Aduuh, gue baik banget sih

Jadi ceritanya hari ini adalah hari ulang tahunku yang ke-22 (perasaan kemarin baru 18 dah, tau-tau udah 22 aja.. jangan2 bentar lagi 30.. hyaaa). Berhubung saya lagi cukup gembira karena sudah gajian ronde 1 beberapa hari sebelumnya, dan gajian ronde 2 di hari ultahku ini, saya bermaksud menraktir beberapa teman yang memang sudah menagih-nagih dari seminggu sebelumnya. Pilihan tempatnya ada 10, yaitu: Marche Movenpick, The Social House, Loewy, Pizza e Birra, California Pizza Kitchen, Red Tomato, Bibliotheque, The Apartment, Indochine, dan Corks & Screw.

Pertama kali sih rencananya mau di Marche aja, karena suasananya seru, meriah, ada kereta gantungnya juga yang diisi dengan meja dan kursi makan, hehe. Padahal dulu restoran ini tersembunyi dan eksklusif di gedung Hotel Melia, ga begitu rame. Tapi, setelah ganti manajemen dan pindah ke Plaza Senayan, perasaan semua kalangan jadi punya akses ke situ, dan hasilnya jadi rame membludak, dan jadi banyak orang-orang norak yang menyerbu restoran ini, termasuk para ababil, yang sepertinya begitu bangga karena mendatangi restoran ini dan juga beranggapan bahwa restoran ini baru. Di Marche yang baru, steaknya masih enak, cuma jadi jauh lebih mahal dan pelit!! Swiss Chocolate-nya yang tadinya sangat enak itu, jadi beda. Ga enak... (tapi gw berhasil menemukan minuman coklat serupa sih, tapi di Multimart di Manado, heu) Berhubung saya udah pernah beberapa kali ke Marche, baik yang lama maupun yang baru, saya mencoret restoran ini dari daftar.

Pilihan kedua, Pizza e Birra. Tempatnya sih sepertinya mengasyikkan; berlangit-langit tinggi dengan atap dan dinding yang transparan karena terbuat dari kaca. Dan restoran ini, yang di Kuningan, letaknya di luar, rada deket jalan, dan bukan di dalam mal. Mungkin seru juga sore-sore makan di sini sambil diterpa cahaya matahari sore, namun karena rencana makannya bakalan malam, jadi restoran ini pun dicoret dari daftar.

Pilihan ketiga, The Social House. Kabarnya tempat ini merupakan tempat hang terpopuler para kaum hip (maksudnya apa pun saya tidak tau) dan sosialita Jakarta, juga para ekspatriat. Pengen sih nyobain, cuma begitu baca review para customernya yang pas masuk diplototin dari kaki sampe kepala (untuk mengecek kaum kelas apakah dia), dan juga pilihan menu dan suasananya yang biasa, jadi sepertinya restoran ini tidak begitu istimewa untuk dipakai merayakan ulang tahun.

Pilihan keempat, Loewy. Namanya rada-rada sok classy deh, haha. Makanya para sosialita, ekspatriat, dan lagi-lagi hip, menyukai tempat ini. Namun menurut review, katanya tempat ini rada bermasalah. Sangat ramai dan hingar-bingar di malam minggu, sehingga harus book, dan waiting listnya panjang. Saking penuhnya, tamu-tamu yang berlama-lama bahkan bisa diusir secara halus, dan makanan yang belum habis konon pernah diangkat oleh waiter tanpa permisi. Selain itu juga disebut bahwa waiter pernah salah membawa makanan lalu dikomplain oleh tamu, namun si waiter begitu sok tahu dan bersikeras bahwa dia tidak melakukan kesalahan dan tidak sedikit pun meminta maaf. Pada akhirnya disebut bahwa si waiter membawakan makanan yang benar dengan muka cemberut. Jadi sepertinya yang ini juga mesti dicoret dari daftar, ga mau ambil resiko ah..

Pilihan kelima dan keenam: California Pizza Kitchen dan Red Tomato. Banyak yang bilang pizza-nya enak, namun suasananya biasa dan casual banget sepertinya. Malah kata teman saya Red Tomato kaga halalan n toyiban, jadi kayaknya engga deh...

Pilihan ketujuh, kedelapan, kesembilan: The Apartment, Corks & Screw, Indochine. Yang 2 terakhir sepertinya mengasyikkan, tapi suasana dan temanya rada umum sih. Ga ada yang istimewa. The Apartment temanya unik, tapi karena terlalu rumahan, jadi mungkin bakal kurang mengasyikkan.

Jadi, pilihan jatuh pada Bibliotheque yang terletak di Sampoerna Strategic Square. Foto-fotonya di internet sepertinya sih mengasyikkan. Mirip perpustakaan tua yang berlangit-langit tinggi di kastil Harry Potter gitu deh. Setalah gw browse, range harganya sih sepertinya normal. 70an lah per menu, meski kabarnya ada yang sampe 200 bahkan 400ribuan. Menurut skala restoran yang saya temukan, range harga makanan di Bibliotheque setingkat dengan Tamani, berarti seharusnya murah. Beberapa sumber mengatakan restoran ini memiliki dress code yang strict. Bahkan gara-gara ini, gw sampe belanja baju lho..

Sehari sebelumnya, Novi udah teleponin restorannya dan book buat jam 6 atau 7an. Jam 4an gw dapet kabar bahwa Sita jatuh lagi. Trus gw tanyain, "Jatuh gimana? Jatuh dari motor? Dimana?" Sita pun membalas, "Di jalan, hiks... Gw ga tau nih bisa dateng atau nggak, tapi gw usahain. Ini lagi diobatin. Tapi tenang aja, gw udah nyiapin kado spesial kok"... Trus gw bales, "Waduh ada-ada aja... Perasaan jatuh mulu dah. Makanya latihan bawa motornya yang rajin. Cepet sembuh deh ya."

