Spicy food-loving Mahatma Narendra, 23, was shocked to see the small portion of sambal he received with his favorite Manadonese meal, smoked skipjack tuna, at a restaurant in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta.

He had noticed that the restaurant had recently begun serving smaller and smaller servings of sambal. Beyond the restaurant, the intern at a private company said he had also received less sambal from his favorite fried catfish vendor.

“Usually they are very generous with the sambal but many places have started to cut back. It’s too bad because I love spicy food and less sambal means less flavor for me,” he said.

His complaint reflects the impact skyrocketing chili prices are having on food lovers around Jakarta. Chili is one of the main ingredients of many traditional Indonesian meals, and spicy foods have been particularly trendy of late

The price of chili jumped 21.8 percent to Rp 68,974 (US$5.05) per kilogram on average last month from Rp 56,627 on average in December, according to data released Monday by the Jakarta office of Statistics Indonesia (BPS).

The average price of the popular red bird’s eye chili jumped to Rp 110,556 per kilogram on Tuesday, costing almost as much as beef at Rp 117,778 per kilogram.

Last month, rising chili prices accounted for 0.10 percentage points of the capital city's inflation rate at 0.25 percent, making it the main driving factor.

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