Hence, while hanging out at the Black Cat Jazz Lounge on Friday night with some fellow Malaysians, we jumped at the opportunity when one of Hubs's friend suggested to dine on fresh seafood in Ancol Dreamland, touted to be the largest theme park in Jakarta, about 30 minutes drive (without traffic) from the city center. The date was set and it was all system go come Saturday 8pm.
The place was pretty easy to find, expressway all the way in the direction of Kelapa Gading until we came upon the signage Ancol and exited as directed. From the expressway it was a short 5 minutes drive before we reached the main entrance. The theme park itself is really big and it took us quite awhile before we finally reached our designated restaurant for the night - Bandar Djakarta.
Same as Ancol Dreamland, Bandar Djakarta IS a sprawling restaurant boasting of seating capacity up to 1000 pax. It has its own fresh seafood market where patrons get to choose their choice of live and frozen seafood. The restaurant was packed to the brim but we only have to wait 10 minutes before we were led to our table, and mind you we didn't even call ahead to book a table.
Next comes the exciting bit - choosing the seafood. And we were spoiled for choices. From live mud crabs, to live garoupa, live local scallops, live prawns, giant clams and calamari. It is indeed a seafood lover paradise! Hubs and friend were on a shopping frenzy deciding which seafood to take and how to cook it. As for me, I was the trigger-happy tourist, with my camera in hand, busy snapping photos.
After placing our order, we didn't have to wait long before they served the usual ulam and the local version of otak-otak. Unlike the ones you get in Muar, they were devoid spices, and it was more like fish paste (yu-wat) and went very well in the accompanying peanut sauce. Off to a good start! Next came the highlights - the seafood itself. They were fresh, with natural sweetness and amazingly yummy. My only gripe was the steam garoupa - it was slightly oversteamed by 5 minutes. Otherwise it would have been a perfect dinner.
This was something really funny that we saw - 2 obviously very angry garoupas going for each other's throat. They were deadlocked like this from the time we were choosing our seafood at the market right until we left the restaurant!
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