Cengkeh Restaurant (Indonesian Cuisine)

I discovered Cengkeh while I was coming back from Pondok Laguna in Batu Tulis. From my taxi window, Cengkeh drew my attention with its elegant look, rare in this part of town. While South Jakarta has tons of similar restaurants, the kind you'll choose for a romantic dinner, the North has almost none: It may have great food, but most restaurant owners are not paying any attention to the atmosphere, and when they do, they try too hard (for my European taste at least).

Back to Cengkeh, I finally visited the place in early October 2011 to see if the food matched the setting, and I wasn't disappointed. The menu features mainly Peranakan and Indonesian favourites, more expensive than average but still affordable: A 2-course meal with drink should cost you Rp100,000. I ordered a plate of "gorengan" (Fritters) and a Sop Iga Sapi (Beef Ribs Soup) which were nicely presented and tasted excellent. Compared to street food, the quality of ingredients used is much better, and you don't have all the extra fat + the! weird i ngredients (like food acidifier). The only thing that bothered me was the service, friendly but quite slow and unexperimented.

Overall: I will visit Cengkeh again, and I will probably bring friends on holiday to make them experience quality Indonesian cuisine.

Operating hours:
Everyday from 10am to 10pm

Cengkeh Indonesian Cuisine
Jalan Juanda III no 31M (next to Dinemax)
Jakarta 10450
Phone number: +62-21 350 3115