Mexican food with the Betawi and Javanese

Titi bought us dinner for her birthday last night at the Amigos Cafe, a popular Mexican restaurant located opposite Sarinah. There were six of us: Ahmez, Maria, Shirley, Titi, Krisna and myself. Some of them, like Titi were past employees of Ibis Hotel, where I have been staying for over one-and-a-half years.

Ahmez was telling me that he is a pure Betawi - born and bred in Jakarta. We had an interesting conversation about the differences between the Betawi, Javanese and Sundanese (which I had touched upon in an ealier blog entry). He told me that Betawi people are rougher and more aggressive than the polite and class-conscious Javanese. Titi is a Christian Javanese but her husband is a Muslim Sundanese. Both of them still practice their own separate religions - something that is unheard of in Malaysia.

I ordered a large Baja Burrito even though I am not exactly very fond of Mexican food. Indonesians eat everything with rice - even the MacDonalds and KFCs here serve rice. They even eat instant noodles (Indomie) with rice. But last night Titi asked for the rice that comes with her Burrito to be replaced with french fries!

When the band started playing, I was engrossed in watching the Malaysia-Chelsea match in the FA Premier League Asia Cup that was being shown on the TV at the far corner of the stage. Even from quite a distance, I could see that the Malaysian team in yellow was being outplayed by their more illustrious London opponents. However the match report I read this morning showed the match to be quite even until half-time where the score was tied at 1-1. Only a late 20 minute blitz by Chelsea made the scoreline a lopsided 4-1 in their favour.

After the dinner ended at around 9.45pm, I walked back to my hotel. The night was just coming alive - I could see the crowd milling outside Hard Rock Cafe at Sarinah. Titi and friends were good company but the Mexican food wasn't satisfying enough. As I walked home, I promised myself a good Sundanese lunch the next day. Which is exactly what I'm planning to do after this - at Ayam Goreng Priangan.