Following Ismaya's Jakarta Culinary Festival 2012's announcement about The "William and William" Gala Opening Dinner, Raechel from Sarong supplied me with detailed information to this wonderful event:

"Chef Will Meyrick is heading to Jakarta next week to do the Gala Opening Night Dinner for the Jakarta Culinary Festival – it’s quite an interesting and very unique event, the meeting of two great chefs – William Wongso and Will Meyrick - who are all about championing Indonesian cuisine globally, and present it in a way it’s never been done before."

"They are both incredibly different in terms of their backgrounds, approaches, perspectives (and even their favourite Indonesian dishes and ideas about what the stand outs are!), but the one thing that brings the two of them together is their genuine love of Indonesian cuisine and their dedication to helping preserve the culinary heritage and traditions of the country’s unique food, an unsung hero of Asian cuisine."

Well I admires them both: William Wongso as the long time expert and avid promoter of Indonesian food, and I know Will shares the same passion of introducing Indonesian culinary scene to the world.

If you follow "Oom William" daily journey on Instagram (@williamwongso), you'll know that he's not a mere food promoter but also actively creating new and improved Indonesian dishes, like his Rendang Wagyu, which takes Rendang Padang to a new level; and many inventions coming from his private kitchen like this "Pepes Bandeng Presto dengan Kluwek & Daun Mengkudu" which according to Ade from 979 Food For Fun (@misshotrodqueen) is a "genius experiment".

After experiencing how Will's work on many exotic Asian dishes, his take on Indonesian dishes is surely one to be waiting for. Well there's already a talk about "Kitchen Sessions: Indonesia" upon the two previous Kitchen Sessions dining, and Will and Raechel did mention about their plan to participate in Jakarta Culinary Festival 2012, but this duet performance comes as a wonderful surprise.

If you're curious on how Indonesian cuisine should looks and tastes in their bold internationalization style, and how Indonesian food could take its deserved place in the international culinary scene, then this is the event for you.

Jakarta Culinary Festival
Grand Opening Night Dinner
William and William

Pop-up restaurant Grand Indonesia Shopping Town
West Mall – Level 5, Jl. M.H. Thamrin No. 1 Jakarta 10310
Thursday 4 October 2012 starting 7 p.m.

There are only limited seats available for purchase by the general public, call 0812 800 80 700 to RSVP and secure your attendance. (byms)

As Indonesian food bloggers, I'm sure you all have a great passion in food, and have thought about food issues in this country as well, for example:

• How come the most famous Indonesian food: Tempe & Tahu are not nationally sustainable, and relies mostly on soy beans imported from abroad?
• Despite its food diversity richness, why does the government insisted on having all the Indonesian eating rice, only to (again) relies its sourcing from importing abroad?
• Even though Indonesia is a maritime country, why fish is not a prime ingredients in Indonesian dietaries?

Well here's a good chance for you to express your concern, and get involved in a discussion about food issue in Indonesia:

Coming from IndoPacific Edelman, in cooperation with the World Food Programme Indonesia, there will be a bloggers meet-up this 11 September 2012 in Jakarta to talk about Food issue in Indonesia with a topic: "No Food = No (Fun x Future)".

Meetup will be held in:

WFP Indonesia Office
Wisma Keiai Indonesia (Kyoei Prince), Lantai 9
Jl. Jend. Sudirman Kav.3
Jakarta 10220
18:30 - 20:00

WFP Speaker:
Peter Guest - WFP Indonesia
Deputy Country Director

Due to limited slot, bloggers who might be interested to come should give confirmation for attendance at the latest on Monday (10 September 2012) by 11:00am to email: agung.pamungkas@indopacedelman.com.

This might be your best chance to listen, speak up, and get in touch with those having similar concerns and curiosity with you. Register now! (byms)

Can't wait... (byms)