How Indonesian-Chinese dishes like bakmi ayam and laksa bogor in the ‘flavour laboratory of Jakarta’ survived Covid-19

Budianto has been helping his family sell bowls of bakmi ayam (chicken noodles) in Jakarta, the capital of Southeast Asia’s largest economy, since he was a little boy. His father started selling the noodles on a cart in 1969, later renting a garage in which he set up Bakmi Ayam Acang, or Acang’s chicken noodles. Budianto then took over the business when his father retired in 2014. It’s been a profitable business for the Chinese-Indonesian family, thanks in part to the loyal customers from a nearby university. Some began eating at the old restaurant decades ago as students; now they are introducing their children to the new one. The big draw is the home-made yellow noodles, made with Chinese-style steamed chicken, broth and lettuce that cost 38,000 rupiah (US$2.6) for a bowl, a halal option that avoids pork and lard. The store also sells fish balls, meatballs and dumplings. But times are hard for Budianto, a father of three daughters. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused his revenue to fall by 40 to 60 per cent. Thankfully, food delivery apps have sustained his business with online orders. Since the pandemic started he has managed to sell around 200 bowls a day during the week and about twice that at weekends, a stark contrast to the 350 to 400 bowls a day on weekdays and 550 bowls a day on weekends. That is just about enough to keep his store, with 10 to 12 members of staff, going. Some of them start work at 2am so that the shop can open from 6am to 2pm every day except Monday when it is closed. Budianto said no employee had been laid off yet, and none had received a pay cut, but he had considered closing the shop for a month or two during a surge in Delta infections last year. He feared his daughters might be exposed to the virus. Authorities in Jakarta have imposed various measures through the course of the pandemic to cope when infections rise. These have included limiting the seating capacity of restaurants, shopping centres and tourist sites according to the severity of the pandemic. But the city has not experienced a full lockdown like Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia or Xian in China since Indonesia reported its first Covid-19 infections in March 2020. Indonesia so far has reported more than 4.4 million infections – with about 21 per cent in Jakarta, the highest among the country’s 34 provinces. For now, Budianto is grateful that the noodle shop is still allowed to have dine-in customers during the breakfast and lunch hours. “If you say we get rich from selling noodles, [then] not really, I mean just enough to get by,” said the 35-year-old, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. “We just learn how to manage well.” Soul food For centuries, Jakarta, Indonesia’s capital of more than 10 million people, has been a melting pot of various cultures and cuisines, including Indian, Arabic, Dutch and Chinese. As a consequence, the city hosts various restaurants serving Chinese-influenced dishes. Agni Malagina, an independent researcher on ethnic Chinese communities in Indonesia, said Chinese food had played an “important” and “significant” part in forming Jakarta’s soul. She said Chinese influence could be found in such popular dishes as lontong cap go meh (rice cake with vegetables and braised chicken in coconut milk and other toppings), soto betawi (Jakarta-style beef soup in coconut milk) and laksa (rice noodle soup in coconut milk, also found in Malaysia and Singapore). How Indian food curried favour with British, and vice versa Agni said Chinese influences in local dishes dated back to at least the early 17th century when the Dutch East India Company established a city named Batavia, which later became the modern-day capital of Jakarta. The Dutch colonised Indonesia for hundreds of years before Japan took control in 1942. It gained independence three years later. Agni said Indonesia’s history of maritime trade meant local and foreign cultures, including Chinese, had influenced Jakarta’s culinary traditions. “Chinese people in the past consistently adapted the cuisine until it became part of the culinary treasures of Jakarta [and] Indonesia,” she said. Today, Agni said, Chinese restaurants were the city’s “flavour laboratory”. ‘I surrender to God’ Located in Jakarta’s Chinatown (Glodok), Laksa Lao Hoe – meaning Old People Laksa – has offered laksa bogor (a laksa variant unique to nearby Bogor) since the 1980s. At 30,000 rupiah (US$2) a bowl, it comes with rice noodles, bean sprouts, shredded chicken, chicken egg, basil and chicken soup made with coconut milk, and includes spices like turmeric and galangal. The restaurant also serves mi belitung, a noodle dish popular in Belitung near Sumatra, for the same price. Influenced by the ethnic Malays on the island, Laksa Lao Hoe’s take has yellow noodles, bean sprouts, cucumber, prawn, prawn crackers and tofu. Its soup is made of beef bone broth added with sugar. Indonesian-Chinese father of three sons Ferry Aliadi, whose family runs the restaurant, said most of its customers came from outside the Glodok area thanks to reviews in social and traditional media. He said people in the neighbourhood were “not too familiar” with the dishes, because the recipes were not “purely Chinese” and did not suit their palates. Pizza, momo or noodle? Indian chefs showcase myriad ways to eat parathas The Jakarta-born Ferry said Laksa Lao Hoe’s revenue had dropped by around 80 per cent during the pandemic. It’s currently run by his parents, two aunts and a household assistant; before Covid-19 it employed five to six more helpers. Laksa Lao Hoe closed completely from March to December 2020 and no longer accepts dine-in customers. During the week it sells around 10 takeaway orders a day and two or three times that number at the weekend. The drop in business means Ferry, 45, often finds himself having to cheer up his mother, 73. “I try to give her strength, saying ‘Mom, we are still grateful because of our condition, we are still given health. You have an activity … the important thing is that we still have money for food, do not let there be no food. It’s back to basics again’,” he said. For her sake, and that of his 80-year-old father, he hopes the restaurant trade’s fortunes improve. “I only surrender, pray to God: ‘Please take care of my parents with that kind of life spirit of theirs. Please, God, take care of them’.”