I spent most of my weekend shopping for the usual new-apartment essentials like shower curtains, trash cans and condiments, while Haviva spent hers editing the final copy of her magazine. We took a break in order to attend a dim sum cooking class, which was Haviva's birthday present from me. The class was held at Cilantro, an Asian fusion restaurant at the top of the tallest building in Jakarta – sort of Jakarta's equivalent of Boston's Top of the Hub restaurant. The restaurant gets generally mixed reviews and it's pretty pricey, but this is a city pretty bereft of cooking classes so it was worth a shot.
It was far from the best cooking class we've attended, but it was a lot of fun – a very Indonesian experience. We were the only foreigners in a crowd of about 20 or 25 people, which meant we were always asked to be the volunteers. We learned to make three different kinds of dumplings, each with a different wrapping and shape.
In a strange cross-promotion, people from the local Crocs shop were there to reward prizes for the best dumplings. I'm very proud to say that I won the first competition (which was easily the most difficult with the ornate crimping and creasing needed). And they didn't pick me just because I was the white guy - it was a pretty dumpling! The prize was a 350,000 rupiah gift certificate for Crocs - shoes I have previously sworn I would never wear. Maybe I'll find a pair of Crocs flip-flops or something less objectionable than their standard design.
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