Shopping, Culinary and Entertainment Bazaar, Jakarta, 15-17 August

Hero Jadi Halal? Bacon Diusir?

 Citraland Mall

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Unwilling to idle at home on the first day of Ramadhan, I duly went out to forage for lunch and thought to do a bit of shopping.

Shopping at Citraland is usually worth the effort, due to discounts, and, in Hero Supermarket, I was delighted to grab the last pack of 50% eggs.

But what does one most like to eat with eggs?

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BACON, of course!,  

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So off I wandered down to the meat sector.

Shock horror! The pork part had disappeared!

All other items were on display as always, beef, chicken, fish…but that counter at the far end was gone.

Now I know big stores enjoy shifting things around for no good reason, leaving regular customers baffled…

…so I searched about for piggy foods, to no avail. Then I returned to the meat area and asked the guy behind the counter.

“Is there bacon, pak?”

“No,” was the bapak’s laconic response. No explanation, no ‘sorry, mister,’ no more than a negative grunt.

So…

What the Hell is Hero up to?

Grogol and Tanjung Duren, the areas adjacent to where it’s located, are cosmopolitan, loads of students from Trisakti University, a large ethnic Chinese population, as well, naturally, as many other Indonesians who have no sectarian hang-ups about pork. Its removal is a serious customer disservice.

Why has the pork disappeared?

Contact us – Hero Supermarket

An explanation, an apology, then prompt restoration are all very much in order!

Please demand them!

Plaza Semanggi – Akhirnya Ada Food Market

After many months of saying ‘soon,’ whoever’s responsible for Plaza Semanggi has now overseen the opening of the new supermarket in its basement.

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• But after an inspection this week, I have to say I prefer the previous occupant, Giant, which had lots of good discounts on basics like eggs and chicken, frequently on sale at 50% of the original price.
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• There were often, too, good deals on bakery things, loaves of bread, packs of doughnuts, buy one, get one free!

The staff in the new Food Market are nice and polite, but I won’t be wasting my time going all the way back into town to shop there.

On the other hand Plaza Semanggi is not entirely without allure.

I can still recommend an occasional visit to Payless, where my new shoes this week had a healthy 40% discount. So worth a visit every six months or whenever your old shoes become irreparable.

Again, however, as previously discussed, Plaza Semanggi is not what it used to be.

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• They’ve got this brain-dead practice now of telling you off if you light up OUTSIDE its air-con interior, which makes NO sense at all.

Getting as bad as the West.

Plaza Semanggi Gives New Meaning to The Word ‘Soon!’

I’ going out now, but not to Plaza Semanggi!

I did go there recently, and thought to inspect the new food market in the basement, which was promised as a replacement for the quite good Giant Supermart, where useful discounts were often to be had.

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Looking back on previous posts…

Misteri Gunung Semanggi – Kemana Raksasanya? A Giant Vanishes! 

…I see that particular promise was dangled back last year, about FOUR MONTHS AGO.

Hence, imagine my chagrin when I travelled down the escalator only to see the same boring sign, announcing it would open ‘soon!’

I went there to seek a new battery for my wrist-watch.

Once upon a time, PS had lots of little shops where bargains were available, if you persevered.

No more, not if a watch-battery’s what you’re after. I went to the only watch-shop I could find downstairs – there was one at ground-level, but its exterior was so glitzy, I took one look and concluded it wouldn’t be within my price-range – and after deep discussion, the proprietor offered me a battery for Rp.85, 000 – which I naturally spurned.

I knew that the honest orologists at Permata Hijau would do better, but since yesterday I was at Citraland, I tried there…

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Citraland

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Yesterday’s visitor had confirmed my belief that Rp.50K was the most I should pay, so I wandered hopefully into the first promising store and asked.

Rp.150,000!

I wandered back out, disgusted.

Only three or four doors down, heading towards the Hero supermarket, there’s another little shop. In I went, and emerged five minutes later with a working watch, the battery having cost me exactly what Wonder-Visitor had predicted.

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AND I got eggs in Hero on 50% discount!

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Hurray!  

Today’s traditional Sunday breakfast is a sure thing!

Misteri Gunung Semanggi – Kemana Raksasanya? A Giant Vanishes!

Sad to see the handy Giant Supermarket at Plaza Semanggi is no more.

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• It was a useful shopping centre, often with excellent discounts, two loaves for the price of one (same offer for yummy donuts!) plus eggs at 50% the regular price, and often chicken legs, breasts and other interesting parts at similarly reduced prices.
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• Alas, it’s gone, maybe forever, though of that I can’t be sure.
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When I went in there last month, the shelves were virtually bare. The security man on duty confirmed my worst fears, ‘closing down,’ but only this branch, he added, so I suppose I can venture to Slipi Jaya’s Giant. Used to shop there a lot, because my then co-shopper favoured it, but co-shoppers change…or rather, we do change our co-shoppers from time to time!

It turns out Giant is owned by Hero, who also have supermarkets in their own name, which I also patronise because they sell cat-food at reasonable prices. Hero say they’re not closing down branches, simply moving them. Yet no info on where they are moving to!  http://bisniskeuangan.kompas.com/read/2015/08/11/114600926/Hero.Akan.Pindahkan.Gerai.Giant

I further learned that Plaza Semanggi is owned by the Lippo Group, an outfit indelibly associated with the ghastly Clinton family!

Lippo also own Hypermart…

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The Clinton connection, and the icy temperature they insist on maintaining in at least one of their outlets…

Astaga! Makanan Kucing Kampung, Rp. 19,900? 

…makes me reluctant to shop there unless absolutely necessary!

