Island Flavors: Jay Chai’s Pandan Room Brings Indonesian Cuisine to Hackettstown
Indonesia is a vast archipelago comprising over 17,000 islands that stretch between mainland Southeast Asia and Australia. It is perhaps best known for the popular tourist destination Bali, but the incredible variety of culture and experiences goes far beyond what one island can offer. Due to its geographic formation, Indonesia has developed great diversity, as culture, landscapes, language, religion, and food often have regional differences—sometimes subtle, and sometimes complex. When it comes to food, the regionality is both a source of pride for locals and a treasure to be discovered by travelers.
There are staples of Indonesian cuisine that cross island boundaries, such as soto, a beef and vegetable soup whose name and ingredients vary based on the regional differences of the various ethnic groups. Soto Betawi comes from the capital city Jakarta on the island of Java, and is credited to the Betawi or Batavian ethnic group.
Other dishes, like the Balinese favorite babi guling, are tied to distinct cultural differences. Babi guling features a spread of pork pieces from a whole slow-roasted suckling pig. Crispy, sweet crackling skin accompanies blood sausage, roasted pork, and diced organs that are eaten with rice and vegetables. The incredible meal isn’t available in most areas of the country due to the majority of citizens’ Islamic eating restrictions, but it can be found in Balinese night markets because the local community is Hindu.
Some culinary differences have darker roots. Java’s preference for sweeter flavors was born out of the occupation of Indonesia by the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch forced the Javanese to convert rice fields to sugarcane, a commodity that grew in profit as well as caloric importance when European countries began industrializing. Sugarcane was also incorporated into Indonesian dishes at the time, as rice production decreased, and the addition of sugar has had an impact on the sweetness of Javanese dishes to the present day.
One should certainly visit Indonesia if the opportunity is presented, but travelers don’t have to fly halfway around the world to try Indonesian cuisine. Thanks to Chef Jay Chai, founder of Pandan Room, it can be experienced in Hackettstown.
Chai was born in Alur Bandung, a remote village in West Kalimantan province. One of seven children, he grew up without running water or most modern accommodations, but he was taught at a young age how to live off the land, a common aspect of life in a community that survives on self-sufficiency. Food was central to Chai’s early life. His family kept ducks and chickens, whose eggs were used to make omelets, and grew a garden of turmeric, chilies, various vegetables and fruits. He knew local farmers and fishermen by name.
Chai learned to cook at a young age. His parents passed down techniques and recipes they used in their home kitchen. In addition to cooking, Chai’s mother and grandmother ground herbs from the garden and blended them with rice wine to help family members recover from ailments. At school, he sold snacks and ice cream his mother made, to help the family’s finances.
Chai’s sister ran a warung in Jakarta, a small grocery or eatery that is common throughout Indonesia. He helped out after finishing high school, even living in the warung for a time while attending a trade school. As Chai points out, “everyone in Jakarta is an entrepreneur.” He attended hotel school to learn the hospitality business and to become educated on the food and beverage industry. It was his first step on the road to becoming a professional chef and business owner.
Chai arrived in the United States in the late ’90s, working his way up from busing to cooking in various kitchens and learning techniques from across cultures. Spending time in both New York and Washington, DC, he learned to make French pastries, Italian cuisine, and Thai classics. He still utilizes techniques he learned from his time in a diverse array of kitchens, only now he combines them with Indonesian flavors.
THE MENU REPRESENTS A WIDE RANGE OF INDONESIAN ISLANDS. THE SUMATRAN BEEF RENDANG IS A SLOWLY COOKED POT ROAST THAT HAS BEEN SIMMERED IN COCONUT MILK AND 10 SPICES, SERVED ALONGSIDE PUMPKIN AND WHITE RICE.
When Pandan Room opened in 2006, Chai began hiring and training from the local Hackettstown community. He would cook a different staff meal each day to train his workers on Indonesian flavors and dishes. This also had a word-of-mouth effect; his staff helped spread the word about the Indonesian options to the local community. Still, it is a family-run business with Chai’s two brothers working side by side, and his mother making appearances in the kitchen.
Chai recognizes that it was a bold move to open his restaurant away from a metropolitan area. Hackettstown does not have an Indonesian American population; the closest areas with communities of Indonesian families and restaurants are 90 minutes away in New York City or Philadelphia. In fact, Indonesian food is not easily found anywhere else in New Jersey. This was a selling point for Chai, who relished the opportunity to introduce his culture to Hackettstown. Through researching towns in the region, Chai realized the relatively small amount of culinary diversity in Hackettstown at the time offered a viable business and cultural opportunity to bring the town something unique.
