Food in Melati Mas, Tangerang

You can really enjoy food in Indonesia for barely 1,- €. There is a nice restaurant in Melati Mas called Jes Jos. My favourite dish for Rp 15,000 or a bit more than 1 € is a big serve of nasi goreng pete(fried rice with meat and "stinking" peas pete). It is a real clean restaurant and they deliver everything to your place for free.

Would you like to have a good breakfast?
Before I leave the house about 6.00 am for the internet cafe to do my both offline and online work(offline is cheaper BTW), I have breakfast first. Ah Lim, located at the corner of Jalan Raya Melati Mas(main road of Melati Mas) sells the famous steam mee for Rp 9.000. The ketoprak vendors or Indonesian salat with rice noodles and peanut sauce start to sell around 9 am. You can get a nasi uduk(rice steamed in coconut milk) for Rp 3000 without meat but you need to come before 8 am.

The hygiene especially in the charts of the street vendors leaves much to be desired. One morning I saw the village people doing their morning business in the river where they got the water for coffee about one hour later. I have watched some people using water out of the gutter for cooking or to prepare salad, the cleanest one was actually somebody who used water to wash the cars. My tip would be to choose the small street restaurants or stalls instead of the vendors. But the Tahu Sumedang or freshly fried tofu cubes cost so little and you can get it piping hot from the vendor.

Even a restaurant with a karaoke is not particularly expensive. The Furami or Nyonya Suharti restaurant is reasonably cheap and you can sit in a clean and cosy environment. For fried carp with sauce you pay around Rp 30000 or € 2,- for a huge serve with a delicious sauce. Apart from this furami serves sumptuous dinners and karaoke singing if you wish. At night you will see a BBQ seafood stall in front of the BSD shopping plaza.

What can we do to avoid a serious bug like typhoid, salmonella, clostridium difficile and all those lovely pets? Of course we are all better off with immunisation and this can be very cheap in Asia too. A strong immune system is paramount and about 70% of it is located in the digestive system. We need enough sleep which is sometimes not easy, especially when you are couchsurfing. Aa positive attitude and healthy food supports our immune system. About 10 days prior to travelling and during the whole travel period I start to take prebiotics from the pharmacy on a regular basis. Perenterol has significant studies and it worked well for me. This increases the amount of natural intestinal flora which are well-known to deflect germs.

Use your eyes to judge the food - you wouldn't regret it!!!!