Pontianak: Indonesia's Chinatown

I just came back from Pontianak, a city in West Kalimantan. Pontianak is my parents' hometown, which has lots of good food, but unfortunately very hot since it's right at the equator. Lemme take you to the first day of our family's trip to Pontianak.

 

This random picture above was taken at an airport lounge at Bandara Soekarno-Hatta, after enjoying my favorite bread from Roti Boy. My dad bought 2 boxes to Pontianak. 

Once we arrived in Pontianak, my dad took us to a family owned restaurant to eat local Tiociu food and drink a unique, purple colored herbal tea. 

 

 

After lunch, we headed to my dad's hotel: Aston Hotel. We stayed at the family suit room that has 2 connected rooms. 

The living room is my favorite spot to watch TV. I spent lots of time watching CCTV4 and Arirang. Arirang is such an interesting Korean channel since it has lots of programs in English, and the hosts' English is really good, so Americanized. I watched the world travel program, learning Korean language, and Hallyu tours. Can't believe Korea is developing very fast nowadays, especially due to K-Pop and K-drama influences worldwide. Lots of tourist places in Korea designated to those stuff. Lots of cafes or restaurants owned by K-stars that become popular. I wanna open one too~~ 

My dad took me to the construction area for the new hotel behind the current hotel. We had to wear masks, just like in a hospital. 

Since it was still Chinese New Year, we paid a visit to Tua Pek's (my dad's big bro) house. Tua Pek ran a motorcycle repair store. 

Then, Tua Pek and Tua Em (his wife) took us to his newly bought farms that have lots of fruit trees.

These are the neighborhoods. 

Our food adventure in Pontianak began.  

Fish porridge / bubur ikan Pontianak / he mue

This fish porridge is a bit unusual compared to other type of porridge or congee since the rice is not cooked very long, so still look like rice added some soup. Some people call it "swimming rice".

Young people in Pontianak love hanging out outside during the night, sitting on plastic chairs, enjoying street food. This is similar to Starbucks in other cities or countries.

Carrot cake / Kokue

Mung bean dessert / Tausuan 

After having snacks, we walked around my mum's old neighborhood, a bit rural. 

We went inside my grandma's old house. The stairs look so scary, how can an old person climb that kind of stairs? 

We also went inside my grandma's neighbor's house. A girl was painting mini dragons, and those dragons are eatable! Can you believe it? 

We stopped by a clan house with family name of Tio or 张。We heard that this clan has the longest dragon.

Each street in Pontianak competed in decorating for Chinese New Year with lanterns, this street below was the winner.

Our food adventure day 2 started with "Sate Madura" or Pontianak-style satay that has soup and ketupat (Indonesian rice ball). 

For lunch, I had "Selada", which is similar to Gado-gado or Indonesian salad, but this has ebi sauce, so tasty. My mom had another version called "Pecel mie", which is added noodles. 

Many dragons came into our hotel. As the owner of the hotel, my dad cut the dragon's moustache and passed it to everyone for good luck. Each person should tie the moustache, which is actually thread, to his or her wrist, and shouldn't take it off unless it breaks by itself. 

After watching dragon in hotel, we visited mum's family who sells "kaya", but we didn't stay long there, because my small cousin, Danien, suddenly cried. 

That night, we watched 5 dragons at Asia's house. Asia is the president of Bhakti Suci, a big organization in Pontianak that is in charge of many clan organizations there. 

We continued the night with food hunting. My mum was craving for durian, a type of fruit that has really strong smell. It's either you like it or hate it. I personally don't really like durian. That store also has "cempedak". 

At first, we planned to find "kengci kwetiau" or vegetarian rice noodle, but we failed, so I ended up eating "bengkwang bao" or steamed buns with meat, egg and bengkwang inside.

The next day we started our day with eating "kwecap" and drinking "liang teh". 

After breakfast, we watched another dragon at the hotel. I met Grace, one of employees at the hotel. She's around my age. We just so clicked, so we gossiped a bit. 

At noon, we went to watch capgomeh show at the stage on Gajah Mada street.  There were performances from many ethnics and of course lots of dragons. 

We had dinner at Pondok Nelayan.  

Last day in Pontianak started with dimsum b'fast at the hotel. The chef of this restaurant is from Malaysia. He makes fresh dimsum, which tastes very nice. 

Before heading to the airport, we stopped by Darling's traditional coffee house or "kopitiam". He served us drinks and his famous fried banana and taro that are added by kaya. Tasted so yummy! He even packed lots of them for us to bring to Jakarta.