Lunch at Raja Rasa
My parents stopped by at my house the other day, dropping off some stuff I needed sometime in the future that I had still left at home. As they came during lunch hour, I thought I may as well take them out for lunch. We didn’t want to spend much time in the Jakarta traffic so we opted to have some lunch nearby, and ended up at Raja Rasa restaurant in Ampera.
The place was pretty big with a lot of parking space available. Design wise, from the outside I had this eerie feeling like this place looked like some sort of a temple, with a gentle slope of long steps leading up to the front entrance, with each steps having one wooden statue of some sort on each side. We parked in the back and entered the restaurant from the side entrance, which felt less eerie.
The restaurant was very big and spacious, and considering it was lunch hour, it wasn’t very busy. They also have some small gazebos outside with tables, where you can sit on the floor and eat in the privacy of the gazebo with your friends or family. That would probably be a good option for a group of young people who can still endure sitting on hard floor with their knees bent for an extended period. My mom and dad were not going to have to endure that, they should be able to sit down and enjoy the food without having to deal with legs falling asleep. So we chose a table in the main restaurant.
We ordered the Raja Rasa grilled golden-lined rabbit fish (baronang), tahu goreng berbumbu (spiced fried tofu), and tauge tumis teri (stir fried bean sprouts with fried anchovies). The baronang was really tasty and was served with some sweet sour spicy pickled mango slices, so all sorts of taste were dancing around in my mouth. Absolutely delicious. The fried tofu was also very tasty and crunchy, we had to order seconds and thirds 
The bean sprouts were out of the ordinary, usually it is served with salted fish (ikan asin) but the fried anchovies did the trick as well, and we didn’t leave one bit of it. All that was left behind was some spoons of rice which we opted to leave behind, since we were concentrating more on everything else.
I haven’t gone back there again, and I don’t think I will (because I really don’t like the atmosphere), but I have several times used their delivery service and enjoyed their delicious food in the comfort of my own dining room. 
Tags: Ampera, baronang, beansprouts, rabbitfish, Raja Rasa, tofu