Manado Escape Trip with Riri – Day 5

The schedule for day 5 was to travel around the city of Manado and visited some tourist attractions. Thatha requested to try Nasi Jaha, so our guide took us to Rumah Kopi Billy, a traditional coffee shop that serves coffee and some snacks. 

The traditional coffee shops in Manado look similar to those in Pontianak, and maybe this particular coffee shop, Rumah Kopi Billy, has the same reputation as Warung Kopi Asiang in Pontianak. 

Nasi Jaha (Ginger Rice) 

Lalampa – similar to lemper 

Half-boiled egg and black coffee 

The grandma as the cashier; she was very quick and accurate.

Franky wanted to try Bubur Manado, so our guide took us to the second breakfast place: Dego Dego Manado Cafe, which looks much fancier. 

I tried the chestnut layered cake since the colour was very vibrant. The cake was quite nice, not too sweet. It’s not so easy to find pastries with chestnut in Jakarta. 

Since almost every customer orders Bubur Manado, the waitress came with a cart loaded with many bowls of Bubur Manado. 

To add protein to the Bubur Manado, we ordered Nike Goreng (Nike Fritters) and Cakalang Goreng (Deep Fried Skipjack Tuna).  Both “Nike” and “Cakalang” are types of fish. Nike Goreng contains ubi bete (taro / yam).  After breakfast, we went to Bukit Kasih in Kawangkoan, which is the symbol of unity of five different religions in Indonesia. Just like the Great Wall of China, there are stairways along the mountain of Bukit Kasih. However, the weather was heavily cloudy and started to rain, so we didn’t finish the trail that required approximately 1.5 hours. Sadly, this place is kind of abandoned, the area looked dry and dirty, which could be why not many tourists are willing to go there.  There’s a legendary coffee shop with its famous bakpao in Kawangkoan, near Bukit Kasih: Rumah Kopi Gembira. The menu is quite simple just like other traditional coffee shops, such as drinks (coffee, tea, chocolate, soft drinks), biapong (steamed buns), roti bakar (toasts), pia (pie) and eggs. 

We ordered the two kinds of biapong (steamed buns): Biapong Ba (Pork Steamed Bun) and Biapong Temo (Black Sweetened Beans Steamed Bun). Biapong is Manado word for “bakpao“. 

The steamed buns with pink dots are the Biapong Ba, whereas the bigger bun is the Biapong Temo.

At first I ordered hot tea, but the tea was tasteless, so I ordered another cup of black coffee.

The steaming process and the interior of the coffee shop are very traditional, which might invoke nostalgic feeling to all customers.
There’s a famous coffee shop in Kelapa Gading Jakarta called Kedai Kopi Kwang Koan, which has a very similar concept to this one. I guess the owner of the one in Jakarta is originated from Kawangkoan, Manado, where Rumah Kopi Gembira is.

After visiting Kawangkoan, we went to see the traditional house of Minahasa called Rumah Panggung Woloan. It is very interesting since the structure of the house is made of knock-down woods, which means you just need to purchase a land and stick this structure onto it. The house comes in many different sizes, and you may customise the number of bedrooms according to your needs. I couldn’t take good pictures since it was raining heavily.

There’s a second largest statue of Jesus Christ in the world located in Citraland Manado. The world’s largest statue of Jesus Christ is in Brazil.  We went to the hippest shopping mall in Manado: Manado Town Square (Mantos). Judging from the tenants, interior and traffic of the mall, I think Manado is far more developed than Pontianak.  The chain coffee shops, such as Excelso, Dante and Black Canyon had already entered Manado, whereas in Pontianak, you can only find Excelso. The Excelso in Mantos was one of the prettiest one I’ve ever seen.