Very few Hollywood or foreign English language movies are ever shot in Indonesia.

Even “The Year of Living Dangerously”, a real humdinger of a movie in which a still charismatic Mel Gibson forges an unique relationship with a Chinese dwarf, wasn’t actually filmed in the country (it had to be shot in nearby Philippines because of objections from Suharto’s iron fist regime).


And while sections of Julia Robert’s “Eat Pray Shag Love” were admittedly shot in Bali, this pile of sanctimonious horseshit is widely regarded as one of the “worst films ever made”, and nobody has ever managed to watch it to the end anyway (most viewers simply fall asleep, although plenty more vomit and have to leave the room).

Other than that there is the gritty Balibo, of course, but that film is essentially about the turbulent history of another country – East Timor – where it was shot in all its tragic glory.

“Jakarta” is a pretty much unknown B movie (more like Z movie!), which although shot in Suharto’s Indonesia in 1988 and vaguely alluring, falls a long way short of authenticity by featuring former Penthouse Pet of the Month Suzee Pai as the Indonesian love interest of a CIA agent! (played by Chris Noth). See a clip on YouTube here.


Red dragon? Jakarta? WTF!

News now comes in though that both the aging Hollywood superstar Mickey Rourke and Kellan Lutz have joined the cast of a new film to be shot in Indonesia called Java Heat.

With Conor Allyn behind the camera, Java Heat will see a mysterious American type (Lutz) putting aside his anti-Islamic tendencies to team up with a Muslim cop in order to take down a light-fingered, jewel-theft-happy group of terrorists in Southeast Asia. Rourke will be on the other side of the law, playing a gem thief who dreams up the terror types’ nasty schemes.

The production house behind the film is Margate House Films, a smallish venture founded in 2007 by former ad agency owner and New York Times best-selling author Rob Allyn.

Their most notable Indonesian productions are “RED AND WHITE and its two sequels, BLOOD OF EAGLES and HEARTS OF FREEDOM: a trilogy of action-packed epic war dramas set in 1947, during Indonesia's revolution against the Dutch.

The films are “shot in 35-millimeter in the jungles of Java with top filmmakers from SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, BLACKHAWK DOWN, BRAVEHEART and THE PACIFIC, the films were hailed by VARIETY, SCREEN DAILY and a cover of THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, won Best Picture and Best Director Awards and shattered cinema attendance records in the world's fourth-largest country”.

This augers well for Heat.

And let me know if you see Mickey Rourke in town!!!

Many of the 5 star hotels in Jakarta put on sumptuous “all you can eat” buffets.

Although prices have risen considerably in recent years, mostly they are still pretty good value, ranging in price from around Rp200,000 ++ to Rp400,000 ++.

Complimentary water/tea is often provided but you have to pay for other drinks. As you can eat as much as you want, it’s obviously best to be ravenously hungry when you turn up. I generally go for a long run or spend a couple of hours in the gym to get a really hearty appetite!

Cafe Gran Via is located in the Jakarta Melia Hotel, and as they were doing a promotion I thought I’d check it out. How does it compare with the competition? Especially the legendary SATOO in the Shangri-La, possibly the best buffet in Jakarta against which the competition will be judged.



Located on the first floor of the Melia Hotel, Cafe Gran Via has an “open plan” design. This makes the restaurant feel very spacious and you can see what’s going on in the hotel around you, including down at the reception area below.

And like most of these hotel restaurants, Cafe Gran Via is pretty large – it has seating for up to 300 people.

When we turned up, we realized why there was a promotion.

Hotel Melia was still being renovated!

This meant there were not many guests and the Cafe Gran Via was very quiet. Empty in fact.

This was the reason I think why the restaurant’s vibe was not nearly as good as it should have been. The place was dead. Poor lighting also dulled the experience – literally - and the staff were over eager to help. Cafe Gran Via also lacked the modern and sophisticated design of the top buffet restaurants like SATOO, a weakness which reduces the diner’s all too crucial “expectations” and leads to a less satisfying dining experience (*).

When there are so few people eating in a large restaurant (I counted only about 15 after one hour), you start to have doubts over the freshness and quality of the food. Whether those doubts are justified are not is beside the point – just having them in the first place will affect your perceptions of the quality of the food.

Overall, there was a good selection of food available – perhaps too much to be honest. It included sushi, Indian, dim sum, salads, roast beef etc.

All in all, dining at Cafe Gran Via was a disappointing experience.

But that’s what you get in an empty hotel!

Cafe Gran Via
Gran Meliá Jakarta
Jalan H.R. Rasuna Said Kav X-0
Kuningan Jakarta Indonesia 12950
Tel: (62) 21 5268080
Lunch 11.30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m, Dinner 6:00 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Cost: Rp195,000++

(*) In one of the most famous experiments on consumer expectations ever conducted, researchers filled some Penn & Teller bottles (which sell at US$7 each!) with plain old tap water. The bottles were then passed out to unsuspecting guests at a classy southern California restaurant.

The patrons had no idea that all of the fancy bottles of water were filled with the same water from a water hose in the back of the restaurant.

But whether it was the original Penn & Teller water in the bottle or just plain old Agua de Culo (Spanish for ass water) didn’t matter.

The patrons couldn’t tell the difference. IT WAS ONLY THE EXPECTATIONS THAT MATTERED. Someone should tell Hotel Gran Meliá about this!