So will Hypermart decide to occupy the vacant space!

Let the mystery unfold!

 

Jakarta – AND Its Pockets – Empty!

It’s not unique to Jakarta, but it’s still tiresome, this manic shopping, with huge ‘discounts’ on offer in department stores while food prices appear to be rising steadily.

Back in The Old Country, if my memory serves me well, there were always similarly heaving ‘holiday’ crowds charging around, seeking ‘bargains,’ which made going into town a less than agreeable prospect from mid-December onwards.

Here, in the Big Durian, I was on Saturday regaled by my visitor with tales of sad scenes at one big mall, weeping children grabbed by their ears to quell their protests – ‘ mau pulang’ – ‘I wanna go home!’ Insatiably acquisitive parents dragged them mercilessly through stores – even while the exhausted staff were endeavouring to switch off the lights in preparation for closing the doors!

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‘Look, they’ve just reduced the price of those sandals by ANOTHER 10%!’

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Some managements are so greedy they keep employees toiling till the wee small hours.

I do go shopping, though I abhor it as a pastime. However, given the closure of eateries, thought has to be given to food, which must still be obtained. Aud that’s not getting discounted, quite the reverse. 

Nightmare stuff!

But this week, and next, the storm will lull. Some 80- 90% of Jakarta may well have vanished, either gone ‘home’ to their village of origin for a well-earned rest or, contemptibly, because the poor little rich girls, of all ages, lose their servants to the exodus…

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 leaving, on a jet-train…

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…and, incapable of fending for themselves, shift their idle butts to a hotel, within or without the city limits, holed up till the poor wee maid resumes her life of drudgery after a brief interlude of ease and fun.  

You do wonder why guys marry these gilded blossoms that can’t iron trousers without leaving tram-lines, or cook beyond the boiling of an egg.

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• Mind you, if they look like this, I suppose a degree of indulgence is comprehensible!

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• My own primary concern has been to get hold of the tukang aqua, the guy (or sometimes his wife) who delivers those big plastic bottles of drinking water. He responded to my summons earlier today, so that’s done, so I won’t go thirsty.
• But as to cooking?
• Of course the gas containers are not made of transparent plastic but of metal, so you can’t see how low the level is!
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• Alas, if it runs out on , say, Wednesday, there will be no tukang to summon for a re-fill. He will have taken his family off to a distant kampung.
• Never fear!

If the gas is used up, there’s always the microwave and the rice-cooker!

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All part of the character-forming aspect of Jakarta life. 

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Never On A Sunday? What Happened to Glodok!

Monday, quiet night in, since I have become addicted to the zombie series, ‘The Walking Dead!’

But I spent much of Sunday engaged in lively walking. I took a bus up to Glodok, which has long had a reputation as a great place to buy electronics…

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…my computer hunt proceeds..and will proceed, because I didn’t get one!

The two largest malls were CLOSED!

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• This is in stark contrast to almost every other mall in Jakarta, where those poor wee girls seem never to get a weekend off – and I don’t just mean the little shops, but the gigantic department stores too, which employ thousands of lovely lasses and work them till they drop.

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I gather one such big biz is ‘quarantining’ a batch of girls who have been nominated as ‘good employees,’ ten days in some second-rate lodgings out in Tangerang, not allowed to go home, up at 5.30am, slogging through their paces till late-night.

One must wonder how they treat the BAD employees?!?

Needless to say, the local media are so far either too dull-witted, indifferent or collaborationist to attempt any investigative reporting on management practices of this sort. 

However, back to Glodok – used to be open every day, but times have changed. I was disappointed, but after reflecting on the above, drew consolation from the thought of all those workers getting a day of rest.

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As usual, I made the most of my day out nothwithstanding, a good long walk from Glodok all the way to Harmoni, a mile or more, I’d reckon.

Press pause now for my usual moan about why nobody fixes up that splendid derelict resto on the Harmoni corner – it’s been there, judging from the 1951 photo below, for nearly as long as I’ve been on the planet! 

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Stopped in Gajah Mada Plaza en route, only to find that, whilst every other store was open and crowds of shoppers thronged the shops, the computer areas (allegedly on the 3rd floor but actually that’s Matahari – the computers are a level above that, if you ever wish to look for them) were almost all CLOSED!

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What is it about computer stores?

At least Hypermarket was open, though under partial renovation, with 50% discounts galore – I got a whole chicken and a pack of wiener sausages, half-price! 

So enough food shopping to see me through a few days, some excellent exercise (of the non-hopping variety – see comments column!) and got back to my local warteg just in time for the girls there to have cooked up a fresh load of tempe, tahu, telor puyuh and much else besides!

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A nice day out!

Getting High? The Price of Coke in Jakarta!

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Not a post about drug dealing, but about a strange situation with regard to pricing of certain soft drinks in two Jakarta superstores.

I think mention was previously made of the time limit placed on the cheap price of Coke and Sprite, first of all till the end of August, then till the end of October.

Over the weekend, whilst wandering around this fine city, I made two shopping stops, one in Lotte Mart, the other in Hypermart.

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 In the former, Coke and Sprite were even cheaper than last time I was there, under Rp.9000 for a big bottle.

In the latter, the price had shot up to over Rp.14,000!

Why?

Usually, competing stores charge a little bit more or a little bit less than their rivals. 

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 This picture of the gorgeous Anggun has nothing to do with this post. I just like it!

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But after the recent coverage given to the vast gap in the cost of Diamond milk cartons…

Berapa Sapi Mogok? Harga Gila Di Hero Puri! 

…I am becoming ever more curious about pricing policy.