckle run, and a few other less wet culinary adventures.

Sunday running in Jakarta – not such a tough mudder

Between 6 and 11 am every Sunday, Jakarta’s six lane thoroughfare, Jalan Jenderal Sudirman, is closed to all traffic except public buses and emergency vehicles.  As air pollution is a problem in Jakarta, the reason for the closure is to give city dwellers and visitors alike a safe, carbon free environment to exercise and to promote cycling, running, walking, rollerblading and exercise in general.

With the current state of emergency declared during last weeks’ flooding, the clean up continuing and with more rain forecast this weekend, I wasn’t sure if I would get a chance to run the muddy streets of Jakarta.  This was yesterday…

Jakarta flooding

I am in Jakarta for four weeks on a short term consulting assignment.  I arrived on Sunday night and have since been wondering what to write for my blog this week. It started to rain on Tuesday, and hasn’t really stopped since, but it is monsoon season.  Throughout last night there was a heavy and constant thunderstorm and when I opened my curtains this morning, I thought it looked bit wet.  Then a couple of hours later I realised I actually had some real news to blog about.

All of these pictures were taken on my iPhone from where I am staying – the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Jakarta.  It is obvious I didn’t leave today – just as well I had planned to work from my room. I’ll mostly let the pictures tell the story.