Cinnabar, Wine Lounge and Jakarta Night Life: where do we go?

Some bar in Central Jakarta

Where do we go out after a long, hard week?  Last night I was out with a friend and after dinner we felt like going to a wine lounge.  So we hit the place called Vin+ (good wine collection with decent price).  We bought a bottle of Shiraz, took it to the lounge with an expectation that we can just laze on the sofa with light music.  Instead, we sat on the bar and looked around.  The crowd:  young people, what we call “ABG”.  The guys wearing t-shirts, underpants racing with the jeans and baseball hat (got the age?).  The women wears jeans and nothing flashy.  But these are really young kids that I had to ask, “Is there an age limit to enter this place”?.  Early 20s, if not students, maybe 2 or 3 years work experience.  We call them ABG (Anak Baru Gede, kids that just grew up).  Interesting, must make good money (though I saw they share 1 bottle of chardonnay with the 8 of them, but who knows how many they have had).

I expected a lounge would be a place where they play lounge music. Something like the “Cafe Del Mar” type of music.  At the end, the music was like dance music.  I did try to call the bartender to change the music and explain the concept of a LOUNGE.  My friend told me that if I do that, they will definetely know exactly that I am old.  OK, at least, we can still talk to each other, fine-lah.

There are at least 3 places that I know on Kemang now as a wine place.  Vino Embassy is another one which has a good collection of wine.  The place is like a restaurant though, they serve food (not too good except for the calamari).  It is too smokey, a bit crowded and when the night comes, the music becomes like dance music (in a wine lounge???) and hard to talk to each other.  Lights are off, just like disco.  It’s a good place to go early evenings, drink sparkling wine or chardonnay and leave before people come.

So me and my friend was talking about places that we would like to hang out.  We miss Cinnabar (used to be at Wisma Gani Jemat).  Why do we think that place was the best?  Simply because we liked the environment.  The people that comes there are interesting from different backgrounds.  Lawyers, journalist, brokers, just common people trying to chill out.  No ‘ayam’ (literally means chicken, but it means working girls looking to find a man that can financially support her).   Too bad, no more Cinnabar.  Face Bar is probably the other decent place to go to.

One night, me and my friends ended up at X2, Plaza Senayan.  Boy, didn’t we feet like parents looking for their kids.  Mind you, I am in my late 30s and my friends are early 40s.  X2 is where young chinese students/2-3 years workers go out and make themselves stupid drunk.  At least that is what I heard from a person that used to work for X2.

If you look along Kemang, lots of them are these ABGs.  Kemang Food Festival, and just look at them on the streets, parking their cars or waiting for a cab.  Very, very young crowd.  Must be doing well these youngsters.  But admit it, people in that age with only that much experience is a bit hard to relate with us, who are now mostly managers, seniors, in our mid 30s or late 40s.  We do like to go out once in a while when work gets into us.  Where should we go then?

So what happens to singles in their mid 30s living in Jakarta?  Cinnabar was a great place, has a class, not too upscaled but good to meet interesting new people.  Why did it close down?  And where should we hang out?

Here is the list and examples of places people like me go to and/or don’t go to:

1. We don’t go where there are old expats and lots of ‘ayam’.  We don’t hang out at Blok M.  This is a place where lots of underaged prostitutes who can only do sign languages and expired expats hangs out.  Of course, you won’t find us here.
2. We do like to go to Dragonfly, although the music is sometimes loud that you cannot listen to each other talk, it is still a nice crowd.  No ayam, if there is any, possibly high class ayam.  Usually we go there in groups, then meet other groups, and end up being in a big group dancing.  People who comes here are from the working class, middle to upper class, with various background, age spread is late 20s to early 40s.  Wednesday nights they play retro, the 80s.  Now that fits (am I old or what???) .  Blowfish is usually also a good place to hang out, but I haven’t been there for ages.  Burgundy in Grand Hyatt is a pretty decent place.  Used to be hip at one time.  The band is good, and not too crowded.
3. Some of us like hanging out with expats/looking for expats.  Not those who are invisible in their countries but now feeling like ‘God’s gift to Woman’  (the ‘ayams’ here are really good at boosting their self esteem!).  Here is what I used to do when I hung out with my oil company buddies:  start at Bugils in Taman Senayan for early drinks, eat, then sometimes I go together to move to B.A.T.S (Shangri La) or Tigapuluh (Le Meridian), but when they go to Blok M, I split.  Bugils is a place where you chill down before you have dinner, beer, or light gin & tonic.  95% expat, 5% Indonesian, mostly ayams these days (not like that back then though).  If there is a woman with a real job there, she might be there with her boyfriend, waiting for her boyfriend, or hanging out with other girlfriends, or expat females.  I rarely go there even with my friends these days.  They have Thursday night quizzes, too.
4. B.A.T.S. has good music, good food, the scene is old expired fat expats feeling handsome like Prince Harry with a young ayam, dancing like a frog in a blender.  My Italian friends once took me there to be a chicken repellant.  Sigh.  Really pathetic view, though.  If I go there, usually with bunch of friends, group of minimum of 6.  Dance our ass off and leave.  No mingling because the guys are…just not going to meet our bars.  Tigapuluh is the same, with worse music.  Same scene.  Not that we don’t like expats, we find them interesting, but those you meet at BATS or Bugils, probably are those you will have business with if you are in the oil industry, or the ones that you will just forget.  Cazbar at Mega Kuningan and Eastern Promise at Kemang is also managed by the same guys from Bugils.  Eastern Promise is pretty good, have good Samosas there, now they play jazz on Wednesday nights.  Not as many ‘ayams’ there, just lots of expats.
5. A place with very young people like ABG is definetely not going to make us fit, like X2 at Plaza Senayan, or Embassy at Taman Ria Senayan.
6. A place as wild as Stadium is definetely not a place we soberly will go to…maybe in a group of 50 like when we had Robs 50th birthday.  It feels like hell to me!
7. What is left then?  Red Top is a pretty good place, but it is pretty crowded.   The Wine Lounge at the Four Season is a good place, usually older crowds there, but a good place to bring your good friends and catch up.
8. Like dancing?  Pitty Salsa Club is gone, but Thursday night there is Salsa at Mistere, Ritz Carlton. If you are into ballroom dancing, go to Bugs, but expect older crowds (50+, but what’s wrong with that?).

Usually when I go out with friends, we go to a restaurant, drink wine there.  But what if I’m in a mood of going out and meeting new people?  Where should I, in my late 30s, go out and hang out with my friends, and meet interesting people, just like the good ol’ Cinnabar time?  Not that we are against younger people, sometimes they are interesting (for the first 5 minutes) but honestly, men with their underwear racing with their jeans are just not one of those….