Tour participants pose outside Phoenam coffee shop.

At that time, everyday, when restaurants and cafes in shopping malls begin to get overcrowded, a trip down memory lane may unearth some pleasant surprises.

A visit to some of the vintage food places in the capital can be a way to avoid the city’s never ending hustle and bustle.

Love Our Heritage, a community who is trying to preserve historical places of interest in Jakarta, recently held a culinary tour that took the theme “Normal is Boring”. The tour took attendees to popular culinary places across the city, with a particular focus on the Cikini and Menteng areas in Central Jakarta.

The walking tour began at Tan Ek Tjoan, one of the city’s legendary bakeries famous for its very own gambang bread, a butter and spice bread inspired by the Dutch spekkoek.

Around 20 participants gathered at the bakery at 10 a.m. on that rainy Saturday, excited to take a peek inside the factory behind the five-decade-old bakery.

Bread making at Tan Ek Tjoan The bakery was established in Bogor, West Java, which is just on the outskirts of Jakarta, back in 1921 by a Chinese businessman, Tan Ek Tjoan.

In 1953 Tan Ek Tjoan’s son, Tan Kim Ham, the mastermind behind the gambang bread recipe, established a branch on Jl. Cikini Raya in Menteng in answer to the growing demands for their bread in Jakarta.

At the bakery, participants were given the opportunity to make their own bread dough and add whatever they wanted to it, from chocolate chips to raisins.

Wilinda Astrianti, 35, said that Tan Ek Tjoan had always been her favorite bakery and she was excited by the opportunity to see behind the scenes.

Martabak pancake at D’Marco Cafe“It is interesting to see that the vintage machines at the factory are still in working order,” she told The Jakarta Post.

According to Tan Ek Tjoan’s operational director, Kennedy, the bakery has no plans to further expand its business in the coming years since most of the processes are still done manually.

Around 10,000 loaves of bread are produced by the factory each day and they are distributed to Tangerang, Bekasi, Cinere and Rawamangun by bicycle trailer carts.

“We only sell our bread from bicycle carts and do not distribute them to other shops. This is one of our signatures,” Kennedy said.

The group later went on to Sop Buntut Cut Meutia (Cut Meutia Oxtail Soup) on Jl. Menteng Kecil, Central Jakarta.

The restaurant opened its doors in 1970 as a West Sumatran restaurant called Semoga.

Sop Buntut Cut Mutia oxtail soup restaurant.Malinar Ruslan, the restaurant manager, said the restaurant later gained popularity for its oxtail soup and the customers began to call the restaurant Sop Buntut Cut Meutia rather than Semoga.

“In the 80s, my mother decided to focus on selling just the oxtail soup and called it quits for the West Sumatran cuisine,” Malinar said.

He said that the restaurant sells up to 500 bowls of oxtail soup on a weekday. The price of one bowl of oxtail soup ranges from Rp 34,000 (US$3.6) to Rp 39,000, depending on how the oxtail is prepared — fried or grilled.

“Our restaurant is busier during working days as most people come here to have lunch. On the weekends we tend to have fewer visitors,” he said.

After enjoying their bowls of oxtail soup, the attendees continued their walk onto Gondangdia Train Station, one of the city’s main commuter train stations.

Food vendors at the train station open in the early of the morning up until very late at night, providing various meals, from nasi gudeg (jackfruit cooked in coconut milk), bakmi jawa (Javanese style noodle) to fried rice.

At around 2 p.m., the tour went on to the Phoenam coffee shop on Jl. KH Wahid Hasyim.

Phoenam, which means a transit place in the Mandarin language, was established by a Chinese immigrant, Liong Thay Hiong in Makassar, South Sulawesi, in 1946.

In 2003, the coffee shop expanded its business and opened its first branch in Jakarta. Customers can get a glass of ice coffee for only Rp 18,000 — almost half of what American-franchised coffee shops charge.

“By organizing this tour, we have given participants the opportunity to not only taste the food but to also enrich their knowledge of the history behind these famous food places,” Francis Amelia Devina, the head of Love Our Heritage, community said.

The tour’s final destination was D’Marco Café, a modern martabak (pancake) place on Jl. Sabang, where tour participants were invited to create their own martabak.

The café owner, Ira Lathief, one of the organizers behind the tour, said that she wanted to offer a unique martabak experience by opening the café.

“Martabak has always been a part of Indonesian’s street food culture. At this café, we offer the customers a high quality martabak, coupled with comfortable surroundings,” Ira said.

She said the tour was intended to bring out the creative side of the participants by giving them a hands-on experience.

“This is definitely not a normal culinary tour. [Which is good] because normal is boring,” she smiled.  (nad)

— Photos courtesy of Love Our Heritage community