Namaaz Dining has always been the talk of the town for the past few years. Not only that it is a full-fledge restaurant specializing in molecular gastronomy, but it is also championing Indonesian cuisine as the star of the show.
Digging a bit deeper about the inspirations behind this restaurant, one can conclude that Namaaz Dining is clearly an embodiment of different disciplines inter twined into a beautiful synergy.
There’s a sense of artistry derived from the background of Andrian Ishak, the chef proprietor who happens to have talents in music and painting. There’s a nationalistic fervor with the all-Indonesian lineup on each of the restaurant’s creations. Last but not least, the chef’s modernist preference with molecular gastronomy gives the ultimate touch for the whole restaurant’s theme.
Perhaps there’s only one so far in Indonesia a restaurant so faithful with Indonesian cuisine translated into these funky yet adventurous techniques. Admirably, Chef Andrian so far has successfully created different themes every season, numbering around one hundred recipes in total for the past four years of the restaurant’s existence.
On daily basis, the kitchen is bustling with activities and the staffs are all employing different gadgets and techniques rarely seen anywhere else. To date, Namaaz Dining opens only for dinner and by reservation only. A typical dinner here is a seventeen to nineteen-course meal and presented theatrically to create the amazement of the patrons.
For instance, the “Childhood”theme came purely from the pre-digital time, around two decades before the last millennium. It was the time when Chef Andrian experienced different flavors, habit, and customs in his childhood days. It is as simple as savoring the sweetness of geranium which was commonly bred in many households back then or how exciting it was to compete his pet snail in a race against his friends after school.
One of the highlights of that particular season was the tea bag and a donut, diluted with hot water to produce the flavor of Surabaya’s iconic dish of beef rawon soup or the gel-like Betawi beverage called bir pletok inside a test tube and covered with a geranium. The most mindblowing was perhaps ‘a sheet of paper with a pencil’. Once rolled together and eaten it tastes like sayur lodeh, Indonesia’s iconic cooked coconut soup with vegetables.
There’s no telling what will come next from Chef Andrian’s brilliant interpretations of Indonesian cuisine. So, if one considers himself as a true gourmet, then a visit here is clearly a must.
NAMAAZ
www.namaazdining.com
