Hi Abang and Yori! Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your day-to-day activities?
Yori: Hi! I’m Yori Atira! Daily, I’m in the kitchen a lot creating menus, prepping and making sandwiches for Lunch for my Husband. Also, love cooking for personal meals whilst doing RnD (2 birds 1 stone!!). I also run a design & production studio for garments and textiles called Atira Works. In the early AMs, I like to do yoga and/or take walks with the husband and get our breakfast together. In the late PMs, we like to watch movies after dinner and play with our cat (named Cheesecake) to wind down.
Abang: Hi I’m Mawarid Rolansyah (but everyone calls me Abang). I do all the design and photography for Lunch for My Husband. I runs a design studio called 7per8 Studio and creates travel documentaries with my friends at Before Monday.
If you have to describe what your food preference is, how would you describe it?
We love fresh, acidic flavour notes (that’s why we love pickles in everything)! We love naturally colourful food. We love spiced and herby things too, coriander, thyme, cloves, cinnamon, star anise, all the gooooodss!
When you go out for coffee, what do you look for, and where do you go? Any regular places?
Yori: Honestly, my coffee knowledge is a bit limited hahaha, but I definitely have a lot of it every day, mostly to wake me up! On our morning walks, we usually go to this place called Tamper Coffee just across our apartment.
What is the most recent dining destination you visited that left a good impression?
For high-end it’s Kokuu Omakase. Me and Abang went there for his birthday and everything was beautiful! The food, the presentation, the place, the ambiance, the people. Was a perfect dinner!
Other is Manzo! It’s a family-run joint located in PIM’s street gallery. Food is very special, hits all of our favourites; vibrant flavours, vibrant colours, vibrant people! We’ve been there so many times and still always amazed by everything we order.
To be honest, we haven’t been out eating at street vendors that much recently, because of the pandemic. So we’ve been branching out to order deliveries from small fnb businesses instead, the one we order a lot is Nasgero!
Do you have any go-to venues for hanging out with friends, or maybe for special occasions with family?
Lately, we like to hang out at home and cook (or get takeouts) for friends and family! Our favourite takeout is Umisan for super fresh sashimi! But for simple and honest Italian we choose Sale Restaurant, located right in our neighbourhood, and bread is always from Nool/Strala for the best sourdough everything!
But if we were to dine out for special occasions, we love Piquant. Such a charming, quaint space with beautiful food! We also love Sumire, simply delicious, quality ingredients teppanyaki!
Are there any restaurants either local or abroad that you would really want to go to but have not yet?
There are so many restaurants! Abroad, some on our wish list would be Noma, for the experience and we’re very drawn into their whole R&D process and how they view food. Osteria Mozza, we saw Nancy Silverton’s episode on Chef’s table and we would love to eat her mozzarella and all her other creations. Le favori, for all their sandwiches!
For local, on our top of the list would be August, and Warung SCI, been meaning to go since forever, so we need to go there super soon!
If you have visitors from abroad/out of Jakarta, where do you take them to give a genuine taste of Indonesia?
We’ll take them to 3 places: Kaum, Pagi Sore, Nasi Uduk Kebon Kacang.
What are your favourite local dishes, and where do you go to eat them?
Our favourite Manadonese Food is a small place in BSD called Cari Rica. We recently discovered this, and we love it! While for Chinese-Indo food we love Mandala at Wolter Monginsidi.
Can you tell us about Lunch For My Husband, how did you start it?
Yori: LFMH started from me making actual sandwich lunches for the husband! So the name is quite literal! Hahaha. Why sandwiches? To us, they’re one of the most delicious, fulfilling, convenient dishes for a quick meal. And not just for the office as every time we travel, our most memorable lunches would be the ones we take away from a Deli.
I’m not a chef but I’ve always enjoyed experimenting in the kitchen. So in the midst of the pandemic in August 2020, I get to spend more time there, cooking for the family, and that led to us here! Because we wanted to share these wholesome meals that we enjoy so much, transforming them into sandwiches for everyone!
What’s your newest collab?
We are currently doing a collab menu with Common Grounds, Ground Zero at Ashta District 8. Inspired by flavours of the East Coast, we want to celebrate the evolution and elevation of our beloved meal, the sandwich! So together, we spice up Common Grounds’ classic menu – the Steak and Egg – adding new, fresh flavours to these classic ingredients! Very very exciting, it’s our first time working with a full kitchen team and this week is our first week together!
Is there any food you can eat every day without getting bored?
We just spent so much time thinking about the answer to this question….. and we can’t find it hahaha. So no, We don’t think there is any….
Do you ever disagree about food? Like where to dine out, or what dish you want to cook?
Yori: Hmmm not really. We have disagreements sometimes, especially when I take too long in deciding on what I wanna eat hahaha. But most times, we kind of just follow each other’s cravings. At home, when I cook, sometimes I pair unusual things together, for example, orange and beef. The husband disagreed at first, but ended up liking the combo too and this ended up on our previous menu, Mikkel!
