Indonesian food with authentic taste is hard to come by in restaurants around Greater Jakarta these days.

Many restaurants in the capital serving dishes like gado-gado (vegetable salad with peanut sauce), chicken satay and fried rice are considered inauthentic. In other words, the flavors are often very different from homemade or those sold by street vendors.

Bengawan Solo restaurant, which is located at the Grand Sahid Jaya hotel in Central Jakarta, is one of those striving to fulfill the ever-growing demand for Indonesian food with authentic flavors.

The restaurant, which was opened in the early 1990s, launched its rebranded version on Oct. 1. Aside from refurbishing its establishment, the restaurant added new concepts to its menu, including food flavor, styling and variants, as part of its rebranding efforts.

The Jakarta Post was recently invited to have a dining experience, sampling four main courses, which are  pecel (vegetable salad with groundnut) from Madiun, East Java, Javanese fried rice, satays and Yogyakartan fried chicken.

The groundnut sauce in the pecel has the right degree of sweetness and thickness, just like the one sold by a typical street vendor. Usually, though not always, the groundnut sauce for pecel Madiun served at many restaurants is either too sweet or too thick.

Served with an omelet cut into small pieces, the fried rice is more palatable when paired with chicken, lamb or beef satays. At the restaurant, they also added shrimp served on a wooden stick.

With its strong taste of onion and red chili, it is no exaggeration to say that the fried rice provides a taste of home cooking. It'€™s such a home-cooked delicacy that traces back to elementary school time when our moms used to serve us healthy yet delicious fried rice.

No additional artificial flavor enhancers is one way of conveying the message to diners that Bengawan Solo only serves healthy and authentic dishes.

Their beef, lamb and satays are also excellent. Some people prefer to dip the satay in soya sauce, but those who like peanut sauce will experience a different culinary excitement. The peanut sauce is not too sweet, fit to enhance the juicy taste of the satays.

Meanwhile, the Yogyakartan fried chicken is very succulent and tender. It'€™s worth a try, indeed.

Another advice is not to leave the restaurant without sampling cinnamon ice cream for dessert.

'€œWe only serve ice cream with Indonesian taste, like cinnamon, mango and durian. This is part of our effort to make this restaurant stand out,'€ Grand Sahid Jaya Jakarta public relations manager Putri Pratiwi said.

The cinnamon ice cream is served on a cup with white smoke emanating from the dry ice placed inside. The taste of the ice cream is neither too sweet nor too strong, yet it takes some time to really savor the subtlety of its cinnamon flavor. The ice cream also produces the sweet smell of cinnamon.

The mango ice cream is another delicacy from the ice cream menu. Unlike the cinnamon one, the mango ice cream tastes stronger with just the right balance of acidity and sweetness. This is what truly makes it delicious. Many will agree that the subtleties of the real mango it contains is what produces the genuine taste of this mango ice cream.

 '€œHow does the food taste? Just like mama'€™s food, isn'€™t it?'€ Jeremy M. Cooper, the hotel'€™s general manager, said while greeting the Post.  

He said that his team is striving at best to bring back memories of childhood to the visitors of the restaurant. The chefs at the restaurant only use authentic ingredients and recipes. They even learn from street food vendors. The result is obvious: healthy food with a taste of home cooking.  

'€œI send my chefs to the streets so that they are able to get to know the spices and recipes. This way, they can incorporate the authentic flavor of street food into the healthy, homemade delicacies served here at this eatery,'€ he said.  (Sebastian Partogi)

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