The two luxury hotels are back on their feet and are fully operational during our site visit there. I reviewed Asia Restaurant at Ritz Carlton and Sailendra at Marriott. Security was tip top tight, of course, but not overly annoying. I could see that everyone is tense and the security at the gate was especially watchful. This time around I get the feeling they don't joke around and although I couldn't really tell if they were really doing their jobs, the security did a very thorough job checking our car and I could see the difference between security at "lesser" luxury establishments such as Pondok Indah Mall (that's right, I hope you read this because you still suck at security) or even Plaza Indonesia.
The gates leading to the lobby of the hotels were double barricaded, so there's absolutely no way that a car can ram through both gates. Kudos for the great security details at both hotels. Then we had to go through layers of added security like metal detectors and live personnel body search.
Once we were inside, I noticed black-clad security sentries watchfully following our every movements. When we were standing around to wait for the PR of the hotels to come out, they approached us to inquire who and why we were waiting.
Once we met up with the PRs, however, it was back to luxury hotel treatments. We were treated so very courteously, perhaps due to their trying to build their images back up. But the hotels were bustling with activities, obviously not as great as pre-bombing but to be honest they were really decent.
Asia Restaurant at Ritz Carlton was formerly Airlangga and they changed their name after the bombing. It was the actual ground zero of the bombing, so I was eating at a place where at one point in time all hell broke loose. But I felt no bad aura or any chill effect while at the site. Quite the contrary, the restaurant was fully rebuilt, beautifully decorated and was quite honestly airy and sunny. The restaurant was bright, lighted by the romantic afternoon sun shining through the tall-ceilinged glass windows. I asked the director of the restaurant if the name change is due to the fact that they're trying to put the past behind, and she said that partially it is that, but in so many ways the restaurant itself has changed. For example, they've upped their culinary offerings and added new menu items as well as revamped the decor, so it is in technical terms no longer the same restaurant. And in my opinion I think they did a decent business, considering they just newly re-launched the restaurant and when we ate there, there were about 10 tables occupied. That wasn't bad, considering it was late lunch hour and it was a workday.
I would rate the food as A-. The quality is good, but some things can be improved. For example, the sashimi bar had a salmon block that is imported from Norwegia, as well as raw oysters and mussels that are imported from New Zealand. But when I requested the sushi, the cuts were not quite as precise and were just too thin for the ratio of rice. The taste was acceptable, however, and decent enough. Service was impeccable at this place. The grill section is excellent, I ate a very good swordfish steak and seafood shish kebab.
When I went to the Marriot, however, I was just blown away by the quality of their food. Everything was A+ at this place. The Sailendra Restaurant isn't named Jakarta's best buffet for nothing. From the berry ice tea to the salmon gravlax to the Brie cheese to the sashimi to the rotisserie chicken, everything is of tip top premium quality. They even use Lindt chocolate for the chocolate fountain. And, best of all, I get to taste the best moon cake in town. The restaurant makes very high quality, snow skin moon cakes that tasted exactly like the description written on each cover. The best ones for my taste was the durian flavored, followed by strawberry and finally green tea. I don't dig the beans flavors, never are crazy for those. I seriously have never tasted moon cakes as good as the ones at Sailendra.
The restaurant was surprisingly very busy as well, with almost all of the tables taken. I was almost expecting to see a waiting line at the front. The PR manager told me that the hotel has been doing unexpectedly well, with ardent supports from domestic as well as international customers. During the grand re-opening of the restaurant, she said about 100 people came to celebrate and eat at the restaurant, and that type of level has remained more or less the same since then. I'm happy to hear that. They deserve this.
I think a lot of people sympathizes with what Indonesia has to go through, particularly with these two hotels, and I think people want to show their support. In fact, All American Rejects, the American (duh) rock band from Oklahoma, just stayed at the Ritz Carlton for their August 17th performance. When asked why they would stay there, they replied, "Because we're fearless. F*** terrorists!" That's the way everyone should treat terrorists. They're nothing more but fecal matters, and they need to be taught that people the world over simply have evolved: they're smarter, they don't give a s*** about extremism any longer, and they can't be fooled with simple propaganda. It's the year 2009, and the power of intelligent freedom is in the hands of the people, not in the few backward-thinking extremists.
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