Jam stengah limaan gw nyamperin Novi di Plaza Semanggi. Dia yang keluar kantor jam 1 siang ternyata nyalon dulu di Rudy Hadisuwarno Plangi sembari menunggu. Dan dia merasa salah gaya rambut. Modelnya curly-curly gitu deh. Selain itu di Plaza Semanggi yang alay itu, kami sudah mengenakan pakaian lengkap yang sangat resmi. Bahkan Novi merasa ada orang lain yg menertawakan penampilannya yang sangat rapi dan resmi. Tak lama, Cinan nelpon dan nanyain, "Lo pada mau solat di mana?"

One of the bad days of my life (practising English)

Last Saturday, I went to this 'rural town' to teach some students as usual. It's a little bit embarrassing to tell which town I was going, so I won't disclose it. Haha. After spending 5 hours teaching, I left the building while it was still raining outside. The rainfall was still extremely abundant but I insisted that I need to leave the town as soon as possible. Novi texted me some hours before that she had just canceled her thesis trial exam because she was busy with her work at the office (and she was making that an excuse). Apart from that, I caught one of the literally ubiquitous public vans (while struggling to walk on wet sidewalks and roads flooded with rapidly flowing deep water) and headed to the toll gate where several buses were waiting. After I got in the bus, eventually she called me and asked if I had done teaching, and it sounded like she were planning to go somewhere and wanted to be accompanied (lolz), and she already did (go). She was at Plaza Semanggi to buy an unimportant and illusive Body Shop product. While still on the phone, she asked which movie was worth-watching and whether the movie was showing there or not. So, I agreed to meet up with her there, and asked her to wait for about an hour. Besides, I wanted to try the legendary Gelare which is claimed to be the most delicious ice cream waffle in Jakarta. It usually takes some minutes for the bus to collect enough passengers before departing to Jakarta. And, a heavy traffic jam is likely to occur on the toll road in those hours, apparently caused by a silly toll gate at the intersection. After spending 45 minutes running on the highway, the bus exited and dropped some passengers. I caught a cab as soon as I got off the bus. The journey to the destination took about IDR40000 and another 20 minutes.

As promised, I made it to Plaza Semanggi on time (at least for me). We met at Gramedia and headed off to Plaza Indonesia to enjoy the waffle while listening to her stories of unfortunate experiences she had at the office. We took the unreliable Transjakarta bus and arrived some minutes later. We approached the concierge and asked them about Gelare. Unfortunately, it was temporarily closed due to renovation. So our next plan was to watch this quality-less movie "Eat Pray Love". The only reason we were choosing that movie is because we were curious to see Christine Hakim act in English, and also the Balinese culture shown in the movie. Besides, I got this IDR25000 discount voucher for buying two meals at Yoshinoya several days before. As I remember, the cinema fare at PI on weekdays should be IDR15000, and probably on weekends IDR30000 or IDR35000. But after purchasing the tickets, I was shocked to realize that the tickets cost IDR50000 each, so my voucher didn't help that much. We still had to pay IDR75000 anyway. And for such underrated movie, it was such a waste!

While waiting for the movie, we arranged 2 plans: visiting GI and Thamrin City which is claimed to be the largest batik trade center in the world. But since I still hadn't found any similar waffle store in PI even until many minutes later, we canceled the 2nd plan. Eventually we ran to GI across the street in search of a plate of waffle. But since it was a huge shopping center, we got lost and tried to ask the concierge. They recommended several stores I don't recall, and before ending their answer, they mentioned Dairy Queen. Desperately willing to eat waffle, we tried Dairy Queen. Novi approached the counter, so there was no turning back... aarggh.. I could hardly find any waffle on the menu, but there were actually several menus labeled waffle. But according to the pictures, it seemed that those were not actual waffles. I reluctantly paid IDR45000 (uugh) only to find that the waffle was fake. Actually it was just Wall's Conello or Magnum with cone, all disguised as an ice cream waffle. While I was still feeling bad, Novi, totally uncalled for, mercilessly commented on my reluctant plan to pursue study overseas, and gosh, I was freaking out, like... err... Why did she need to give inappropriate and unwanted comments on such thing in a bad timing? Since then, I remained in a bad mood for the rest of the day. The movie didn't help much either. To be honest it was a boring movie, and I was nearly sleeping when watching it. The only good things about it were the exoticness and authenticity of Italy, India, and Bali shown there. And I was wondering why the first two of the places were countries, while the last one was a province.

The next day I rehearsed with the string quartet for upcoming wedding performance, which would be on 30th Oct 2010. After finishing the practice, I went to the recently-opened Gandaria City by purposely taking a painfully slow, roundabout route (It has been years since the last time I used the route: Matraman - Dukuh Atas - Harmoni - Grogol - Daan Mogot - Kedoya - Kebon Jeruk - Pos Pengumben - Permata Hijau - Kebayoran Lama - Gandaria). Actually choosing Blok M from Dukuh Atas and continuing the travel by hiring an ojek would be much much much faster, hahaha. And to make it even worse, I had to walk like 1 or probably 2 kilometers from the nearest busway station (why do they call it 'shelter'?) to the mall I was heading to.

Unfortunately, the mall was very typical, and thus, boring!! I hate today's shopping mall design trend (although I used to love it once)! All shopping malls claimed to be luxurious, are no different. Emporium Pluit, PIM 2, Sency, Central Park, Pluit Village, Pejaten Village, and Gandaria City. It seems that they are wasting those valuable lands by building similar malls. Btw I went to Gandaria City to meet some friends and attend Korean Food Festival, which was far below my expectation. And again, even worse, they were leaving so fast. It had not even been 2 hours.

The End.