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Restaurant review: Pò SupperKlab’s intimate ambience
Central Jakarta’s Pò SupperKlab tries to recapture intimate moments of dining out through nontraditional Chinese cuisine and crafted cocktails.
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East meets West: Pò SupperKlab's beef bacon dumplings take center stage. (Courtesy of Pò SupperKlab) (Courtesy of Pò SupperKlab/Courtesy of Pò SupperKlab)
C
em>Central Jakarta’s Pò SupperKlab tries to recapture the once familiar intimacy of dining out, offering nontraditional Chinese cuisine and crafted cocktails.
The occasion of dining out, whether with friends or family, is often a long-awaited respite from daily routine. The simple longing for this ordinary experience — sharing conversations over some drinks and dishes — is what prompted the birth of Central Jakarta’s Pò SupperKlab.
“After around two years of not being able to dine out freely, we feel that this is the right time to reintroduce those moments,” shared Banjo Tasning from MSG Group, the same group behind Pò Noodle Bar and other establishments.
The restaurant occupies the second floor of a charming heritage building in Cikini, Central Jakarta. Save for the signage, the exterior is quite nondescript. Inside, much of the building’s layout and interior remains unaltered. The space is divided into four areas with different vibes — dining room, a private dining table and two lounges overlooking a nostalgic stretch of road.
As it turns out, the restaurant’s location and building play a part in shaping its identity and offerings. Banjo recalls that the place was actually found by chance when he cycled around the area. “When we first visited [the building], we realized that we have something special here — we didn’t want to make just another Pò Noodle Bar outlet. We then tried to come up with another concept that fits better with the building and its surroundings,” recalled Banjo.
The menu features Pò SupperKlab’s renditions of classic Chinese dishes, made to be shared among guests. Like their previous establishments, Pò SupperKlab maintains a handcrafted approach to all their menu items, with everything made in-house, from scratch. A large part of the menu items — particularly its seafood offerings — are seasonal, and only come in limited quantities.
In terms of flavors, Pò SupperKlab does not shy away from bold notes. A noteworthy staple, mapu tofu, packs a punch in its deep red broth. Originally from Sichuan, the dish consists of soft tofu curds in a spicy sauce. This rendition delivers the signature mala — or numbingly spicy — flavor of Sichuan cuisine strikingly, while balancing it with other components: snow mushroom, truffle oil, garlic chips and furikake (a dried Japanese spice). Guests who are not used to this particular type of spiciness may need to take notes, as the sensation is notably stronger than what most may be used to.
Disparate influences are also present in other dishes: namely, the signature dumplings. Take the beef bacon dumplings, which combine minced beef stuffing with beef bacon, topped with jalapeño (a spicy Mexican chili) and tobiko (flying fish roe) with miso-mustard dipping sauce. In this East meets West dish, the jalapeño and the dipping sauce’s acidity cut through the richness of the different types of beef. Another example is the wagyu karubi (a boneless, juicy and popular style of cut of beef) dumplings, in which slices of fatty beef inside the dumpling are paired with garlic confit and black garlic sauce.
As to its cocktails, Pò SupperKlab has joined forces with Bandung’s purveyors of fine cocktails, Gloomy Sunday. Their relationship started in 2019, when Gloomy Sunday held a pop-up at Pò Noodle Bar’s Christmas dinner. The new partnership — described as a “permanent collaboration” by Gloomy Sunday’s owner Ardia Pratama — marks the first outlet where Gloomy Sunday’s crafted cocktails are available outside of its own speakeasy.
According to Ardia, the idea behind the cocktail offerings in Pò SupperKlab is just to create fun-to-drink cocktails, since he sees that a lot of people tend to overthink the complexities of a cocktail rather than just simply enjoying the flavors.
Gloomy Sunday’s cocktails often use local ingredients such as torch ginger or culantro, and a number of menu items in Pò SupperKlab even include tea as an ingredient — one is Jai Guru Deva Om. Taking the name from a line of the Beatles’ song, “Across the Universe”, the unique concoction is served warm in a pot along with a lit-up incense cone. With their house blend tea as its central flavor, bourbon and a crafted herb spice syrup further deepen the cocktail’s warmth. The wafting incense smoke also adds another dimension to the experience.
Even though those with a sweet tooth might be disappointed by the lack of dessert items on the menu, sweet cocktails like the B.B. June are there to make up for it. The vodka-based cocktail, mixed with a milky syrup and lemon juice and topped with cream cheese foam, does possess a dessert-like quality. Other cocktails, like the sour Haru Urara, also demonstrate how the drinks provide a balance to the dishes’ bold tastes. Composed of tequila, cilantro, lemon juice and kiwi, the sour concoction leaves the palate with a pleasant freshness.
While the world may not be completely back to normal yet, the situation presents Pò SupperKlab with the opportunity to fine-tune its operations bit by bit. “We’re gonna take it slow, since, at the end of the day, it’s a marathon. It’s more important to build a fun ambience and experience for guests rather than have [the restaurant] blow up without having the right level of service,” said Banjo. At the moment, the level of intimacy and personalization of service feel just right.
