food: day 1

today i ate breakfast at the expansive buffet at my hotel. there was omelette man, waffle man, fresh fruit guy...and fried rice, noodles beef curry and chicken porridge lady! i also had some chicken dumplings and an asparagus soup that was served to me even though i politely declined several times. white asparagus, egg, and it was not broth it was goo. clear, goo.
we spent the day at this corporate meeting place. the office is so cramped in jakarta, they rent out space in this building next door for meetings larger than 4 people. it's way better than the old storage room that has no windows and a barely working air conditioner.

so this meeting place was a posh high rise with uber modern architecture, glass, and fake wood like the house of sweden.

they served sweet and savory snacks on the same plate at the coffee break, you didn't know which was what, but the savory was like a fried macaroni and cheese muffin. with bacon! YUM. next to it, the dessert but the custard was not at all custard, i can't name any possible ingredients. so i ate more macaroni muffins. i need this recipe.at lunch there was a chicken (skin and all) soup with little seafood crunchies, hard boiled quail eggs. double yum. and those big cripsy shrimp cracker things, some indonesian style lasagna, fried chicken with waffle cut fries (?) and curry beef.

back at the hotel i sat and worked by the pool and traded in my free welcome drink voucher for avocado juice, mixed with chocolate. now this is a drink, people!

at night we had mall food, which i found is about the quality of food you'd expect at a place that sells Polexes at the watch store, next to the 50 cent pedicure joint. we strolled through all 5 food courts looking for the perfect noodle place. it's funny how quickly i've become accustomed to the cheapness. we looked at one place where a lady passed out the menu and i was like, 15,000 Rp for goreng?? no way! (that's like, $1.50). we settled for a fru-fru uber mod noodle cafe with fluffy red couches. total ripoff, my meal was $4 with starfruit juice. i'm going to keep it under 10,000 from now on.

starting tomorrow i will be solo here...my first few days were planned to overlap with some people from my office, so as to have a smooth transition, and follow up on some of their work. those colleagues consist of a kenyan, a sweet blonde british girl, and an indian guy named nirmal (cutest kitten in the world!) who has two PhDs and big cheeks you just want to pinch - so we make a pretty odd crew. i am trying to convince them to go to dinner at sizzler for their last night, followed by a karaoke bar, but they are resisting. not for long...