I thought August was going to be a rather boring month, in the sense that most restaurants don’t serve alcohol, many of my friends are fasting, clubs aren’t open (well, they’re not supposed to be open), and lots of street vendors close down in the afternoon, because of Ramadan.

Food wise, August is a pretty brutal month. 

But food wise, August is a pretty fun month!

Allow me to explain.

Nearly every restaurant offers a “buka puasa,” or “open the fast” menu during the month of Ramadan, like the set menus you get at NYC Restaurant Week or Dine Out Vancouver. From 6pm onwards, you can get a a special “buka puasa” 3-course meal for as little as 75,000 rupiah, which is about $8. And the food is pretty darn good!

So as you can imagine, for the past week my friends and I have made a nightly adventure out of randomly picking a strip of restaurants and scoping out all the buka puasa menus. The best part is, the buka puasa menus aren’t limited solely to Indonesian restaurants. Last night it was good ol’ Southern US grub, the night before it was Swiss-German, and the night before that it was Italian.

Why club hop when you can restaurant hop?