Saung Mang Engking, Depok

Heard this place many times ago. But never got a chance to visit it since it located in Yogjakarta. Seem my parents love it to much seem it always become regular place to visit every time they were traveling to this city. Well, it’s only maximum three hour drive from Semarang, so it’s more like you drive from Jakarta to Bandung only.

Few months ago I knew that they open their branch in Jakarta, somewhere in Depok, but again, there are two places that I always try to avoid them in Jakarta, one is Bekasi and the other one is Depok, why? Because their heavy traffic Jam, and I have it to much! But this time I can not resist since it is a Sunday, and from few ‘googling’ and ‘Muliplying’ found that every pictures I found is very hard to resist. So here we go ……

Found the place is in the outer complex of Universitas Indonesia, the largest University in the country, and found the facts that It located just next to UI lagoon, so it bring our imagination to the very nice & clam place with lot of ‘Saung’ next to the lagoon, lot of fish pond like always traditional saung place, very large backyards, bunch of trees so that we may laying down rest our self and not need to rush to finish our meals …..

And it did! Just exactly the same as we were imagine about, just like my description on the previous paragraph, but only one miss, the place is very crowded in the lunch time. We need to wait almost 30 minutes before we have our ‘cabine’ or ‘saung’. Lucky there’s lot of interesting place to see before we can start to order our meal, so there’s no further complains to made ………………

Build on about 3.500m square meter of land, this makan place belong to “Engking Sodikin” a culinary businessman from Tasikmalaya, this place is build from about 13-15 palm leaves roof gazebos on top of very large fish pond or we may call it lagoon. It’s quite common “Sundanees” style of “kuring”.

One interesting place is a wooden bridge across the small artificial stream made from a bunch of stone that separate two lagoons, and have lot of red-carper fish, hundreds and you may feed them with fish pallet that you can buy in the cashier counter, so it will makes our kids busy for a while.

I and my wife also have a chance to sneak around in their kitchen for some photograph, just so see how they prepare food.

Now it’s about the dish itself, from my parent’s recommendation that we should try “Udang Galah Bakar Madu” so this is the first thing that we need to order, besides Gurame Cobek and Kepiting saus Padang, and few other side dishes.

The BBQ udang came in shaslick style, so you will find 3 stick of blue-prawn shaslick (four prawns each) covered with red sauce, nice, sweet but a bit spicy …

But from my opinion, the prime dish is their Gurame Cobek that a deep fried Garupa fish with spicy mixed red onion and various type of chili padi gravy pour on top of it. Very delicious but ‘Hell’ you can imagine how spicy it is, it will burn your tongue but will keep you eat it until the last fish bone. Very nice indeed.

Kepiting Sauce Padang is standard, quite similar with some street-stall seafood sauce padang except the freshness of the Crab it self is very good.

The deep-fried cumi and udang is also nice & crispy.

Well, more over, the dish cost is quiet cheap compared with what you have eaten. The place is good & clean, the dish is delicious and moreover your damage-rate would not so heavy, except the location is quiet far from our home.

One tip, just avoid to be there in the lunch time, since they are very busy, you may chance to have very chaotic dish delivery, your meal will be interrupted since you may have to wait your partial dish that may not be arrive in the right time.

Just be there, make sure you know what you want to order and make it in a single run!

While you wait your dish, there’s a lot of waitress running around bringing appetizers that you may call such as ‘Kaapertart’, ‘brownies’ and many others.

I forgot to record their address, but I have their GPS coordinate
Coordinates: 6°20'56"S 106°49'53"E

But it is very easy place to find, if you came from TB Simatupang TOL, just get out in pasar minggu gate heading to Lenteng Agung, follow the road until you find the UI Flyover, follow the flyover turn to Pasar Minggu, and just you head down from flyover there’s a small junction in the left side of the road you’ll find a small signboard about this place, just follow the direction and you may enter the security gate to go into the complex. It located inside the UI Complex next to University Dormitory.

Ciputih, Ujung Kulon

Found this place from searching the net – googling, not much information found except few personal blogs in multiply that try to tell how beautiful it is. Curiosity, yes that’s the exact word that drive me to search little deeper.

Start with very little information got from the net, and equip with the only map got from “Pulau Umang” website, we decided to go there just to have a look on that site, who knows we may bring our family or friends here.

It’s a medium distance drive from Jakarta, about 5 hours drive. Depart on 4.30 in the morning, we took Jakarta-Serang Tol then Exit in Serang Timur then facing to Pandeglang trough inland route. It is not an easy road actually, since it is a primary economic route from Serang to Pandegelang, we have to struggle against large trucks and Intercity Buses. Many people said that taking this road is the shortest path to go to pandegelang, but for me, it is unpleasant drive compare with another route if we took Anyer-Carita-Pandegelang, at least there lot of Sceneries to see. For the one who like easy drive, I strongly suggest to take Anyer-Carita road rather than this one.

