Health Food in Surabaya

Sunday morning Greg and I decided to try the brand new organic foods shop and restaurant that opened two weeks ago, the first of its kind in Surabaya. We were excited by the good ol’ American brands we saw – SantaCruz pop (soda if you’re from there, of course), Tom’s of Maine toothpaste, you get the idea. The menu listed buckwheat waffles, so we took a long, hot walk there in the late morning. It was 11 when we arrived, so we asked if they were still serving breakfast. The waiter assured us that they were and gave us our menus. We promptly ordered our waffles. But the waiter returned and told us they didn’t have the waffles. So I ordered French Toast and Greg ordered a spinach crepe. But they couldn’t make that. So he ordered a veggie burger. But they didn’t have that. He finally ordered a grilled vegetable sandwich. Some time later, my “French Toast” came out. The menu described it as “Napolean French Toast layered with your choice of strawberries, raw almonds, or honey.” They’d already told me they didn’t have almonds or strawberries but I’d agreed to some sort of berry jam. Mulberry I think. This is what was on the plate: three pieces of very dry, white, crustless bread (non-organic, I’m sure) layered with red jam, and a small salad with thousand island dressing. Inedible. When I complained that it wasn’t French Toast, our waiter told us that it was exactly like the menu described, and that they’d gotten all their recipes from Jakarta. Greg did in fact have a sandwich with some roast peppers, mushrooms and yellow mustard and mayonnaise on it. It was edible. We decided that we would not be returning and that although we were excited about it being an ‘American organic’ store, it was still an Indonesian restaurant.