-- Lunch with colleagues at Jejamuran the other week brought not only their usual awesome array of ways to prepare mushrooms (crispy fried, rendang, omelette, sate, gulai...) but also our first experience of Njonja Besar ice-cream, which is quite delectable. And Jejamuran carried off this month's "delicious drink" prize with a glass of soda containing pieces of a fruit called carica, which has the quality of being tantalizing familiar while also incredibly different. If you look up carica on the Internet, it says it's a papaya. But it didn't look or taste like a papaya, so I'm confused...

-- Other notable recent fruit experiences include reacquainting ourselves with sapodillas (the brown fruit we first met in Viet Nam, and dubbed "fudge-fruit", and have only rarely encountered since then); eating guavas from what is apparently a communal perumahan tree; and discovering that Superindo does a strikingly good rojak (that's a mixture of fruit and fruit-like veges, served with a sweet, spicy sauce).

-- When the doughnut man ran out of doughnuts one day, we were prompted to try his cakwe. These taste similar to (but not the same as) the yoo tiao we used to enjoy so much in Malaysia. They come with a little packet of chilli sauce for dipping, but we ate them straight, on the way home (as we do the doughnuts).

-- My food-wrapped-in-a-banana-leaf-is-delicious theory received further vindication when we tried carang gesing at Tembi recently. Always a nice destination for a special lunch that's not too expensive.

-- Another close-by, pleasant, low-priced outlet that has become a favourite is Just-Ai, on Jalan Parangtritis. We've had dinner there a couple of times, but this afternoon we went for coffee and desserts. Very pleasant to sit in their leafy garden, drinking Toraja coffee, and eating American-style pancakes with butter and pineapple jam.