THE PINK HOTEL

It's not exactly slathered in pink but enough of it in the facade, in the rooms and in the furnishings except that there's no miniature Pink Cadillac or a Pink Panther pillow, and it's right across that Red Hotel that looks nice but actually isn't, room so bare it's almost a prison cell, internet weaker than their anemic coffee, cable TV so limited they dare call it that, and breakfast so so-so I decided to skip it, which spawned an interest in the Pink Hotel across the street where I eventually got booked with no regrets, it's pink-themed rooms are indeed hotel rooms, stable internet, a cable TV with more than 5 English channels, and the breakfast buffet a marked improvement with its iced fruit juice and milk, a choice of coffee or tea, cereals, withering vegetable and fruit slices, vomit-thick rice porridge, and an assortment of local breakfast choices served in the hotel's rooftop restaurant that offers a 360 degree view of the Jakarta skyline, and that can compensate for any downsides in the overall service and at night, the restaurant transforms into a bar with pricey drinks and food, like steaks with +++ added in the price which turned me off after almost giving in to a roasted lamb platter that segued into a wagyu beef burger, not so bad but not so good either, until the next night where I finally got to walk to the Kampung Kemang Food Court and dined on glorious sambal-ed fried duck, and the next night at Food Garden Kemang where I feasted on a sublime piece of sambal-ed beef rib, so delectable and so affordable the wagyu burger is indeed a crime.     

I am tickled pink by my nights in Kemang even if my search for that big satay place Oskar said is supposed to exist remains futile, or I was always too early, perhaps too intimidated, for the street food in the corner that I am still not able to sample its satay ayam or discover what was that in the bowl being shared by a young couple, but there was the seclusion of the Bremer Beer Garden with its candle-lit tables and eternal Beatles music that is anesthesia to the aches of the daily grind, and that for me is enough redress for those aspired but so far remains unrealized.  

But the first two paragraphs should not steal the equal glory of my lunches outside Kemang like that memorable first experience with Indonesian carinderia buffet on Monday which I realized was the origin of the superb fried chicken-veggie-rice wrap from my previous Kemang week, my induction into creamy soto ayam on Tuesday in the orange house where I suppose Oskar also gets his late lunches, and the Manado-inspired spread prepared by KIARA on Wednesday --- chicken, fish, kangkong and papaya flowers, corn fritters --- the fish topping it all in terms of taste although the three other dishes are equally delectable.    

And so this fourth paragraph that was inspired by an old bike hanging in front of the fried duck restaurant at the Kampung Kemang Food Court 700 meters away from the Pink Hotel which is 75 meters away from the Red Hotel which is 2,875 kilometers away from home in Bakal 2 where Ariel Guieb Tangilig is parked idle for 2 weeks until that Sunday morning when we got reunited to burn all that accumulated calories from the bottles of Bintang, the wagyu burger, the fried duck and beef rib, the carinderia buffet lunches, the cups of white wine I drank to bear with the airline meals, and of course the gluttony in Hanoi a week ago.