When you are going to Malang, do not forget to put yourself for a while in old Malang atmosphere. So, you can compare how it feels with this present era. How?? No need to go to museum, just going to Inggil Restaurant at 4 Gajah Mada street.
Actually I had no plan to go there, moreover, I did not know that place. After staying 6 hours by train from Yogyakarta to Surabaya, my friend Ri, kidnapped me to Malang directly. Pyuhhh…no plan, no rest, we run away on midnight, speed up black car through the quiet and silence freeway. Tiredness and sleepy did not come to me. Thanks God. I could accompany her on driving.
No time to book on hotel. We had to find one by one. Hard working as we did not have enough reference. Usually we stay a night at Trio Hotel, near Alun-alun but at that moment it was fully booked. Sure! We went on holiday season. No wonder! Finally we found Aloha hotel, at the backside of town hall and close to Tugu Malang. Yihaa…I got place. Suddenly I was really sleepy and sleepy and sleepy waiting for the upcoming day.
It was Xmas eve 2007. It was raining hard outside. We both staying nicely at bedroom, watching television, seeing xmas programs. Serenity was around us. At the end, we felt hungry. Felt lazy to go to down town after moving around all day long in the city, we decided to eat at restaurant in front of our hotel. Just using umbrella and warm jacket we walked carefully, little jump and stepped out of the water puddle.
We had no intention to go to this restaurant as the place outside look like was not interested in us. In a glance, we also thought it was expensive restaurant and the food taste was not good. Why? As there was not much car parked there. But we were tricked by our own subjective opinion. When we entered inside, we were impressed by the traditional and old atmosphere. We could see something unique hanging in the wall like old pictures of Malang city, old small billboard of advertisement like BATA shoes, cigarette Banjoe biroe, Tanco brand of soap, unused big batik stamps, traditional cookware completed with stove and bamboo sheet fan., ancient charcoal irons, old radios, old sewing machine, old paper money, traditional Javanese masks in front of entrance room. Waow!!
The eating room was like big hall with stage on it. You could see traditional music tools (gamelan) there mixed with modern music tools like guitar, keyboard. When we were there, woman singer, called Sinden, sang Javanese song. It called nembang. Lampion lamp hanging, shining on their medium light. Not too dark but not too light.
When eating you could choose 2 version on how to sit. Using wood chairs and tables, or just lesehan (sit at the floor above the leaf mat, like japanese style).
We chose to do lesehan. While waiting for order (Please not to try to sit at wooden toy horse, it was for kids only hahhaha), some overseas tourists then one by one visitor came. The place was rather full.
For menu, I forgot whether they had western menu or not as that moment we could not stand to order soon, so I did not care for another offering. We chose traditional menu. Fried fish, spicy fermented soybean (tempe), raw vegetables (lalapan), rice, mixed spicy red hot chili pepper and tomato (sambel) and two glasses of hot tea accompanied us passing the cold night. No silent night, no silver bells, no white Christmas melody around it. Just campursari and uyon-uyon. Kinanthi, dhandhanggula…
Ciao!
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