TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - There are things that are never forgotten when a music group GIGI is on tour. "For the past two years, we have been carrying the habit in culinary," said vocalist Armand to Tempo last Wednesday, in Jakarta.
While eating Soto Kudus, Armand told stories of the band's activities involving culinary travel whenever they go on tour to various regions.
All the group personnel that are in the ages of 20 claim to like foods. When on tour, they do not hesitate in asking the local organizers to show good places to eat in the area. They felt weird to hear other band friends prefer to eat in hotels rather than searching for foods typical of the area. "When we staged with other bands, they wanted to take us to a culinary travel, but instead, they were confused," said Armand.
These four men have had bad experiences in culinary travels when on tour to various cities while travelling by bus. That time, they stopped in a simple restaurant in a remote area. With only two items in the menu, pigeons and scrambled eggs, they chose one between the two in order to fill their stomachs.
They were very surprised by the bill they must have paid. "The receipt was more than one million, it was so expensive. We can’t do anything about it because we've already eaten it,” said Armand. At first, he thought that the amount of bill they had to pay for 14 people with that simple menu was around Rp 400,000.
"We noticed that we were ripped off. Even the scrambled eggs were too salty," said Hendy. Wishing to avoid any more bad experience, nowadays when they go on tours, GIGI always asks the culinary presenter, Bondan Winarno, for recommendations or advice on places with foods worth visiting.
MITRA TARIGAN
