Kitchenesia.com - Either it's a stroke of genius creativity or a desperate attempt to find business anyone has never thought of, we can't really tell.
A cafe with an airsoft guns arena inside? You decide.
And it's named Bear Hounds.
Now if you have passed through the awe - or confusion - of the ide and the name, you have to be surprised that among the tenants in Pluit Village Mal, Bear Hounds Cafe surely has more customers than others.
Indeed quite a surprise considering that the restaurant is somewhat difficult to find, located in the corner of the second level of the megamall.
But with its bright neon signage boasting the entrance and crowd flocking the restaurant, you can't miss it.
Something about restaurant baffles me: why do rookie restaurateurs set up their business in a shopping mal?
Here in this country, a mall is a miny city, with everything you want to find and don't want to find.
Mall is place where good reputation restaurants jam-pack every level of the mall, with loyal customers who are difficult to influence to try others.
Behold: It is owned by Nicholas Purnama, the eldest son of Jakarta’s former governor Basuki Tjahja Purnama or Ahok.
A Bulls-eye Design
Spacious and positevely clean are the first impression about the interior.
Its brick-lined walls and black-and-white photo galleries commemorate saloon in the old-west era, where cowboys sat, played cards and shot bad guys at high noon - or get arrested.
By now I think you begin to get the idea where the name "bear" comes from.
And this is without even getting to the airsfot guns part.
The wooden chairs and tables greatly contribute to the “wild wild west” atmosphere.
Although it is located in the mall, Bear Hounds also provides open air balcony for smoking restaurant-goers.
Yep, bear it is!
While I doubt an airsoft gun can fit to battle down a cub, the highlight of the restaurant is of course the airsoft arena for shooting sport enthusiasts.
Do not let that scare you. They use exceptionally-safe air soft gun.
The mini shooting arena is separated from the dining area, so you won’t get distracted with the noise or the screaming of teenagers bringing PUBG into real life.
Instead, the cafe is pretty serene.
And due to popular demand, customers need to book first to play in the arena, if that is the reason you come to the place.
Indonesian-Western Food Hybrids, Nearly Special
While the cafe’s theme personifies old-west feeling, it also celebrates Indonesia’s diverse flavors.
One of the iconic appetizers here is called Spageti Salmon Oven Dabu (Spagetti with roasted salmon and raw red chilli peppers and tomatoes sambal).
The portion is too big to be called “appetizer”; and no one in this world (not even the most daring Italian chef) combines spagetti with raw-spicy condiment like dabu-dabu sambal, famous among Manadonese of North Sulawesi, Indonesia.
None of them matters, because it tastes amazing.
Spageti Salmon Oven Dabu imagined juicy roasted salmon smothered in sweet yet savory dabu-dabu sambal?
Yes, please!
The smoothness of spagetti adds eclectic feeling in every bite. In short, it tastes similar to pasta aglio e olio, but spicier, and better.
Bear Hounds cafe has Ayam Bakar Sambal Matah (roast chicken with raw shallot and lemongrass sambal) as the main course, highly popular today among Indonesians sambal lovers.
I believe the chef used a half part of a chicken in every dish.
The chicken is big. And thank God the rice’s portion is equal to the roast chicken, so I didn’t have leftover food when I finished my eating.
It tastes like typical roast chicken, juicy and mild savory. A bit bland.
And yet the matah sambal covers the monotonous taste of the chicken.
It tastes better when the meat and sambal are eaten together. Like everything else in Indonesia, actually: everything is better with sambal.
However, if you are a not a fan of savory taste, you can minimize the savory flavor with rice.
Then there is this special dessert at Bear Hounds Cafe, Crunchy Tofu.
It is a thin-sliced tofu smothered in salt and deeply fried. Crunchy tofu tastes overly salty for my liking, but sweet-yet-sour soy sauces can cover the saltiness.
For the beverage, leci lemonade (literally means lemonade with lychee) tastes like freshly squeezed lemons, with zero bitterness.
All in all, the food is okay. But when it comes to food, the bar is set high and being okay is not enough.
Let's give this place a credit, though.
With an airsoft arena inside - if that is your thing - the experience surely doubles the okay.
