Finding the restaurant is easy. It sits prettily at one corner of the mainstreet area at Gandaria City shopping mall in South Jakarta, and the entrance sign is handwritten in colorful chalk on a blackboard.

Inside, you will find cozy seats and sofas. At one corner, there is one long table with 10 chairs, designed for those who come along in group. The wall in the corner made from broken tiles in a bid to create a homey feel.

The wall itself, and the ceiling, are full of blackboards of various sizes with pictures and some slogans like Albert Einstein’s “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”, Benjamin Franklin’s

“Wine makes daily living easier” and a Beatles’s lyrics “Nothing real and nothing to get hung about”.   

Other sentences on the blackboards tell more — “Munchies was established through numerous ideas packed nicely” and “Hunger is not friendly. Thirst is worst”.

Munchies Restaurant and Bar was initiated by three young Indonesian entrepreneurs — Hamid Sugianto (manager), Jason Aditya Mulia (general manager) and Budi Kurniawan (executive chef).

Even though the interior design is modern, the restaurant management also apply traditional touches by placing plant grains around parts of the eatery.

The Indonesian feel also reflects on the dishes in the menu list. While other restaurants use imported ingredients in the name of maintaining good quality, Jason says that Munchies prefers using local products for the dishes.

“The things about imported products are they are hard to get and expensive. Indonesian cuisine does not only revolve around nasi goreng (fried rice) or mie goreng (fried noodles). Our country is also rich for its natural ingredients,” he says.

“Then we thought, ‘Why don’t we use Indonesian products, like local fruits and flowers, and put them on our menu?’ So we serve a Western menu with Indonesian ingredients.”

Before craving the dishes, food lovers can start their day with the restaurant’s in-house fresh fruity drinks called Munchies mocktails, ranging from mangoes with an orange splash, strawberry with a peach splash and kiwi with green apple to passionfruit with a strawberry splash.

If you need to whet your appetite, you can either opt for something hot,  like homemade mushroom soup topped with crispy mushrooms or cold food such as chicken aioli (salad seared with chicken in a bed of crispy lettuce with roast garlic aioli or guava chicken (a mix of roast chicken, fresh guava, mixed salad, topped with guava salad dressing).

Those who want something lighter can go for its sandwich, burger or snacks. One snack is crab cakes, which is made of crab meat with a dash of kecombrang flower (etlingera elatior), which is commonly found in many places across the country.

“The kecombrang flower is suitable for seafood as it helps deodorize fishy smells,” said Budi.

Since the burger and sandwich are served in big portions, you can share it with your friends.  

Budi claimed that Munchies’ very own burger, called the Junk Food Killer, which comprises beef with crispy onion and tomato hollandaise, was healthier than any other burgers.

“We want to show people that our burgers are not junk food. We use ground red wine wagyu beef and use oil only once,” he added.

Munchies also has a farmhouse sandwich, seared striploin on a bed of sautéed mushroom and a creamy mustard top with melted mozzarella cheese, complete with vegetables in balsamic and olive oil dressing.

Unlike other sandwiches, the farmhouse sandwich is served separately from the vegetables.  

“Some people find it annoying eating a sandwich mounted with too much filling. We give a solution by separating the sandwich and the veggies,” said Hamid.     

If you plan for a serious complete culinary trip, you can try to crave its pasta and go for its main course.

Try its mushroom and almond pasta, a combination of fried simeji and button mushrooms sprinkled with toasted almonds, which is so crunchy and creamy.

When it comes to be the main course, Munchies offers unique meaty styles to choose from.     

If one big slice of beef steak is too much for you to handle, at Munchies you can have two different kinds of meat on your plate with two different sauces, like beef and chicken or chicken with salmon.

The Jakarta Post tried a combination of white fish with mustard cream sauce and sautéed mushrooms, and salmon with tamarind reduction and green mango rujak (mixed fruits and vegetables in a spicy peanut sauce). The fish was accompanied with creamy mashed potatoes.

The inspiration of the tamarind reduction sauce was taken from Indonesia’s rujak. The creamy sauce gives some balance to the latter sauce, which is fresh, sour and spicy.

“Instead of using expensive imported fish like seabass, we prefer to use parrotfish, which can be found in Indonesian waters,” said Budi, Munchies’ chef.   

For those who want to get cozy and have a beverage, you can go to the restaurant’s bar. So, ready for some munchies?

Munchies

Gandaria City Mainstreet MG16
Jl. K.H. M. Syafi’i Hadzami No.8, Kebayoran Lama, South Jakarta
Phone: +62 21 29053075/76

Popular

Ministry orders remote working for civil servants to help ease traffic congestion

Netanyahu vows victory after Iran strikes, fears of wider conflict grow

18 people killed in South Sulawesi landslide