Let’s see, what to put in and what to leave out. “I spent
a year in Jakarta last week.” At least, and it will take an entire year to
forget about it. But it wasn’t all (redacted “ungood”). This trio of tiny
cheeseburgers was at a very nicely designed and well-run bar/restaurant close
to city-center. There was a varied menu of food and drinks, which followed the
local custom of omitting pork but failed spectacularly to follow the local
proscription of alcoholic drinks. There was wine everywhere, racks of it,
behind the bar and in the dinning area, and it seemed to make up a good part of
their business. They also had beer and spirits.
One section of the menu was called, “Tapas.” The
Indonesian man accompanying us had no idea at all what Tapas were, a condition
that he shared, no doubt, with almost all of his countrymen. It contained,
however, eight or ten very Tapas-like items. This one, called “Cheese-Burger
Sliders,” was one of them. So the owner was up on his American restaurant
vocabulary as well. (I believe that he was Australian.)
I won’t keep you hanging, they were very tasty. Beef,
actually. This being an Asian country, and Muslim, one is caught between the
usual preference for pork and the common abhorrence for beef. Many South East Asians
have a strong disliking for beef, and most Chinese think that beef is
poisonous. If you order anything that is beef in Thailand, be prepared for it
to be cooked to death, often cooked well beyond death. There is no “medium” in
Thailand, beef is either done or well done, with both gradations being
over-done. Somehow, the chef at this place had figured out a way to cook the
hell out of these things without rendering them tasteless or tough.
Surely there was not a hint of the color pink or even a
drop of hemoglobin in these little burgers, and their cross-section had a uniform, dark
brown color, but they were somehow moist, light, and delicious. Sir, my hat is
off to you!
The best thing about a trip to Jakarta is going home. Returning
to Bangkok was like returning to Beverly Hills after a trip to San Bernardino.
The silver lining, nay gold, is that I will never complain again about the
minor annoyances of life in Bangkok. Even the Bangkok traffic, when compared
with Jakarta, seems to flow like an unobstructed river.
Traveling is good; getting home is better.
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