ROOFTOP DELIGHTS: (JP/Eilish Kidd)The easiest way to get to Plaza Semanggi Sky Dining is to go down to the basement, where the supermarket is, and ride the office lift up to the 10th floor. This means briefly suffering the esthetic assault of the supermarket, with its bright lights and loudspeaker advertising, but it is worth it.

When you surface on level 10 a doorway leads directly out onto the semi-circular rooftop terrace, putting you at eye level with the lettering (the "g"s and the "i") on the Plaza Semanggi sign.

The edge of the rooftop space is neatly railed off, lest you are entertaining visions of tumbling over, and flowering vines have been planted at intervals. A mild breeze flurries through the arch of restaurants and cafes, and there is the anticipated view over the city.

Avoiding eye contact with the maitre d at the comedy caf*, who, having but one joke up the sleeve of his primary-colored funny outfit, is obliged to greet each and every passerby with a rousing "Good Morning", no matter the time of day, we settled more quickly than usual on a place to eat.

Brick's Kitchen and Lounge is a two-storey establishment that, like all the Sky Dining restos, provides the option of outdoor seating. Sinking into the slightly sticky vinyl armchairs on the terrace, memories of the fumes in the city down below slipped away.

We ordered a couple of Heinekens and perused the food menu, which is divided into Appetizers, Soups, Main Courses, Pizzas and Pastas, Asian Dishes and Desserts.

Our interest was piqued by the Zucchini Pankora -- deep-fried zucchini served with pineapple salsa and pineapple yogurt sauce -- but alas, whether it was the pineapple, the zucchini or the yogurt that was in short supply, the dish had "sold out" and could not be reconstructed, said the waitress. We considered a trip back down to the hellhole supermarket to fetch the aforementioned items, but this was the first bit of fresh air we had gotten in over a week. We decided to make do.

The waitress, meanwhile, was pouring our beers. To the horror of the restaurant manageress peering out from inside the restaurant, she managed to accumulate a healthy head of bubbling foam inside our glasses and scarcely an inch of beer.

But because the manageress cared, we didn't; and smiled generously at the blushing waitress who had just learned her first lesson in the art of beer service.

We were curious about the soups on offer: Wild Mushroom, Tomato and Herb and Smoked Sausage Spicy Soups. But we ordered instead summery fare, as is fitting for a rooftop experience, the Spicy Sausage and Cheese Salad, as well as the Deep-Fried Cheese Salad: crispy cheddar in batter, wrapped in lettuce and "dashed" with spicy cranberry sauce.

Mains were the Grilled Tuna Bali Style and one of Brick's Kitchen pizzas. For Rp 31,000 you get a maximum of three toppings on a dinner-plate sized thin-crust pizza. Choices include roast chicken, crispy local anchovy, sausage, smoked beef, salami, onion, chili cheese and mozzarella: we settled on garlic cheese, spinach and olives.

Our 5-year-old also ordered a mocktail: not the Red Bean Milkshake, nor the Avocado Float, but the Blended Iced Honey Green Tea. We asked the waitress what could be expected. "Well," said she, "It's green tea and it's blended." Indeed.

For our 11-month-old we ordered two serves of Fruit Kebabs in Yogurt Dressing. If it weren't for the kids our eyes may well have strayed over to the house wines; the shooters, the After Nine, Quick **** and Nano-Nano, almost had a tacky appeal ...

Well, tacky appeal is Semanggi Sky Dining all over. It's an experience of cheap, tasty eats on a rooftop and with a few drinks thrown in.

The salad was a little groovy, with strips of cheese (I am not sold on it being cheddar) coated in glistening breadcrumbs laid atop a tangled nest of curly endives and bedraggled lettuce, chunky cuts of capsicum, tomato and cucumber, which was strewn with little cranberries.

There was something rather wild about the salad, with its berries and cheese and vinegary, overly spicy dressing. Its shortcomings were almost endearing; anyway, I liked it more than the Sausage Salad, with its neat ring of smoked sausage slices on a bed of lettuce showered with grated processed cheese.

The pizza was rather good, the deliciously salty slices pointing in arranged around another nest of lettuce, this one bound together with mayo, and the whole thing dusted with Parmesan.

The fruit kebabs were juicy chunks of watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew melon skewered across a bowl of sweet yogurt with passion fruit and honey and they kept the baby happy, though we had to keep him from skewering the back of his throat. He made other toddler friends there on the rooftop, a decent place for kids to run around.

The Bali tuna dish when it came consisted of tuna, scorched and served with a heap of finely sliced green chili, and lemongrass, saut*ed, as well as a crunchy green stir-fry of carrots, broccoli, beans and capsicum and a side dish of mashed potato. The potato was glutinous rather than fluffy but it was all healthy and flavorsome.

My biggest gripe with Brick's Kitchen and Lounge was the number of little crosses on the menu, denoting "sold out" or otherwise off-limits (I'm talking about you, Sticky Rice Topped with Durian Custard Pudding. And you, Japanese Cheesecake served with Cinnamon Caramel Sauce).

If management could be convinced to pop certain dishes back on the menu it would be heaven here indeed atop of Plaza Semanggi, high above the shops selling plastic jewelry and trinkets and imitation designer clothes and cheap DVDs and scratchy bed linen. Far above the basement supermarket and the cars and the fumes and the chaos of the city, it's an oasis of tackiness.

What wouldn't one do for a Heineken, a salad and a slice of cheesecake with cinnamon caramel sauce, with a view of the city and that flurry of warm breeze?

Bricks Kitchen and Lounge is open 10 a.m. -12 p.m. weekdays; 10 a.m. -2 p.m. weekends

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