Eat your way through Chinatown, Jakarta, from morning until night – steamed chicken noodles, iced coffee, beef soup, tea, Hainan chicken rice, and fish congee
- Gloria Alley in Glodok is the foodie’s starting point for a day of eating and drinking as the locals do in one of Southeast Asia’s oldest Chinatowns
- It’s the place for breakfast noodles, midmorning coffee that’s tasty but not strong, and a native beef soup. Keep eating until you finish with a congee supper
It’s not hard to eat well in Glodok, Jakarta’s Chinatown and one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the bustling Indonesian capital. Designated as an enclave for Chinese residents by the Dutch East India Company in 1740, these days Glodok offers visitors a variety of Chinese, Indonesian and fusion dishes.
A foodie could spend a whole day – from breakfast to supper – eating and drinking to their heart’s content in the area. Here’s one possible itinerary:
7am: Bakmi Ahong
For a Chinese noodle breakfast, head to Gloria Alley – known as Gang Gloria in Indonesian – near the Pancoran Chinatown Point shopping mall as a starting point.
Away from the alley, walk about 350 metres to Bakmi Ahong (Ahong Noodles), a hugely popular morning spot. Beside a canal, this humble noodle shop is crowded at breakfast time and hungry customers often share tables. The shop offers a variety of noodles, wheat or rice, which can be topped with steamed chicken (20,000 rupiah/US$1.40).
Some enthusiasts prefer pek cam kee – chicken that has been steamed for an hour with garlic and seasoned with shallots, pepper and salt, then garnished with sesame oil and salty soy sauce (90,000 rupiah).