Teratai Chinese Restaurant

I recall growing up as a child, dining out was not something that my humble family was familiar with. The most lavish meals that we'd ever get were either at someone's wedding function or when I stayed over at my cousin's house during the weekend and we would dine out with my cousin's big family. It may sound pitiful, but I'm grateful that it makes me appreciate what's on my plate so much more today.

Teratai, which means 'lotus' in Bahasa Indonesia, is chinese restaurant at Hotel Borobudur Jakarta. It has been around for as old as the hotel itself, which is older than my age! This was actually my very first time visiting Teratai, though, and I didn't quite know what to expect. But I suppose I could expect nothing short of impressive from this legendary place.

The restaurant is divided into 2 distinct 'wings', the side immediately accessible from the entrance is furnished in off white colours, whereas the other 'wing' is furnished in burgundy red and overlooking the lush garden outside. Although it was my first time, I was already in love for the tables by the window overlooking the outdoor garden.

one of the private rooms overlooking the outdoor garden

Teratai has not only 1, but a total of 4 Chinese chefs overseeing the kitchen. The Cantonese menu offers some mandatory dishes in Chinese restaurants, as well as Luxury Dishes, such as Bird's Nest, Abalone, Sharks Fin and Foie Gras. With all due respect to the chefs of Teratai and the hotel, but I must make it clear that I do not approve of sharks fin consumption, so I hope that item will be lifted from the menu. As is in most chinese restaurants, the menus are extensive, from the drinks, appetizers to main course, dessert and dim sum.

Dim Sum

Dim sum is possibly the easiest kind of comfort food that almost anyone can enjoy. We started our lunch with the heartwarming, familiar dim sum items...Each of them were enjoyable & tasty, but my favourite item has got to be the glutinous rice steamed in lotus leaf with meat & egg yolk filling.

Golden "sand" steamed bun

Steamed dumpling with po cai filling

Steamed xiao long bao

Steamed glutinous rice in lotus leaf

Fried prawn & vegetables pancake

Now, comes the time for the main course. One normally finds foie gras at french restaurants, but to find it in a chinese? Not quite convincing, if you ask me. But I was blissfully wrong when I had the first bite of the foie gras. I was confounded by how tasty it was and how well it went with the honey glaze sauce!

Seared foie gras, Malang apple & honey glaze IDR 238,000/portion

Another recommended dish here is the sauteed king prawns with pumpkin cream, served with fried mantou bun, quite unique isn't it? Once you deshell the sauteed prawns, to expose the juicy and sweet flesh, smear it with as much sweet and savoury pumpkin sauce as possible and hup! Even I (who is not massively into seafood), cannot say no to this!

sauteed king prawns with pumpkin cream, served with fried mantou bun

Crispy roasted smoked chicken, very smokey indeed!

Crispy roasted smoked chicken

Wok-fried beef tenderloin, cashews, topped with garlic chips and served with green horseradish butter -> this is also one of my favourite dish do far, love how the tenderloin cubes are juicy and well seasoned.

Wok-fried beef tenderloin, cashews, topped with garlic chips and served with green horseradish butter IDR 168,000

After all that we had above, you wonder if we'd still have space for dessert? Well, absolutely yes! But instead of having individual dessert items that come in massive servings too much for myself to finish, we had the Chef's Trio Dessert platter. It consisted deep-fried crispy durian rolls, mango pudding and chinese herbs jelly (gui lin gao). Oh, the deep fried durian roll is definitely going to be my mother's favourite, the sweet golden durian flesh melts inside the crispy roll. So sinful yet so good!

Chef's Trio Dessert platter IDR 68,000

I personally do not like just about any Chinese restaurant, and the one my family always goes back to is the one michelin star restaurant that can be found in Jakarta's shopping malls. But after dining here, I'm pretty assured that my family would like it too.

Prices:
All you can eat dim sum IDR 158,000++/person or IDR 179,000 (nett), drinks are not included in the price

Opening hours:
Monday-Saturday: 11.30-15.00 | 18.30-22.30
Sunday and Public Holidays: 09.00-15.00 | 18.30-22.30

*) Prices are subject to Government Tax & Service Charge

Teratai
Hotel Borobudur Jakarta, Lobby Level
Jl. Lapangan Banteng Selatan
Ph:+ 6221 3804444, 3835000

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