The House of Sampoerna

November 19, 2006

The House of Sampoerna

Last week, my father took all of us plus his best friend and his wife to a brand new restaurant called The House of Sampoerna.

Situated in “old Surabaya”, this stately Dutch colonial style compound was built in 1858 and is now a preserved historical site.

Previously used as an orphanage managed by the Dutch, it was purchased in 1932 by Liem Seeng Tee, the founder of Sampoerna, with the intent of it being used as Sampoerna’s first major cigarette production facility.

This complex consisted of a wide central auditorium, two smaller buildings in east wing and occidental and some wide barns with one floor behind central auditorium. The buildings that stay in both auditorium wings is then turned into family house, whereas big barns looks like a warehouse exploited for tobacco and clove processing, to catch, stick it and packing, printing office and finished goods processor.

Today, the compound is still functioning as a production plant for Indonesia’s most prestigious cigarette, Dji Sam Soe. In commemoration of Sampoerna’s 90th anniversary in 2003, the central complex has been painstakingly restored and is now open to public.

The original central auditorium is now a museum and the east side has been transformed into a unique structure containing a café, a merchandise kiosk and an arts gallery. The building on the west side remains the official family residence.

Museum
House of Sampoerna (HoS) Museum offers a truly unique experience for visitors. From the story of the founding family to closely watching a real hand roll production facility and ending up with an unforgettable experience of rolling a stick of Dji Sam Soe cigarette. You can join 3,900 women in this plant, hand-rolling cigarettes using traditional equipment. They do it at a speed of more that 325 stick per hour.

Shop Museum in HoS offer is assorted souvenirs, such as; the miniature of stick equipment traditional cigarette, package, clove, books and shirt.

Kiosk
Kiosk in House of Sampoerna ready to supply you with various goods choices such as; cup, shirt, jacket, ashtray, hat, bag, etc. This goods suited for used for you also for a souvenir.

Cafe
With Art Deco touch, free creativity glint and the history, cafe offers an experience to dine unique. Ally original tin glass and teak panel carve that aged a century with modern design is cleanness. Multifarious occidental appetite dish and Asian drawn up to be special to gratify visitor appetite, even for they who a real critical to taste. At certain night, life music will accompany your diner.

Artistic Gallery
Dedicate with refer to exhibition of best Indonesia actor masterpiece and provide place to all cute young actor to perform their masterpiece. This Gallery presents certifiable masterpiece which only available to display and also to be sold.

Group Of Sampoerna Businessfont
Sampoerna is build convergent at tobacco and clove business. This company is one of cigarette producer (tobacco and clove) most fast growing and the eldest in Indonesia, the fourth biggest cigarette market in the world.Build in 1913; Sampoerna is the first Cigarette Company stepping into Jakarta stock exchange. Sampoerna have successfully developed its business for its cigarette to various regions outside Indonesia and do diversification inside the country, in distribution area and transportation, printing office and packaging and retail merchandising and grocery.

Pic: Inside the restaurant

Pic: At the first room of the museum

Enough of the company's explanation, let's go back to my story there. Okay, when we were offered to choose wether we like to eat a'la carte or buffet, like the glutton that I am, I chose buffet. There is not much that I can say about their food because I think they are just okay. I want you to remember though that when you come here, you pay for the atmosphere more than for the food itself. On the opposite of me are my parents and their best friends who chose to eat a'la carte. I guess they are okay too. The only surprise was when I tried the pasta. I know that their pasta is far from authentic but for some reason, hey...I like it! The secret I guess is that they use chicken buillion/stock in their pasta sauce. Maybe to boost the flavor even more. What can I say.... a freshly c0oked pasta is always good!

The next day I tried to immitate the flavour and I think I succeeded. This is what I did to make it even taste better. First I roasted my chicken with basic flavour such as :

thyme + garlic + black pepper + salt + olive oil

Then I use my rotisserie oven to cook it to perfection. Then when it has rested long enough after it's cooked, I cut them into cubes, now they are ready to be added into my pasta.

For the pasta, I use penne cooked to al dente.
For the sauce, this is my formula:

butter + thinly sliced onion + cream + milk + tomato sauce + Italian seasonings + chicken powder + freshly cracked white pepper + parmesan cheese

When the sauce is already mixed well with the pasta, then I add back my chicken cubes. Oh , if you think the sauce is too thick or too creamy you can always add the pasta water. Voila! I made the same taste of pasta like the one I ate in The House Of Sampoerna, only better off course.

Cooking pasta is not that difficult. It's all about keep tasting and keep adjusting the taste

Here is the picture of my pasta:

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All of my family loves this pasta and I hope yours too...

Anyway, let's go back to the story about the museum this time. I can only say good thing about it. It's a well plan museum. I guess they want to make sure that it can reach to all of your 5 senses. When we entered it, we were hit by a strong smell of cloves. Then my son can touch and feel the cloves. Later when we saw over a thousand of workers busy as a bee rolling the cigarettes by hands the old fashion way, we were quite speechless. It was an amazing sight! We can hear the sounds of their hands rolling and packing the cigarettes in such amazing speed! I guess if we are a smoker maybe we can even taste it too. Even though my family are all non-smoker but it's still a good thing to come to this place and see the way a big company works and how it was started from such a humble beginning. There are a lot of good lesson that I can teach my son from this museum.

We sure had a great time in this place.