Passing Tanjung Lesing junction, the road was getting worse, it’s not too bad actually, if you have sedan car, then you may got some trouble, it will slow you down up to 10-20km/h, but if you have higher ground clearance car like MPV or SUV, it should not be a problem, except you’ll have much bumpy journey. This road condition will continue for next 1-2hours drive, up to a small town called Cijulang, before it getting better. You’ll find lot of “Pulau Umang” signboard that you may use it as navigation point up to another small village called Sumur, there’s a junction that you have to take a straight choice, rather than the right one (which lead you to Pulau Umang harbor front). Start from this junction, you still has to drive about 6km further before you reach the resorts.

First impression, the resorts complex is huge, but build “as is” with letting the original environment grow like they should be. No fancy artificial garden or water fountain or whatever that you may find on several resorts. It just a bunch of trees grow on top of white sands ……… yes! It is real white sand!

The beach it self is very wide sand beach, white sands, blue and clear seawater, it reminds me to Dreamland or Nusadua Beach in Bali, and it has almost no sea waves. Very calm beach. Very beautiful ………………. According to local people there, this is the only one beach that has such kind of sands. We are lucky, since the weather is very clear so that you may watch the blue sky, blue sea and white sands very clearly.

Next to the beach, there’s a large swimming pool in front of the main building which is a restaurant, well, it is not a well managed restaurant, they serve very minimum level of food choice, but at least you may have “Udang goring a’la Ciputih” or “Ayam Masak Kecap”, but the unique thing about the place is, you may enter up to the kitchen to talk with the cook even you may borrow their equipments to mess with your stuff.

Facing the beach, there are unpopulated isle called pulau mangir, you may have to go there by renting a boat from “Sumur”, if you like snorkeling this isle is a good spot for you. It has a wide white sand beach, mixed with very clear water with lot of live corals beneath. It’s about 1m deep and you may have very fun snorkeling there, but have to be cautious since you will find difficulties to step on it.

One thing that you should prepare is about food, since the place is very remote, they do not have proper logistic, more over the room rate is not include breakfast, the best way for you is to bring your own logistic, instant-noodle, preserve food is very recommended, otherwise, you may go to sumur in the morning to go to “Fish Market”, you may buy some fresh-fish just landed from “Bagan” and ask the kitchen to cook it, they will charge you Rp. 15.000/kg, fried or BBQ. But no prawn and crabs, just fish and Squid. If you may want to have prawn, you have to buy it once you enter panimbang long the way before you reach Sumur.

In Overall, this place is marvelous! It has been our favorite destination recently; we’ve been here three times just in less than 6 months, even though we have to take 6 hour drive from Jakarta, it doesn’t matter!

A little tips: do not go there during Nov – Mar since it has west wind seasons, you’ll find larger sea waves that usual and (off course) rain, not recommended!

"Begor" Suryo

Bebek Suryo, that’s the name that look so usual especially for common Javanese name, Suryo is quiet common. But, Bebek Goreng Suryo came with different signature. It is a restaurant that put their specialty in traditional “Deep Fried Duck” Located somewhere in Jalan Senopati, Jakarta Selatan.

Once you reach the place suddenly you will know that this is not a cheap thing at all. The restaurant actually a typical large house that quiet commonly found in area, converted into a cozy café style “makan place” that has open terrace in the backyard. That is the most favorite place for most visitors, and hardly vacant during lunch hours.

The place has lot of traditional ornament and furniture that shows where the owner came from. But that’s not the main concern right now, but the “Bebek Goreng” it self that very special. It well deep fried, very crispy and very soft duck-meat that you may peel the meat from the bone easily. The spices is so “perfect” so that it will match very well with hot rice, off-course they will serve the dish with very well decorations and most important thing is the yellowish Gravy that straightly remind you to the “Street Bebek Goreng” that you may find every Street Stalls in Surabaya.

One minus thing here is, for the fancy restaurant like this they only accept cash, no credit Card at all. So be prepare to bring enough money here, since you will most likely have additional orders for very delicious “Bebek Goreng”

Pondok Suryo
Bebek Goreng Surabaya
Jl. Suryo No.16 Senopati
Jakarta
Ph. +62(21) 739 3358

Cariu, Last visit

Cariu, last visit
The Deer Sanctuary .............

A bit surprise when we revisit this place last month, some changes has been made, especially for the small forest next to the hanging bridge, now …… no more. 

They cut down the trees and change it become a farmer plantations, plus a couple of farmer house mixed with some open air “Bale-bale” in the riverside.

I’m a bit disappointed finding the place has been changed, now more close to civilization compared with a year before that it was used to be. But well, what can I do? Probably they wanted to make this place more commercial, since the sanctuary is also need big fund for their daily operations.

The deer them selves are about the same, except there’re more male deer may found in this place than before, but seems that our favorite ‘Asep’ has died according to the local ranger there.

One thing that very interesting we found of, by the time we would like to return to the carpark is that the farmer house is selling BBQ Freshwater Fish, this is the thing that we have to try ….. imagine, the original country-style Freshwater Carp
Fish, fresh from the river …………….

So here we are, the taste is not expected to be similar with famous “ikan bakar” restorant but the “Pecak” and “Sambal” is marvelous, made from from Mountain Chili that picked-up directly from farming.


Yummy …………………………….