Tropical Nostalgia at Huize Trivelli

Julie Shingleton ,  The Jakarta Post - WEEKENDER   |  Sat, 05/23/2009 2:23 PM  |  Restaurant Row

Hungry for a slice of Jakarta’s culture and history but not quite in the mood for a stroll through the city’s museums? Julie Shingleton sinks her teeth into one of the famed Indische dishes – Indonesian food adapted to the Dutch palate – at Jakarta’s heritage restaurant and patisserie Huize Trivelli.

After all, American actor John Wayne did exactly that when he dined at Jakarta’s famous Hotel Des Indes on Feb. 13, 1958, which was razed in the 1970s to make room for yet another supermarket, says Jalaluddin Soe’oed, the husband of Huize Trivelli owner and chef Wahyuni Baliningtyas, brandishing a copy of the menu Wayne signed more than 50 years ago.

“A friend of mine, who used to know Vic Koopman, [one of the chefs at the Hotel Des Indes] sent me this document to confirm John Wayne ate a Chateaubriand à la Jardinière, an authentic tempo doeloe dish,” says J. Soe’oed.

He has a keen interest in history and the cultural heritage of Jakarta, having worked on several preservation projects of Bank Indonesia, such as the Javasche bank buildings and the museum project Bank Indonesia-Kota.

Tempo doeloe or “the good old times”’ refers to the era when Indonesia was part of the Dutch East Indies, especially from 1870 until the end of World War II.

Sitting in one of Huize Trivelli’s – or the House of Trivelli – lounges is akin to flying H.G. Wells’ time machine to Jakarta in the 1940s and 50s, all the rooms tastefully decorated with early 20th century furniture, marble tables, gramophones, pink ceramic Berkerfeld-Celle water filters, Indische recipe books and myriads of black and white photos of Jakarta’s old buildings, most of which have since disappeared from the city’s skyline.

Tucked away at the end of Jl. Tanah Abang 2 in Central Jakarta’s Gambir area, the house where J. Soe’oed and his wife live and run their restaurant was build in 1939 as one of the last original Dutch colonial residences standing in the street, formerly Laan Trivelli. The area was also transformed into a prison camp for children and women during the Japanese occupation.

J. Soe’oed grew up in the area, having first moved to the single-story house with his family in 1953 and later with his wife in the late 1980s. His wife opened the restaurant after his parents passed away in late November 2006.

“The area used to be very residential but became a more commercial one after the 1970s and 80s.

Then, we started seeing more four-, five- and six-story buildings. Now the government has categorized the area as a business one, which means if you want to build a house, it has to have a minimum of four levels.”

J. Soe’oed explains the love of cooking has a long history in his and his wife’s families.

“The recipes have been handed down from generation to generation, from my grandparents, parents, and from my wife’s family. There is a complete synergy between the two families’ recipes.

“We have cookbooks from the 1930s, which my mother gave to my wife. Our bible for cooking, alongside many of the recipes passed from generation to generation, is Koba M.J. Catenius-van der Meijden’s Groot Nieuw Volledig Oost-Indisch Kookboek.”

As Huize Trivelli’s chef, Wahyuni bases some of her dishes – Huzaren Sla or Salade a la Hussarde, Bitterbalen (round croquettes) and Mini Rijsttafel in Harmonie (rice plate) (a dish of up to five to eight small-portioned Indonesian specialties such as curry laksa or soto betawi accompanied by rice) – on a handwritten book of recipes her mother-in-law put together during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia and later passed on to her.

How so many recipes ended up in the hands of J. Soe’oed’s mother and wife seems to be a case of history repeating itself, as both women took on cooking for dozens of people almost as a full-time occupation after following their husbands to Holland at different periods of their lives.

“When my wife came to the Netherlands in the 1990s as a recently married Ibu, while I was studying for an MBA at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, she didn’t have the practical knowledge to run a kitchen catering for large dinner parties and found herself having to cook without the help of maids or assistants,” he says.

“Since it is our custom as Indonesians to invite many people, students and family, over to our house for dinner, she learned to prepare the real Indonesian food, receiving recipes by post from my mother and her family.”

Wahyuni says her exposure to cooking started when she moved into Trivelli as a young wife, living with her in-laws and helping bake tempo doeloe cookies. Her vegetarian mother-in-law had started a successful cookie business in the 1960s, delivering handmade biscuits such as Kattetong (cat-tongue shaped) or Kaastengels (cheese-made) biscuits to Sarinah, Jakarta’s first and most prestigious mall at the time.

“I was a sixth grader and remember assisting my mother and our maids in sealing the cookie bags with candles, then riding on a betjak over to Sarinah to deliver the cookies,” says J. Soe’oed.

The cookie-making tradition lives on, with Wahyuni baking limited quantities of those biscuits at the restaurant.

“We hope the spirit of the restaurant will grow and live on. Opening a restaurant is also like conserving one part of the epoch of Batavia,” says J. Soe’oed.

Not only is Huize Trivelli a tribute to the old Batavia, it is also a celebration of J. Soe’oed’s family values.

“My parents always said, do your work with love. You have to dedicate all your efforts with love.
Everything we do here is to show our visitors we devote all our work to them with love.”

Of course, J. Soe’oed says, business is business, but the restaurant is run on satisfaction coming from the heart.

“The other value we hold dear to our heart is honesty. When we cook, we use all the ingredients needed in the recipe; we don’t think twice about spending money to buy the best ingredients. We will use the best cheese for our recipes, because it’s about quality. You have to have the courage to use the full gamut of ingredients.”

Most importantly for J. Soe’oed, the restaurant is about sharing with other people the history of his family throughout the last century, with pictures of gatherings over the decades, workplaces, places where members of his family traveled as teachers or government officials, and many old books meticulously picked and displayed around the place.

“We want people to come here not only to eat, but also to learn about the history, culture of
Jakarta and Indonesia. My friends tell me ‘You are crazy Ludy! People will sit here for hours and your seats will be occupied’, but they don’t understand, it’s our values. We are interested in the transfer of values and culture.”

Huize Trivelli serves a very reasonably priced à la carte menu, with appetizers ranging from Rp 15,000 to 20,000, main courses priced around Rp 65,000, which is the price of the mouth-watering Trivelli Kalfstong Bistik (cow’s tongue). All dishes are cooked without preservatives.
Rijsttafels, served to a minimum of six people, need to be ordered a couple of days in advance to allow for preparation time. And don’t forget to try Trivelli’s delicious Klappertaart (Rp 13,500) for dessert, as well as the homemade Bier Pletok, a house specialty drink originating from Batavia and made out of ginger, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper and palm sugar.

Huize Trivelli is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
http://www.huize-trivelli.com
Jl. Tanah Abang Dua 108 Jakarta 10150
Tel/Fax: 021 3865803
Email: info@huize-trivelli.com or management@huize-trivelli.com

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