Royal Dinner at Omah Kecebong

After the visit to Koperasi Wanita Srikandi, we traveled back to Yogyakarta but did not directly to our hotel. We were brought to Omah Kecebong, where we will be having dinner supposedly with the queen of Yogyakarta.

Omah Kecebong offers is a refreshing sight, coming from Purworejo where we passed by barren fields evident of the drought experienced in this part of Indonesia. Omah Kecebong is a restaurant and guesthouse. The place is filled with greens–shrubs, vegetable plants in bags hanging on bamboo poles, fruit trees in big pots–after all, the restaurant's name has a "horticulture" in it.

Upon entering, we were given these "instagramable" welcome drinks. I must've had three of these, but not all pineapples.

There was still daylight when we arrived and the next presentation did not start immediately so we had time to look around. Omah Kecebong offers a lot of interesting sights and during the time we were there, there were even vendors selling various locally made products such as batik, clothes, necklaces, bags, and even food.

As I've said, the Sultan's wife is supposed to join us for dinner. When I learned about this yesterday, I was thrilled because how often do you get to meet a royalty. When I was first asked if I wanted to attend this event, I was hesitant because I planned to spend another day in Jogja just to around. I browsed through the program and saw that the Mayor of Purworejo will grace the event, so I told my colleague I'd go because they have a mayor joining the activity. (Background story: Earlier, our colleagues attended a forum in Bandung and the mayor sponsored a dinner for the participants. When they were telling this story to us, a colleague quipped why not invite the mayor of Yogyakarta in our upcoming event as well, which was instantly dismissed by our program manager because she didn't see our event big enough to involve a mayor in it.)

The day before this activity–ASEAN exchange visit–the organizer went up to me and told that the queen of Jogja will be joining us for dinner and asked if our partners still have some tokens left to be gifted to the queen. In the end, the queen did not show up, but I didn't mind because I enjoyed all the food and entertainment. 😄

We had a sumptuous dinner served in native food containers, it's just like I'm eating in a local-themed restaurant in the Philippines although they have a different food. After eating, a man with a camera came up to us and asked if they can interview us about the restaurant. We were totally unprepared but our interviews were still included in their video (above). I'm not even paid to do this, but I definitely recommend this place when in Yogyakarta.