Dining Out: Djakarta Taste shows potential with home-style Indonesian dishes

Djakarta Taste
115 Boul. Saint-Joseph, Gatineau, Hull sector, 819-930-7919, skipthedishes.com/djakarta-taste-boulevard-saint-joseph
Open: Monday, Wednesday to Friday 4 to 11:15 p.m., Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 11:15 p.m., closed Tuesday
Prices: up to $17.99 for dishes
Access: steps to front door

At the tiny and modest eatery Djakarta Taste in Gatineau’s Hull sector, smooth Indonesian pop and folkloric music play on the sound system. I imagine that these soothing sounds must assuage any frazzled nerves that Atik Mutia, its chef and front-of-house person, might have.

I visited twice last month, once to eat on site and later to order food to go. Each time, the business, which opened in early 2022, was a one-woman operation. After she took orders, Mutia retreated behind a curtain into the kitchen and, from the sounds of things, chopping began.

Mutia’s lack of staff meant that my takeout order took almost an hour to prepare, as she already had two tables of four to feed in her small dining room. I was more sympathetic to her situation than I was frustrated about our delayed dinner at home.

(So, if you want to eat at home, learn from my mistake and phone in your order, which actually involves texting your desired dishes to Mutia. Or, order your food via an online delivery service. On the whole, though, dining here might be preferable as the food is piping hot and well plated.)

Another reason to cut Djakarta Taste some slack is that Indonesian dishes are so hard to come by in Ottawa. The almost four-decades-old eatery Chahaya Malaysia serves Malaysian and Indonesian dishes, while the months-old restaurant Dhruvees serves the famed Indonesian stewed meat dish rendang, but made with lamb instead of the usual beef. And that’s about it, as far as I know.

When we dined in, we started with some of Mutia’s beef rendang, albeit in a less conventional dish. Here, rendang tacos (two for $6.99) were daunting filled with soft, well-seasoned meat.

We split a medium bakso soup ($12.99 for a medium, $4.99 for a small, $17.99 for a “giant” bowl). In its intensely peppery broth were hefty meatballs whose interiors were uniformly smooth rather than chunky, a wonton, two kinds of noodles and more.

The must-order-again of everything I tried at Djakarta Taste was its fried rice, called nasi goreng ($12.99), which had its own uniquely savoury flavour profile reliant on dark sweet soy sauce (called kecap manis in Indonesia). The dish was also massively portioned, which was frequently the case here. On the night when we ate on site, we found that our order for two yielded food for four.

Indonesian grilled chicken legs called ayam bakar ($13.99) were moist and meaty, flavoured again with kecap manis and accompanied by salad, rice and house-made peanut sauce.

All in all, we felt we had done pretty well at our first exploration of Djakarta Taste’s menu. Our takeout order a few days later was more uneven.

On the plus side, I liked the potent sourness and heat of the laksa, a noodle soup that at Djakarta Taste comes mid-sized and modestly priced ($7.99), chockful of thin noodles and studded with bits of beef, cabbage and mushroom. For comparison’s sake, let me mention that at Datsun on Elgin Street, the more upscale seafood laksa lists for $22.

Mee goreng ($12.99), made with thinner noodles than I’d expected, was tasty, if less impressive than the similar dish with rice I’d had a few days earlier.

Nasi padang ($17.99) was a combination plate of sorts inspired by larger-scale, multi-item meals in Indonesia. The chunk of beef rendang in this dish, while flavourful, could have been punchier still, and it was tougher than the meat in those tacos. The dish’s other components were just so-so.

Gado-gado salad ($11.99) was a mish-mash of chopped vegetables in a loose, peanut-y sauce. It was the best of the vegetarian items we ordered, including vegetarian mee goreng ($12.99) and vegetarian nasi goreng ($12.99), although my carnivore’s bias might be showing.

Both deep-fried items that we took home — springs rolls called lumpia ($5.99 for five) and huge, doughy banana fritters ($4.99) — were soggy when we tried them. A few banana fritters were undercooked.

Djakarta Taste does not have a liquor licence and its food is halal, prepared according to Islamic strictures.

Mutia told me she also gets many guests coming from Ottawa because Indonesian diplomats live there, and I’ve also seen guests with Dutch connections, likely because of personal histories explained by Indonesia having been a Dutch colony until the middle of the last century.

“Many customers are asking if we have more tables, if we will move to a bigger place,” Mutia said.

Clearly there’s a demand for the home-style food made by Mutia, who worked at her family’s restaurant in Indonesia. She admitted when we spoke that when her restaurant is busy, and a friend is not available to pitch in, she’s overwhelmed. She says she trying to hire staff that would come from Indonesia.

Let’s hope she gets the help she deserves so that Djakarta Taste reaches its potential.

phum@postmedia.com