Jejamuran, More than Just an Eating Place

Mushroom Satay

20 Juli 2010

Sleman, Jogjatrip.com – Culinary lovers, it is recommended that you would spend some of your time at Jejamuran Restaurant in Niron, Pandowoharjo, Sleman. Just like its name suggests, Jejamuran (Javanese for mushrooms), the menus in this place have mushroom as the basic ingredient. The restaurant was started in 2007 by Ratidjo HS and his wife, Indaryati, who is apparently an adept chef.

“Actually, I was working in a company that exported mushrooms from 1968 until 1997. There I learnt about mushroom breeding and seeding,” said Ratidjo when asked about the beginning of Jejamuran Restaurant. Resigning from the company, he set up a mushroom breeding company and expanded his business by making a restaurant in which mushroom is the main menu.

At the start, there were only three kinds of food offered in Jejamuran, mushroom satay, pepes (roasted in leaf) mushroom, and fried mushroom. “Even we only sold the food in our porch,” said Ratidjo. However, today Jejamuran has invented many new menus, such as tongseng, rendang, jamur asam manis, sautéed mushroom, mushroom cream soup, mushroom gudeg, mushroom tom yam, and Jejamuran special beverage. The price of each menu varies, from Rp 6.000,00 to Rp 15.000,00.

According to Ratidjo, open from 09.00 to 21.00, the restaurant will be crowded by customers, whose favorite menu is mushroom satay. This satay, which is made of oyster mushroom with peanut sauce, indeed looks like the usual meat satay. The restaurant has 150 employees now. It usually spends 300 to 400 kilograms of mushrooms in a day.

Aside from enjoying tasty dishes, customers can also take a walk around the restaurant to see the process of mushroom seeding and breeding. If you are interested, Ratidjo would never mind to share his knowledge. “I want people to consume mushroom as much as they eat vegetables. The more people consume mushroom, the better mushroom farmers’ lives will be,” he ended his explanation. (Elisabeth Murni)