Lunch in Jakarta

So I do have more India pictures to post- but I've lost steam on the India trip- and lots else has been happening in life, so for now I am going to move on, catch up on other things that have happened in the last few weeks and eventually I may get motivated to revisit the rest of my pictures. So moving on...

This week I had a quick 2 day trip to Jakarta for work. Surprisingly after a year in Singapore- this was my very first trip to Jakarta. Since it was a business trip and Jakarta isn't exactly a tourist hot-spot, there wasn't much interesting to report. But the food consumed did provide some much appreciated levity and entertainment.

I had heard through the rumor mill that the food at these meetings was notoriously bad, so I came expecting the worse.

This is what came....clockwise from 12:00 is: 1) a chunk of rice in a palm leaf, 2) assorted baggies of misery, 3) hunk of dried beef and 4) in the red baggie of hell- a hard boiled egg soaked in chili. 

Can you say delicious? 

-Yea, neither can I-

While I immediately discredited any form of meat product as being off-limits for the well being of my digestive tract, I decided that the veggies looked like a safe bet to compliment my rice. Oh how wrong you can be sometimes. Just as a scooped a massive spoon full of what I sort of thought was green beans- my boss sitting next to me yelps out "woah that is spicy"... I like to think I have a very high tolerance for spicy foods, but this was outrageously hot. And the kind of hot that you just cannot get rid of- no matter how much water you chug and how much rice you shovel in to your mouth. 

Pretty sure I caused irreparable damage to my taste buds. 

Luckily for me, this board room came complete with its own ice cream freezer- and I was able to calm the fire storm in my mouth with this guy. Probably not the most professional ice cream snack to eat in a meeting- but it was really quick yummy. 

The boxes of terror were not over with lunch. This box came as a snack. I couldn't tell you what the contents of these things were- I learned my lesson the first time around. 

Turns out I was not the only one suffering though the culinary delights of the meeting- nor did it go with out notice.... The next day at lunch when they rolled in the boxes- they also rolled out three sandwiches for their three Caucasian lawyers. While I would usually take offense at this sort of thing- I was overjoyed with my coffee shop sandwich =) 

The best part of day 2 was when, instead of a box of mystery delights, we got these babies for a snack.

10 Singapore dollars to anyone who can identify them!