Breakfast in Ulee Kareng

My coworker from Jakarta is here in Aceh this week, and he loves to go out in the mornings to have coffee and breakfast at a traditional coffee house and stroll the traditional market for good photo ops.

This morning, I decided to sacrifice 1.5 hours of sleep and tag along. Ulee Kareng is the neighborhood in the southeastern region of Banda Aceh. It was an area that was not affected by the tsunami. The area is also very famous for its traditional coffee houses. No venti lowfat vanilla lattes. You can have black coffee or black coffee with milk. For eats, as you sit down, they bring a variety of sweet and savory cakes, rolls, and pancakes. The most distinctive is a durian paste wrapped in a holey pancake. Very fragrant, if you know what I mean. At the end, the waiter comes and counts how many pieces you ate to determine the price. 4 satiated diners for a little over $2.

We then walked across the street over to the traditional market, where merchants sell their fruits, vegetables and meat. There were quite a few items that I had never seen before.