After working all day, most of the expats want to have some fun in some dodgy bar, preferably in South-Jakarta. The most visited places are situated in and near notorious Blok M, and in my opinion, the place with the highest concentration of bules, especially on a Friday night, is Kemang. Kemang (Kemang Raya) is a street near Blok M that is actually littered with bars, restaurants, discotheques and hotels (with bars and restaurants). One of the first places you will come across there (at least if you are entering Kemang from the north) is the Eastern Promise.
Eastern Promise is a project of the managers of BuGils and Cazbar, two places I like to go, so I was bound to visit the Eastern Promise some day. That day was last Friday (1-Sep-2006). I followed my normal Friday night routine: come home from work, take a shower, and take a taxi to the place I want to spend most of my Friday night. This time it would be Kemang. The road was stuck as usual on a Friday night, too bad I always have to go south to visit the good places. After one and a half hour of traffic jams, we arrived at Kemang. I was worried that I would not find the place easily, because previous experiences with Kemang told me that most of the places don’t really advertise their existence with big signs, so I asked the taxi driver to drive slowly, which was a stupid request; the traffic did not allow us to drive more than about 5 km per hour anyway. I knew the place was near the beginning of the street, (according to Internet resources) next to Bank Niaga, which I spotted almost immediately. But next to this bank, there are two more banks, and next to that, the Eastern Promise, announced on a big billboard above the entrances (yes… the place has 2 entrances!). After paying the taxi driver, I entered the place via the entry to the bar. The bar really looks like a ‘cafe’ in Belgium (or Holland)… a lot of bules, mainly concentrated near the ‘bar’ at the left. I immediately saw I would not be able to get a seat to have my (now already very late) dinner. So I walked through saloon style swing doors I spotted at the left and entered a whole new world. This was a small restaurant and most of the tables where still empty. In the back of the restaurant, I could se a door leading to the back yard, from which sounds of a band doing a soundcheck floated in. It was something I surely would like to investigate after my dinner. Not long after I seated, one of the waitresses brought me the menu. I choose onion soup and spaghetti Bolognese, because I was not in the mood for eating French fries again (I had a quick lunch with Sam at the McDonalds in Citraland earlier that day), nor was I in the mood to eat some of the Indian food that was also on the menu. The soup was very good, the spaghetti was ok, the one in BuGils is much better. But the food was not bad. I definitely have to try the Indian food one day.
As I planned before my dinner, I wandered through the back doors to the ‘garden’, again arriving in a completely different setting. The back door garden looked like a terrace in Bokrijk (this is a place in Belgium, where old buildings are rebuild in a kind of an open air museum, and where the tourists’ food needs are accommodated in restaurants with large outdoor terraces, that can only be used for about 20 percent of the time because of the frequent rainy weather) but much smaller. There was a bar and a podium on which a band (The Elwood) was playing rock and blues classics from the old days, and they where doing a good job. There where not too many people there yet, so I still could choose a nice seat, from where I had an overview of the whole scenery.
It did not take long before the back door garden was crowded. Bules with or without companion came in and ordered beer. My position was very good and I could observe everyone… people really behave strange when they are in a group… especially when they are drunk. But it was very funny to look at them.
The band continued to play, and got some reinforcement from a bule girl. Before she mounted the stage, she put on a utility belt. I thought she was one of the technicians and was going to fix the bas amplifier (not that there was something wrong with it), but it turned out to be Kiri Harp, a harmonica player. The utility belt contained a collection of harmonicas. She played a mean harmonica!
After the band played their first set (which took about 2 hours), I decided to go home. I am sure I will return to the Eastern Promise a lot!