TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Ten years ago, martabak may have monotone variants of fillings from nuts, chocolates, sesame seeds and cheese. But nowadays, martabak is like a canvas for creative minds that it is now available in many colors with variety of fillings. Blackpool in Gandaria, South Jakarta is one of martabak shops that explores all possibilities to serve extraordinary martabak for its customers.
Not only serving variety of fillings, Blackpool also replaces conventional wheat flour to make martabak cake with ingredients for blackforest tart.
“So it becomes black,” Hendy Haryanto, the owner of Blackpool to Tempo few days ago.
Of course, the black martabak has since become a magnet for sweet-tooth because of its unusual look. Hendy’s flagship martabak is the Blackforest Cream Cheese Oreo which has fillings consisting of crumbles of the oreo biscuits.
Martabak 65A in Pecenongan, Central Jakarta is a pioneer for such creative martabak variants. In 2013 the martabak shop triggered a Nutella and Toblerone martabak fever in Jakarta, which spread quickly to other regions in Indonesia.
Since then, the trend of martabak vendors have developed from wheeled gerobak style to a more modern formats. Martabak Boss is an example of martabak vendor that sells the food in a container of a truck.
As the trend gets more varying, so does the price. Before the trend, one can get a pan- full of martabak from the street vendors. But now, price is ranging with some sold at around Rp150,000 per portion. But no matter how the price and looks of martabak is evolving, it will always be a favorite street food.
KORAN TEMPO
