This post was posted due to my boredom (which resulted in lots of thoughts and deep thinking).
I remembered myself as a teenager who enjoyed spending weekends by doing cafe-hopping with friends. You know, if Western people do bar-hopping, we did cafe-hopping because 1) we were under-age, 2) we didn't know any good bars in Medan, and 3) none of us drink. Yes, we were just a bunch of innocent teenagers who were eager to grow up. Now, as a young adult, that habit doesn't really change. I still do cafe-hopping with my friends but not as often as back then when we were still teenagers.
I remembered myself as a teenager who enjoyed spending weekends by doing cafe-hopping with friends. You know, if Western people do bar-hopping, we did cafe-hopping because 1) we were under-age, 2) we didn't know any good bars in Medan, and 3) none of us drink. Yes, we were just a bunch of innocent teenagers who were eager to grow up. Now, as a young adult, that habit doesn't really change. I still do cafe-hopping with my friends but not as often as back then when we were still teenagers.
Back then (when I was around 10-18 years old), our most
favourite hang-out spots would be Starbucks and Roemah Kopi Wak Noer. Even on
weekdays, I would meet up and drink coffee with my friends at Starbucks Coffee.
The baristas knew my name and knew that I would always order either Hot Green
Tea Latte using Low Fat-Milk with Extra Caramel or Ice Blended Green Tea Latte
using Low-Fat Milk with No-Whip Cream and Extra Caramel. During holiday season,
I would always order Hot Toffee Nut Latte. Even until today, those were still
my most-favourite drinks.
For dinner, we would usually eat at Nasi Goreng Pekantan/ Nasi Goreng Pemuda/ cafes inside Sun Plaza or Cambridge City Square, and then have some drinks afterward at Roemah Kopi Wak Noer. If we had breaksfast together, we would eat at Soto Sinar Pagi/ Nasi Gurih Tenda Biru.
Back then, there were only a few cafes in Medan. The Japanese restaurants we have were Sushi Tei and Itcho Sushi. We watched movies at Sun 21. We ate steaks at Bel Mondo Cafe/ Dome Cafe. We ate spaghetti at Excelso/ Gelato Bar. We ate yogurt at L.A. Betty/ Blu Apple (eventhough both were no longer open). We ate doughnuts at J.CO Donuts. We have BBQ at Seoul Garden (and we always bring our student ID to get discounts). We ate dimsum at Nelayan Shanghai Kitchen. We ate ice-cream at Fountain.
Did you know that back then, QQ Restaurants were not a restaurant but a small stall that sold popcorn and blended drinks? Before the movie started, we would rush to QQ to buy popcorn/ blended drinks and then Hypermart to buy snacks. Girls would bring super big tote bags to sneak in the snacks into the cinema. The security never checked our bags. We used BCA Cards for the "buy one get one" promotion in the cinema, and usually, we would buy six! Buy six get six! The ticket price was only IDR 25,000 (compared to now, IDR50,000-IDR 75,000). We pig out whenever we eat out. We threw flour and eggs to our friends who were having his or her birthday. We played ice skating at Sun Plaza and then ordered drinks from Luciano Cafe. We played Dance Dance Revolution at Amazon Arcade Centre. We always took picture at M-Studio or D-Studio as a souvenir. We used XL (mobile network operators) to text with friends or crush because we would get free 100 SMS per day if we chatted with our friends who were using XL too. Good old days.
For dinner, we would usually eat at Nasi Goreng Pekantan/ Nasi Goreng Pemuda/ cafes inside Sun Plaza or Cambridge City Square, and then have some drinks afterward at Roemah Kopi Wak Noer. If we had breaksfast together, we would eat at Soto Sinar Pagi/ Nasi Gurih Tenda Biru.
Back then, there were only a few cafes in Medan. The Japanese restaurants we have were Sushi Tei and Itcho Sushi. We watched movies at Sun 21. We ate steaks at Bel Mondo Cafe/ Dome Cafe. We ate spaghetti at Excelso/ Gelato Bar. We ate yogurt at L.A. Betty/ Blu Apple (eventhough both were no longer open). We ate doughnuts at J.CO Donuts. We have BBQ at Seoul Garden (and we always bring our student ID to get discounts). We ate dimsum at Nelayan Shanghai Kitchen. We ate ice-cream at Fountain.
