Cast your vote or nominate a hotel, restaurant, bar, airport, or airline, in our new ongoing survey of the best places in the Asia Pacific.
A Sense of Place |
| BATS (Shangri-La Hotel) | Oasis | Empire Grill | Hard Rock Cafe | Tanamur | Café Batavia | Classic Rock | JJ's |
 BATS
The hot spot in Jakarta today and for at least 12 months, the basement of the Shangri-La has been turned into a "batcave", attracting its good share of Batmen and Catwomen nightly. $50,000 Rupea gets you in, and very large beers, $30,000 a pop. Mixed drinks around 30 to 40,000. It's not cheap, but the entertainment, usually in the form of a local Indonesian jazz band early and a visiting rock band late is top class. It all starts really happening around 11 pm and goes on right until 2am in the morning. Before 11pm, BATS is more like a trendy modernist restaurant, and watching the massive steaks and crayfish going by is enough to make any Bat quite ravernous. Its a place for the well heeled local and expense-account-assisted expat or business person.
Dust the cobwebs off and get down to BATS sometime soon!
The Oasis
Many restaurants try to recreate the feeling of the time when Asia was "really" romantic while ignoring the disease, wars, poverty and violence of those times. The best way to do it is to recreate a colonial setting where the colonialists created their own fantasy years ago and separated themselves from the real world as much as they could. Such is the approach of the Oasis, which recreates the old plantation life (the opulent bit). And this time the formula succeeds... The ambience and surroundings, right down to the perfectly costumed doorman is relaxing and elegant. The menu, surprisingly for places like this, matches the quality of the setting. A mixture of European and Indonesian food, with specialty being the Rijstafel, this is an excellent place to entertain out of town business associates. Try the Raja and Sumatra rooms or the Terrace for varying themes. The staff are attentive and don't try to hurry you. If this place does not relax you, and make you inspired for the next day's business, nothing will...
The Empire Grill
The penthouse of Menara Imperium offers a revolving restaurant of considerable style and grace. Excellent live jazz, a fine personal touch from the waiters and simple, highest quality grill fare makes this a classy choice for entertaining associates. The high quality in all areas never varies, a creditable accomplishment in Jakarta.
JJ's
JJ's opened about 2 years ago, right next door to the infamous Tanamur, and now seriously competes with Tanamur for a share of the lucrative horny expat market. It went through a bad patch about 9 months ago when it tuned off the air-conditioning to save money, but since then it has dropped the nightly cover charge, and with Tanamur still charging theirs, the crowds at JJ's have increased sigificantly. Not only a nightclub but also an above-average nosherie (Cusine Moderne!) JJ's offers some innovative features, including an outside garden featuring a pool table and nightly movie, a split level bar, tables suspended by ropes from the ceiling and generous elbow room at the bar. Definately a late night place it gets moving around 10:00pm catering for the restuarant crowd, then gets down at 11pm through to 3am.
Hard Rock Café Jakarta
The second best Hard Rock Cafe in the world. Earlier in the week is better for less of a crowd. A long bar for leaning against and all the usual HRC Rock artifacts hanging on the walls. The split-level means that there are many strategic positions from where to observe the physical and mental jostling downstairs.
A beer is around 17,000 Rupea, mixed drinks 20 to 40,000; a meal for two without drinks can range from around 60,000 Rupea to 120,000. Happy hour is 4pm to 8pm.
The standard excellent HRC menu. A great place to meet new friends, both local and business travellers on a night out. The live bands regularly murder "Smoke on the water" here, but memorable for the most soulful version of "Wishing you a merry little Christmas" from one band and the best cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody" I've ever heard. When the HRC closes down the majority of the crowd head for Tanamur.
Webhead notes on 30th October 1998: As the review above rightly says, the second-best Hard Rock in the world... apologies, Marco - the match-stick puzzles were good but Kuala Lumpur just beats Jakarta, by a nose.
I arrived at HRC Jakarta literally a couple of hours after getting out of the airport. It was a Friday night and my two new friends, a British couple who I met on the plane, and I sauntered into the Rock at about 9.30pm - the place was packed-out already.
It got busier... and busier... and even busier. If you're into drinking in a real party atmosphere, with a top-quality cover band pumping-out the hits until the wee-hours, getting nudged by people trying to get to the bar and having to wait 10 minutes for a drink, this is the place for you.
Don't let that image put you off - I loved it and so did my friends. And the number of... how shall I put it... 'adults' (!) was equal to the number of us youngsters - in fact, they seemed to be enjoying it as much, if not more, than us. But then, I guess they've got the money.
