Cuisine and restaurants in Jakarta
In Jakarta, you can eat in a variety of establishments: there are chic Michelin-starred restaurants, and cheap local warung restaurants (they are usually run by one family), and numerous stalls with street food.
Most of the local dishes contain rice, hot sauces and something fried. But you can’t find pork in Jakarta, after all, Indonesia is a Muslim state. Unusual dishes include fried shark fin, frog legs, fried bananas with palm sugar syrup, fried gourami fish, coconut pie and fried locusts.
According to liuxers.com, numerous restaurants are ready to surprise visitors with the delights of Spanish, French, Turkish, Japanese and, of course, Indonesian cuisines. Lunch at an expensive restaurant costs about 300,000 IDR. Lunch in warung will cost around 40,000-60,000 IDR.
Street food in Jakarta can be bought at every turn. But trying it is a risky business. Not only is the food unusual and always flavored with a generous amount of hot sauces, but also the sanitary conditions are very doubtful: the sellers lightly rinse the plates in muddy water and immediately start using new ones. But if savings and curiosity take over, you can try rice with chicken and vegetables or baked bananas. In the port area, sea reptiles are also cooked on the street: oysters, crabs, clams and cuttings for 15,000 IDR.
Before the start of the meal, the restaurant may bring a bowl of lime water to wash hands and a glass of tea as a welcome. Also, several dishes in the buffet format may appear without any order. You only have to pay for what you eat.
Entertainment and attractions
One of the most interesting local attractions can be considered the Taman-mini ethnographic park – beautiful Indonesia in miniature. There are 33 pavilions on a vast territory, each of which represents one Indonesian province. Here you can see household items and traditional Indonesian buildings. There is something interesting here for both adults and children.
And for walking with young tourists, the Dream Park in Anchol (Jl. Lodan Timur no., 7) is suitable. There are attractions, an aqua park, beaches, golf courses and much more. Among other things, the park has an art bazaar that sells leather and batik products, works of artists, wood or bone carvers, and other souvenirs in memory of Jakarta.
At the end of Jalan Street there is a huge complex “Tamaya Ismail Narzuki”, which includes an exhibition hall, a planetarium, an art gallery, a dance hall and 5 theaters.
A must see is the National Monument. It is completely made of Italian marble, its height is 132 m, and crowned with a flame made of a 35-kilogram gilded sheet. The monument symbolizes power and independence. Indonesia’s national mosque, Istiklal, is the largest mosque in Southeast Asia. Next to it is the presidential palace.
The unimaginable size of Merdeka Square, in the center of which the Monas monument rises, is fenced, you can enter it only through several gates. Specify where they are so that you do not have to walk a kilometer just to get inside.
The Jine Yuan Temple stands in Chinatown. Here, the remains of Buddhist and Taoist saints are buried in special sarcophagi. It will be interesting to look at the National Cathedral, built in neo-Gothic style. On Tamam-Fatahullah Square, you can see the ancient Si Yago cannon, which is considered a symbol of fertility. Young couples who dream of having children come here.
Museums in Jakarta
On the site of the old Dutch fort Batavia, where the main base of the powerful East India Company was located since the 17th century, a charming “Dutch” corner of the city has remained. Today this area of the city is called Kota. Here you can walk along the colonial-style streets and go to the Historical Museum (Jalan Taman Fatahillah, 1), which houses an impressive collection of furniture from the time of Dutch rule. Not far from the Historical Museum, there is another noteworthy museum – Wayang (Pintu Besar Utara, 27), where traditional dolls and masks are exhibited. Here visitors get acquainted with the incredibly popular shadow theater in Indonesia.
You can continue your acquaintance with the country at the National Museum of Indonesia. It contains a collection of ethnographic and archaeological finds that tell about the history and culture of Java, Bali, Sumatra and other islands. The Museum of Gifts to the President of the Republic (Jalan Taman Mini, 1) and the National Art Gallery (Jalan Medan Merdeka Timur, 14) will tell about new pages in the history of the island state, the collection of which includes paintings and sculptures by contemporary authors.
Weather
The climate is hot and humid. The year is clearly divided into dry season and rainy season. The latter usually lasts from the end of October to March. At this time, cloudy weather and rains may be added to the usual Jakarta smog. The rainiest months are winter, but even during this period it does not necessarily rain around the clock. The main thing that can overshadow a trip in the rainy season is floods. The abundance of rainfall and the fact that much of Jakarta lies below sea level often causes the 13 rivers that flow through the city to flood.
