Selera Meneer, Radio Dalam, Jakarta

Some days ago, I visited this newly-opened restaurant in KH Ahmad Dahlan street, Radio Dalam area. The name and exterior seem promising so I kind of anticipated its opening. Selera Meneer, literally translated as “Mister’s Taste”, could be easily mistaken as a restaurant that serves Dutch cuisine. Instead, I found myself so wrong the moment I stepped in and saw the menu. It actually serves mainly peranakan food from Semarang and Central Java.

The restaurant is quite big and spacious with white color dominating the whole place. At the first glance, I felt like I was at someone’s house, newly renovated one, probably someone who just move in or something. Nothing much for decorations (wish they put more stuffs on the wall, though!), but I really love the vintage (like, real vintage) posters, colonial period clock, scales, and many other amazing stuffs. There is even a tall glass cabinet full with kitchen containers, or the ones we know as “rantang susun” in many motives, they really bring back some old memories!

The waitresses are dressed in beautiful, simple white kebaya encim. I simply love restaurants with certain theme like this! The menu is divided into some sections: appetizers, soup, main courses, and desserts; with prices range from IDR 10K – 30K only. Quite cheap for a restaurant in this area, imho.

Teh & Es Teh Tawar IDR 6K each

Why I feel the need to include these in this post is because the tea tasted superb! If you are an Indonesian, you would probably understand what I mean. They use the super fragrant tea leaves that resembles the infamous Teh Botol, and in my house, sometimes I have this amazing tea moment using Teh Tubruk Jawa and this tasted like that. Personally, I love it when I go dining out and even the regular tea/ ice tea already make my day!

Es Jeruk IDR 15K
While many restaurants like this are using instant powder for their orange juices, here I was surprised that the orange juice was actually pretty decent. At least I know it came from original fruit and surely added with extra sugar, but still nice without being too sweet.

Tahu Petis IDR 10K
Although the tofu was nice and crispy, the petis wasn’t really my favorite because it wasn’t spicy and too sweet for my liking. This was served with some raw green chili, and those helped a lot to add spice so I found this quite enjoyable too.

Selat Solo IDR 30K
This European and Javanese combination dish is one of the most attractive and exciting Indonesian food in my opinion. In Selera Meneer, the Selat Solo looks very beautiful and colorful, consisting of many beef cuts, egg, potatoes (boiled and chips), and steamed veggies. While local people in Solo usually eat this as evening snack, here it is served with a plate of rice, making this a full and affordable main course. The beef was nicely cut, tender and juicy, the sauce was runny and sweet.

Nasi Goreng Babat Samping Sepoor IDR 25K (+additional petai/ stinky beans IDR 5K)
Personally, I always love fried rice which is made using left-over rice, the harder the better. However, the fried rice here was made from freshly-cooked rice, therefore it was wet and sticky. For me, nothing special about the fried rice, I think I even can cook a better one, LOL. The portion was also very small (yet very big in the menu, I kinda felt cheated, err.. XD) and we just figured out that the stinky beans a.k.a. petai was charged separately.

Sup Tomat Mevrouw Mintje IDR 18K
First of all, the name intrigued me so much so I decided to try it. ‘Mevrouw’ actually means “madam” or “nyonya” in Indonesian, so it literally means “Mrs. Mince’s Tomato Soup”. The soup was served on a small soup bowl, but I couldn’t agree more about the serving portion. The soup was very thick, fulfilled with loads of contents, from green peas, carrot, potatoes, sausages, and meatballs. It’s like a tomato meat feast in a bowl! However, the taste was a bit too much, and I just couldn’t bear the sweetness.

Nasi Ayam Semarang Yu Nah IDR 22K
This looked very bland but tasted VERY delicious. The appearance looked like nasi liwet Solo, only added with more curry sauce. It might look small but I got full by only eating halfway, probably because of the thick and rich coconut milk. The chicken was very soft and tender, making it a nice addition to the dish. Recommended!

Galantine IDR 25K
Galantine is a French dish, a stuffed meat that is pressed into a cylindrical shape and usually served cold. Here, the galantine is a combination of beef and chicken, so it was very tasty but unfortunately, mine was a bit dry. I like the sauce, though, it was full of flavor and thank God, wasn’t as sweet as the others. This also, was served with a plate of rice.

Pastel Tutup IDR 25K
Different from usual pastel tutup that I have ever eaten, this one was very watery in the inside, loaded with milk. The consistency of the potato layer was very nice, soft and thin. The fillings were crazy, there were so many things going on there, from chicken to mushroom, carrot to glass noodle. How about the taste? It was wonderful! Probably made using Holland butter, it was very aromatic and tasty in the same time.

Wedang Kacang Tanah IDR 10K
This was given to us for complimentary (we really didn’t expect that, so thank you!) and we loved it. Uniquely, the peanuts were cooked together with the wedang, so we were very surprised to find out that the peanuts were very soft. Although I prefer my wedang soup to be clear, this one wasn’t bad too.