Tanamur
The most popular late night disco of them all in Jakarta. Because there are not may, this place has a certain notoriety. But good clean fun can always be guaranteed. Besides the place can sometimes be so smoky that nobody will recognise you desperately approximating the Lambada on the dance floor with a recent lady of your acquaintance. Beware of this place as nights before often turns into days after. Always guaranteed to be lively, and to provide a short taste of decadence Indonesian style.
This is the sort of place that fathers take their sons. It has been around for around 30 years making it one of the oldest nightclubs in the whole continent. ..And no doubt it may well still be around in 30 years. The building is an old dutch erection, with plenty of stone, and you can still see the old signs offering go-go dancers on Tuesday and Friday nights. The price board seems to be suffering from very fast amendments over the last year or so.
20,000 Rupea gets you in early in the week and 25,000 later in the week. Free entry for ladies on Sunday nights, and the males have to put up with MALE go-go dancers on that night. Tanamur only really gets started around 12pm, and sometimes peters out quite early at around 2pm, if the crowd decide to visit JJ's next door instead.
Don't be surprised to see your customer/clients/boss here who 3 hours earlier excused themselves from going out for a nightcap after dinner because they were "feeling tired and had a big day tomorrow". The tourists take a while to find this place; it is mainly frequented by locals and Western expatriates. Loud music, very casual service. When I was last there around Xmas a bunch of expats took over the balcony in white gowns holding candles singing Xmas carols. To a tee the crowd joined in... Just one of those little ironies of life around here that makes it all worth living.
Café Batavia
A finer romantic setting is difficult to match in all of Asia. Situated
in the old Dutch area of Jakarta, north from this bustling metropolis,
and in the shadow of the maritime docks and wharves close by, this
place has always been worth the trip. Its been here a comparatively
long time, housed in a building erected in the early 1800's and the
upstairs Grand Salon constructed entirely out of Java Teak one and
a half centuries later, the whiff of history and destiny permeates
the dining areas. Every area is different with the Art Deco glass
conservatory adding a 1937 art-deco feel and finally the sophisticated
Churchill bar providing the perfect site for late night business chats..
If you leave Jakarta before going here one night, you will miss one
of the finer dining and imbibing experiences in all of South East
Asia.Ordering from both the Chinese and European menu has produced
consistently pleasant surprises in the past in terms of both presentation
and food quality. While back in dusty chaotic central Jakarta reality
beats a heavy path to your door, this may just be the place to launch
a dream. Several have done it before... just ask Blanchard...
who met a Hong Kong businessman who launched his dream at a 4 person
meeting around midnight at the Churchill in 1983. Five years later
he is well on the way to achieving it 4,000 miles away. Who knows
what Javanese spirits bless the nightly crowd of romantics and visionaries
who frequent this place? One day... just one day... Blanchard may
even write about it...
Webhead notes on 30th October 1998: I loved this place, although a little expensive for a youngster out for lunch - my friend and I nearly choked on our breadsticks when we saw the prices on the menu - then again, of course, we're used to eating nasi goreng, late night on the street corner.
A beautiful building - a kind of "Hard Rock Cafe" for jazz enthusiasts, with less loud music, 30's, 40's and 50's memorabilia and a more relaxed atmosphere. Also a great location, the Dutch area of Jakarta, looking over the square. Worth a stop-off (budget allowing) on your way to the docks, which I didn't make it to, unfortunately, but I've been told it's well-worth taking a few rolls of film with you for the boats and tradesmen.
Classic Rock
Webhead, 30th October 1998: A quiet little bar in the Block M market district of Jakarta, introduced to me by a friend who hangs-out there as an escape from other Jakarta bars every Saturday night. In every sense, a very "Saturday night" bar - a fantastic 6-piece reggae combo take requests all night, virtually non-stop, from 9pm until 2am... one singer sounds just like the guy from UB40 and did my "Rat in Mah Kitchen" request to a tee.
A regular Saturday night crowd is instantly identifiable, grooving away on the small space near the stage - a very friendly crowd and fun to hang around with. The beer isn't pricey, and I was surprised to be able to order fries and garlic-bread at 1am but then again, I am a Brit!
A little hard to find, a little out-of-the-way from Jakarta Central, but a quick cab to Block M and a few words with a local or two will point you in the right direction. Worth the effort if you want a quiet Saturday night out.
|
Visit 
Visit the 
Visit the 