I went to the Made in Indonesia festival today in Silver Spring.
I stood in line for an hour in the sun for Indonesian food.
I left.
What I envisioned as a cross-cultural smorgasbord of food and fun, was, instead, overpriced Java-wood furniture, expensive coffee, and some poorly organized food tables.
Here's where that went wrong: two big vendor tables with one table containing both an Indonesian food dealer and another non-Indonesian dealer.
As that table was averaging 20 minutes to serve one customer, I'm guessing that not a lot of people got to sample the food.
It doesn't take a genius to figure out how to make more people happy and rake in the dough: one cart for the drinks; one table or strolling vendor for the satay; one table for the Indonesian entrees; one table for the non-Indonesian entrees.
Descriptions of the dishes would also have helped because if the one server has to explain what each dish is to each person, that line ain't gonna move fast.
I applaud Downtown Silver Spring for undertaking an Indonesian festival.
Maybe next year's will be better?
Maybe next year I'll be having better (cheaper) Indonesian food in Hong Kong with Indonesian friends?
That's another story...