Initially, Chai had to overcome the temptation to cater to American tastes. One of his first menu items at Pandan Room was an asiago cheeseburger. But his courage soon prevailed and he dismissed the need to offer familiar items. Plus, as he notes, there are plenty of other restaurants serving cheeseburgers.
Chai markets his menu as both Thai and Indonesian, a common tactic for Southeast Asian restaurants in the United States, especially for countries with smaller diasporas or historically less tourism. For many Lao, Cambodian, and Indonesian restaurateurs, the inclusion of Thai food gives patrons a recognizable entryway to their menus. Chai’s long menu has even more choices than Thai and Indonesia offerings; his dishes span the entire Southeast Asian region, with a menu featuring Malaysian, Singaporean, and Vietnamese favorites. However, it’s the broad range of Indonesian dishes that make Pandan Room so special.
Similar to his upbringing, Chai prefers to source from his local community. His fluffy corn fritters use corn from Donaldson Farm, a family-run business just a mile down the road. “The owners are very serious about quality,” he notes. “I always source fresh vegetables when I can.” Chai also incorporates vegetables like kale and Brussels sprouts, which aren’t available in Indonesia. The Brussels sprouts are added to a Balinese curry dish, using Asian flavors like red and yellow curries, combined with locally sourced New Jersey ingredients, creating an Indonesian-American hybrid.
Some items must be imported, such as pandan, the bright-green, fragrant tropical leaves which feature in the restaurant’s name. Pandan is often sold in powder form and is incorporated into drinks and desserts to give them an earthy, vibrant pop. For the impossible-to-find items, Chai sources from Manhattan’s Chinatown and from Philadelphia.
The menu represents a wide range of Indonesian islands. The Sumatran Beef Rendang available at Pandan Room is a slowly cooked pot roast that has been simmered in coconut milk and 10 spices, served alongside pumpkin and white rice. This mouthwatering variation on the popular dish has tender beef with a subtle hint of heat. The Ponti Pork is a dish from Kalimantan, consisting of braised, aged pork butt with a semi-sweet caramelized soy sauce. Lombok Tilapia comes from the island adjacent to Bali. The fish is marinated and combined with coriander (cilantro) and fennel and served with a sweet tomato, basil, and chili chutney. Soto Sapi has similarities to Soto Betawi and also comes from the island of Java. Chai’s savory Soto Sapi has beef tendon, coconut milk, lime leaves, and red and yellow curries. The aromatic soup has a similar impact to a bowl of chicken noodle soup on a cold day, providing warmth and flavor and awakening the senses.
One of Chai’s more popular dishes is nasi goreng, the fried rice dish that is a staple of restaurants and households all across the Indonesian archipelago. Rice (nasi) is an important element of the Indonesian diet and often featured in every meal. A large pot of rice is boiled to accommodate for a family’s daily meals. Whatever is left over is used for nasi goreng the next day. Not only does nasi goreng have subtle regional differences, but each family’s recipe and preference can be unique. Chai recalls his mother making fried rice in the mornings before he left for school. He nostalgically describes her pan frying the rice with an egg, dried fish, and whatever vegetables were on hand. At Pandan Room, the nasi goreng is cooked with green peas, egg, chicken, and a chili, tomato, and shallot paste.
Sambal is the ubiquitous condiment that accompanies most meals in Indonesia. It features crushed chilis, in a form closer to a chunkier paste than a sauce, that is spooned over rice, fish, chicken, or really any dish. Heat tolerance is a source of pride in Indonesia; some restaurants and warungs are well-known for the fiery nature of their sambal. Chai’s sambal is made in-house; always fresh rather than pre-packaged, and its sweat-inducing heat is intensely flavorful.
It would be impossible to include enough dishes on a menu to represent all of Indonesia’s regional varieties. However, Jay Chai’s Pandan Room offers not only an introduction to Indonesian cuisine, but also an admirable cross-section that highlights Indonesia’s culinary diversity. The only aspects missing are the roadside table and plastic stools, otherwise you’ll feel as if you are eating at a true Indonesian warung.
Pandan Room
100 E. Moore St., Hackettstown
908.850.5999
pandanroom.com