Did you know that back then, QQ Restaurants were not a restaurant but a small stall that sold popcorn and blended drinks? Before the movie started, we would rush to QQ to buy popcorn/ blended drinks and then Hypermart to buy snacks. Girls would bring super big tote bags to sneak in the snacks into the cinema. The security never checked our bags. We used BCA Cards for the "buy one get one" promotion in the cinema, and usually, we would buy six! Buy six get six! The ticket price was only IDR 25,000 (compared to now, IDR50,000-IDR 75,000). We pig out whenever we eat out. We threw flour and eggs to our friends who were having his or her birthday. We played ice skating at Sun Plaza and then ordered drinks from Luciano Cafe. We played Dance Dance Revolution at Amazon Arcade Centre. We always took picture at M-Studio or D-Studio as a souvenir. We used XL (mobile network operators) to text with friends or crush because we would get free 100 SMS per day if we chatted with our friends who were using XL too. Good old days.
As I compared the current situation with the past, I
realised how fast time flies and pasts. In a blink of eyes, I am no longer a
teenager. I am now a young adult with several responsibilities. I might only be
at my early 20s, but as you graduated from high-school, as you entered college
and working-world, a lot of things seemed to change. But even so, like the old
saying "old habits die hard", we would still spare some time to meet
up and catch up with the good old friends...talking about the good old days while hoping for better days upcoming.
Nowadays, a lot of cafes are popping everywhere. It
seems there is at least one new cafe opening every month. But my major
disappointment is that, only a few of these cafes seemed to have a concept.
Most of the cafes served almost everything-from Indonesian to Western food. They don’t have any
specialities. Back then, whenever we wanted to eat fried rice, we would go to
Fountain Cafe. For Indonesian food, we would go to Sunday Cafe. Each and every
of the cafe has its own popular or well-known dish, but now? Whenever we go to a cafe, we don’t have any idea
what is its speciality. We kept on questioning the servers: what is your
speciality? What is your signature dish? It seemed that people are opening
cafes not because it is their passion to cook or they want to serve good food,
it is more likely that they are opening cafe because it is currently in trend
and it will profitable. I knew that the purpose of every business is to earn
profit, but it is not the only purpose, right? There must be other purposes such as:
introducing the authentic Italian cuisine to the market, or introducing the
right taste to the market, etc. It is such a waste to see several cafe owners
who opened up cafe to earn profit, but the owners themselves seemed to have no
proper knowledge about how to open a good cafe. Anyone can open a cafe, but not
anyone can open a good. A good cafe, I would say Roemah Kopi Wak Noer and
Sunday Cafe. We knew they have their specialities, and these specialities are
something you cannot get at any other cafe. Say, Roemah Kopi Wak Noer’s nasi
perang and tea, or Sunday Cafe’s sop buntut and nasi ayam bakar sunda kelapa.
Both cafes also have excellent interior design. It always makes me feel
comfortable whenever I go to those two cafes. These are the examples of the
cafe I am looking forward in Medan. I hope in the future, there will be more
cafes like these two cafes.
I didn't own any cafe. And I do wish to own one, but not
now. I knew I am not capable to open. I am not a good cook, I am still
learning. I could simply hire someone to cook for my customers, but it doesn't suit my principal. I don’t want to open a cafe with nothing impressive—nothing
to remember. I want people to keep coming back to my cafe not because “rather
than no place to go” or “rather than we don’t know what to do” or “up to you
guys, I had no idea where to go” or “as long as we have some place to sit”. I
want people to keep coming back to my cafe because they love what my cafe
serves—because they are attracted to my cafe’s signature dish—because the love
the atmosphere and ambiance inside my cafe. I want people to keep coming back
because they love my place.
I am not saying that other cafes without specialities
will not survive. It definitely will survive as long as there are teenagers who
enjoyed sitting and chatting with friends (this kind of teenagers will never extinct, so those cafes will definitely survive) but how long
will you depend on people who come not because they love your place, but
because they have no choice? Sooner or later, when these teenagers have
choices, they will stop coming to your place because yours was not even their
choice at the first place.
That is all I've got to say. If any of you feel
offended or disagree with me, feel free to do
so. After all, not one of us is the same. We are all very different, aren't we?
cheers to good food and good life,
yours truly
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