Jakarta is blessed with so many cafés and eateries. Wherever you are in the city, there should be at least one café nearby, regardless of whether it is well-designed or not. Bintaro—counted as Greater Jakarta that comprises of Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi and usually abbreviated as Jabodetabek—somehow has its own share of endless cafés and eateries. A mystery to this date, the area of Bintaro houses so many architects' offices that make it reasonable if there are lots of designed eateries. One of them is Routine Coffee & Eatery.


While looking for a place to chill and write a blog entry, I happened to stumble upon this nearby café within reach. Not expecting much, I visited Routine Coffee & Eatery just to be blown away. Located in Bintaro Sektor 7, this café is quite hidden away from the front facing shop rows. To enter the eatery, you need to go to the side of the front shops to find a humble yet striking red signboard attached to metal strips covering the stairs that lead to the upper floor. After reaching the second floor and entered the eatery, I directly fell in love with the interior design of the café.

The moment I entered this hidden-from-the-road café, my eyes roamed all around the space and enjoyed the atmosphere created by the interior design. Of course, then, I directly chose to be seated next to the floor-to-ceiling windows area that also provided an electricity socket for me to do my things. Right after I picked some menu for my lunch, I permitted myself to walk around and snapped some corners of the cafe. Luckily, the time I was there was right before lunchtime that made it possible for me to freely walk and shoot without ruining other's privacy. Talking about the interior design, the way they combined industrial materials like exposed cement, corrugated metal sheets with rustic wooden furniture are really on point.


In my opinion what makes the whole interior works is how the design also focuses on details, especially all the real plants in every corner and each table of the café. They also place some products as well as other ornaments to complement the small potted plants. I also liked how they use something similar to scaffolding as the structure of open racks to place all the decorations. Even the menu cover is somehow thoughtfully designed to be nice looking on the wooden table. Yeah, you see, I really loved everything visible from my point of view while I was here.


The main motive for me to be seated right next to the source of light, of course, to harness the light for good photos. Even the very standard Ice Lemon Tea that I ordered looked so refreshing! To keep my stomach's mood stable all the time I was here, I ordered a plate of bitterballen and roasted chicken for my lunch. The bitterballen came first and from the first bite, I realized that the food quality was beyond my expectation.

Ice Lemon Tea (IDR 22K)

Fyi, bitterballen is a delicacy originated from the Netherlands. It was a heavenly snack that I first discovered while in Medan, to be exact in a heritage restaurant named Tip Top. Consisting of flour, meat (usually beef), butter, and for this plate, additional melting cheese (could be mozzarella), this was a very comfortable food to be consumed at any time and whenever you are hungry or not. To put it simply, this is one of my favourite food and I sometimes judge a restaurant from this dish alone (pardon me). The bitterballen served by Routine Coffee & Eatery, as I mentioned before was exceptional. I enjoyed how uneven and huge each piece of the bitterballen was. The dressing that came with the dish was also quite tasty and I really couldn't get enough of it.