Twenty-five-year-old Dessy Boen was excited to try her first spicy instant noodle dish featuring 25 chilies at the Warung Indomie Abang Adek in Tomang, West Jakarta, on Sunday afternoon.

Always on the lookout for hot dishes, Dessy said she had first heard about the place from a vlog post online, but even as a self-described big fan of spicy food, she admitted that she was scared to try the restaurant’s most popular sauce, garuk (scratch) level hotness, which uses 50 chili pieces for one Indomie instant noodle packet.

She instead went with one spicy level down to pedas (spicy). “For a first bite, it’s not actually that spicy. I don’t know though how it would build up,” Dessy said after taking her first mouthful.

The restaurant is a branch of a chain commonly known as Abang Adek (Brothers), which specializes in spicy instant noodle dishes with five levels of hotness, beginning at sedang (medium) with 10 chilies and moving to pedas with 25 chilies, garuk with 50 chilies, gila (crazy) with 75 chilies and mampus (dead) with 100 chilies.

Febrina “Nur” Nurfikayani, a daughter of the owner of the Abang Adek chain, said a recent steep rise of chili prices has made management think twice about the generous servings of their spicy meals.

“Before, we wouldn’t be so calculative when pouring out the chilies for each plate, but now we have to be precise. Otherwise we’d just lose money by overspending on chilies,” Nur told The Jakarta Post at the restaurant on Sunday.

She said chili prices at one point reached a peak of Rp 170,000 (US$12.70) for one kilogram, more than three times the average cost of Rp 50,000 per kilogram. The prices continue to fluctuate, she continued, but they still remain on the higher end.

Chili is a key culinary ingredient in the country as many Indonesians like to eat spicy food. Even though chili prices typically rise during the rainy season, the cost of the spicy commodity shot to a new historic high just days after New Year’s Eve. The current price surge is worse than the last peak in December 2014 when the commodity sold for Rp 60,000 per kg.

The price hike had pushed restaurants like Abang Adek to raise their menu prices to deal with the exorbitant costs. Nur said the restaurant’s main branch in Tomang had decided to temporarily raise its menu prices by 10 percent. With a dish priced on average at about Rp 14,000, Abang Adek had a minimum profit margin.

“If the chili prices stay high, then we’ll have no choice but to raise our prices permanently,” Nur said.

Despite the wallet-pinching prices, however, many restaurants specializing in spicy dishes insist that they would not compromise on quality.

Didit Sumaryan, manager of the Warung Mbah Jingkrak in Setia Budi, South Jakarta, which offers Javanese cuisine, insisted that the restaurant maintains quality despite the price hike.

“It has greatly affected us, especially in terms of expenses, but in terms of our quality, we don’t let it get affected. So even though there is a significant rise in prices, we maintain our quality because that’s our basic concept,” Didit told the Post.

Similarly, the management of the outlet of the Waroeng SS restaurant chain located in Grogol Petamburan, West Jakarta, also expressed concerns over chili prices. The restaurant, which features 28 types of sambal or chili, was packed on Sunday with guests lining up outside to waiting for tables.

Arif, who is responsible over the procurement of ingredients for the restaurant on Jl. Tanjung Duren Barat, said expenses for chili approximately doubled in early January compared to a month earlier.

“We use about 30 kilograms of chili a day on average and we’ve been spending upwards of Rp 2 million lately, just on chili alone,” Arif said.

Arina Dina, 24, said she regularly visited the restaurant to satisfy her taste for spicy meals. When asked if she worried about chili prices compromising food quality, she answered, “No.”

“I don’t feel there have been any changes. I don’t know how they deal with it, but it’s been the same,”
Dina said.

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