Place to Eat: Bong Kopitown

BONG KOPITOWN

Last wednesday I went for a movie with my sister and friend. We went to Plaza Semanggi, which located in the Central Jakarta, just next to the Atma Jaya University Building. The movie was around 5 pm, me and my sister arrived there around 4 pm and I'm extremely hungry (since I dont get my lunch yet). So, we decided to eat on the mall, and we want to try a new restaurant here.

Inside the "Jail" of BONG KOPITOWN

We went to Bong Kopitown, was located on the 3A Floor, just in front of Hanamasa Restaurant in Plaza Semanggi. I heard about this place several time, most of say it was a good place to eat, and not just a regular kopitown in town. They have a concept. Yep, you'll feel like you're inside a jail when you eat here, they come up with a jail restaurant concept. A jail, really a jail, with all those iron cage and even cutlery is "jail like".

Anyway, I was sit inside a jail that was a bit unseen from the front door, so I took me more than 5 minutes just to make waiter hear me calling the for order. In my point of view, once the waiter knowing there is a costumer inside the unseen room jail at least they should comeback 5 minutes after to ask is costumer ready for order or not. This is not good when you have to yelling to waiter only to make them take your meal order..ahaa that's not good rite. By the way, I did sent a complaint sms to the number they gave in the back of menu, hope they fixing this problem.

Old Town Post, Menu List

So, this Kopitown not only different from the regular look but also it's menu. Yes, they do have the regular Singaporean food like mee, laksa, kway teow, hainan rice and kari that we can find in all kopitiam in town, but you cant find the regular toast menu here, nope there is no kaya toast with the half ~~filthy~~ boiled egg, but instead of it you gonna find some Indonesian food here, you can get Singkawang Rojak or Pontianak Chicken Noodle here. Or singkong rebus, yes they sell it here but I forget what they called it. Oh but dont be sad, they still sell Milo Dinosaur here, like one of the must menu in kopitiam, one of the best drink menu I believe.

As soon as you sit in the restaurant, you will look for the menu list. Well, they also not using a regular menu list, like a book one, or one sheet of laminated paper with menu print out in there. They have this Old Town Post newspaper as their menu, so you will like reading a newspaper, but its your menu list.

List of Menu

Well, this time I ordered Mie Penjara + Seafood, and hot tea for drink while my sister had her Penang Fried Noodle and Ice Kopi Tarik for drink. We also order Han Pam. The food service was quite good, they fast enough served the meal after we ordered it. Only take less than 10 minutes I believe.

They give our drink first, I ordered Hot tea (8 thousand rupiah, refill one time) and my sister order Ice Kopi Tarik (15 thousand rupiah a glass). She said, this isn't kopi tarik but this is flat ice coffee, she cant feel the taste of milk inside the glass.

The first meal came up was the Han Pam, it basically is a porridge made from rice flour and topping with chop radish and a bit shrimp. I don't really like this,since the rice flour porridge they do have it "rice sweetness" taste, I usually eat this porridge along with brown sugar syrup, but when you served this along with chopped radish and shrimp, it just doesn't match for me, strange taste. Any way this cost me 12 thousand rupiah for a portion of Han Pam.

The second meal came out was my main meal, the Mie Penjara+Seafood. I was quite shocked, since they really served it on a tin plate, so yes they got the jail concept here. But, I disappointed because I ask the waiter she said this is a noddle soup but this isn't. Well, since I starving already so I just eat this. Taste, standard one, not that good but well you cant say it bad. This cost me 30 thousand rupiah for a portion, with that price the size of meal is too small. The amount of vegetables and topping the use isn't quite enough. You can get this kind of food in the other restaurant here in the same plaza with a bigger portion and if I'm not wrong they sell it cheaper.

The last meal came out was my sister meal, Penang Fried Noodle and yes like my meal it portion was too small, and the topping is..oh you wont aware there's topping in there. Taste just same like my meal, ~~Mie Goreng Abang- Abang Gerobak is better than this~~. Oh this cost her 33 thousand rupiah for a portion.

Since it almost time to go to movie theater so we asked for the bill. Total damage was around 110 thousand rupiah.

Overall, I'm not really happy with this restaurant. They do have a good concept, a really good one. But I don't care how good the restaurant concept is, since they do not serve a good taste of meal, that's mean bad for me. A..aaa..not good for business rite??

Adios ^-^