Someone in Glodok had the rather good idea of putting fermented rice into a brioche doughnut.
The ingredient came from a father-and-son business selling tape uli, a traditional combination of sticky rice and fermented glutinous rice. A bakery in the same market found a new use for it, creating something neither entirely traditional nor particularly foreign.
Both businesses are in Petak Sembilan, a market in Glodok, Jakarta's historic Chinatown in West Jakarta.
Mention Chinatown and most people picture lanterns, old temples, traditional medicine shops, and food prepared according to recipes passed down through generations.
You'll find all of those here. You'll also find people experimenting with ingredients, opening new businesses, and getting on with their lives in a neighborhood that has been a center of trade for centuries.
There's plenty of history in Glodok. Not all of it is found where you'd expect.
Petak Sembilan: A Market That Knows the Calendar
Petak Sembilan is the sort of market where a short visit can easily become a long one. There are fresh ingredients, dried goods, traditional snacks, herbal medicines, and more food than anyone could reasonably try in a morning.
Some of what's sold here follows the lunar calendar.
Certain mooncakes, for example, are prepared for ancestral observances and appear only around particular times of the year. Once the occasion has passed, those varieties may disappear until they're needed again.
The fillings can be wonderfully local. Durian and cempedak, a fruit related to jackfruit, are among the flavors found here.
Chinese Indonesian food has developed its own character through generations of adapting to local ingredients and tastes. A familiar name doesn't always mean a familiar recipe.
Nor does every ceremonial food serve the same purpose. Something bought for ancestral remembrance may have a different place in family life from a cake prepared for a celebration.
The same care is needed when explaining the incense, ceremonial paper, candles, and other religious supplies sold throughout the market. Their uses vary between occasions, traditions, and families.
Even identifying an everyday dish can be trickier than it looks.
At one longstanding market stall, bektim, a pork offal stew, is sometimes mistaken for sekba. The preparations have their differences, right down to the seller's preference for white rather than yellow tofu.
It's the sort of distinction that might seem unimportant until you ask someone who has spent years preparing the dish.
Petak Sembilan is especially interesting during an ordinary working morning. Customers shop for their households, vendors attend to deliveries, and the ceremonial stalls serve people preparing for occasions that may mean little to an outsider.
If you find something unfamiliar, asking what it's used for can lead to a more interesting conversation than asking its name.
Assuming the shopkeeper has time, of course. Glodok is a working market after all.
Santa Maria de Fatima: Look Beyond the Roof
On Jalan Kemenangan III, not far from the market, stands an old building with a traditional Chinese roof, elaborate ornaments, and stone lions near its entrance.
It's Santa Maria de Fatima, a Catholic church.
The building was originally a residence associated with the Tjioe family, whose circumstances in colonial Batavia were quite different from those of the ordinary workers and traders who also made up the Chinese community.
The property was acquired for Catholic use in the 1950s. Instead of replacing the original building, the new occupants adapted it.
The central courtyard is particularly interesting. In traditional Chinese residences, courtyards provided light, air, and space for household life. Here, the courtyard was eventually covered to accommodate worshippers.
A part of someone's family home became a place where people gather for Mass.
The roof still attracts attention, naturally. But the altered courtyard tells you more about what happened to the building after its original owners left.
There is another reason Santa Maria de Fatima deserves a closer look.
Chinese Indonesians are not one religious community. Families may be Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Muslim, Confucian, Daoist, or follow other beliefs.
And even the Chinese temples around Glodok require some understanding. Certain temples accommodate Buddhist, Daoist, Confucian, and other traditional practices within the same religious space.
You can learn to recognize particular deities and understand the general purpose of different offerings. That doesn't mean you can look at someone praying and know what they're asking for.
A person might be following a family custom, observing an important occasion, or praying about something deeply personal.
Explaining the religious traditions is useful. Making assumptions about the worshippers isn't.
Santa Maria de Fatima has a Chinese roof and a Catholic congregation. Once you know its history, there's nothing contradictory about that.
Eight Teapots and an Old Glodok Tradition
On Jalan Pancoran stands Pantjoran Tea House, occupying a distinctive building that once housed a pharmacy.
Its best-known story involves something rather more modest than the architecture.
According to local tradition, a Chinese community officer named Gan Djie and his wife arranged for free tea to be offered to traders, laborers, and travelers passing through colonial Batavia.
Eight teapots were kept ready. Anyone thirsty could help themselves.
The custom became known as patekoan, or eight teapots, and was eventually revived at Pantjoran Tea House.
You'll sometimes hear this story told with remarkable certainty. The earliest details are harder to establish, and some belong more to local memory than documented history.
Still, it's an enduring piece of Glodok's heritage.
Gan Djie held a position within the colonial Chinese officer system. Such officials could enjoy considerable influence and privilege, and their circumstances were hardly representative of every Chinese resident.
Yet the story people continue telling is about tea offered to strangers.
Of course, colonial Batavia was not always so hospitable.
Following the massacre of Chinese inhabitants in 1740, Dutch colonial authorities imposed settlement controls that helped concentrate Chinese residents outside the fortified city. Chinese commercial and religious activity had already existed around Glodok, but the violence and policies that followed changed the neighborhood's development.
So the familiar explanation that Chinatown grew simply because Chinese traders chose to settle together leaves out quite a lot.
Where people lived was not always their decision.
It's uncomfortable history, particularly when set beside the cheerful story of eight teapots. But both belong to Glodok, and neither needs to cancel out the other.
The Glodok That People Are Making Today
During Imlek, the Indonesian name for Chinese New Year, Glodok fills with decorations, worshippers visiting temples, and people enjoying the festivities.
Public celebrations weren't always so easy.
Restrictions introduced during Indonesia's New Order in 1967 severely limited public Chinese cultural and religious expression. They were revoked in 2000, and Chinese New Year became a national public holiday beginning in 2003.
The anti-Chinese violence of 1998 is another painful part of the neighborhood's more recent history.
These events deserve careful explanation. They also affected families differently, and there's no reason to expect residents to share private memories simply because someone is curious about the past.
Meanwhile, some of Glodok's less celebrated history is being documented by people who have grown up with it.
One example concerns Lioe Ren Chen, a local calligrapher whose lettering appeared on gates and other objects around the neighborhood.
After his death in 2020, his family preserved his calligraphy, paintings, and photographs. In 2026, the cultural space MET Glodok worked with his archive and reproduced one of his calligraphic pieces as a print.
Think of how easily something like an old shop sign can disappear. A business renovates, a building changes hands, and the lettering that people passed every day is gone. Few people may even remember who made it.
An old temple is an obvious part of a neighborhood's heritage. The work of a local sign painter or calligrapher is easier to overlook.
Glodok is full of such things.
Its businesses come and go. Buildings find new purposes. Younger generations have different ambitions, and the neighborhood keeps changing around them.
Some changes are welcome. Others mean losing things that cannot easily be replaced.
And somewhere in Petak Sembilan, a traditional ingredient is finding its way into a brioche doughnut.
You can have a wonderful time in Glodok eating, shopping, and visiting temples. There's no reason not to.
Just leave yourself enough time for the things you weren't looking for.
A cake sold only at certain times of year. A courtyard that has served both a family and a church congregation. A shop sign whose maker has a story of his own.
You won't understand everything about Glodok in an afternoon. But you might leave knowing which questions you'd like to ask on your next visit.