Special edition on how to have fun II
Spotlight on Indonesian pop-up dinners, cheese parties, and bone-broth-based hot cocoa?
Forget singles-ridden run clubs and trusting your friends to introduce you to their mysterious other friends. I said it many months ago, and I’ll say it again: Pop-up dinners are the best way to make friends in New York right now.
Ever since I wrote about supper clubs for BK Mag, more and more popups have been coming my way to say hi. I haven’t been able to make it out to them all yet, but I figured it would make sense to tell you guys about a few of the most exciting things in my inbox, in case you’re looking for new foods to eat and new people to welcome into your life. Here’s how to have fun right now in NYC.
Spotlight on Studio Bumi
Back in mid-February, I was lucky enough to snag an invite to a Studio Bumi communal dining event. Studio Bumi’s host, Bagus Wicaksono Ruswandi, is a lawyer-turned-chef who punctuates every other sentence with an incredulous yet joyful “What the fuck?”, using a peculiar blend of charisma and humor to pressure his participants to bond.
“This is our tenth dinner,” he said to us as he took the stage. “I’m calling the cops, you guys are obsessed. Like, what the fuck?”
Bagus founded Studio Bumi to bring Indonesian food and other underrepresented cuisines to New York City. At first, the Studio Bumi project consisted of a pre-order lunch kit; soon, Bagus expanded to host dinners, and now, he’s regularly selling out 40-person events with $85–95 tickets.
The food at a Studio Bumi event is abundant. We were served ten dishes, prepared and served by Bagus and a slew of chefs and volunteers who attended past dinners and wanted to get involved. My favorite dish, the Ayam Goreng Kari (pictured below), was a curry-marinated fried chicken dusted with Parmesan cheese; as many of you know, I am not one to leave food on the table, but there was so much volume here that we all got to take some home with us in to-go boxes. (So really, your ticket is good for two dinners, if you think about it.)
Menu aside, Bagus has designed Studio Bumi to be an incubator for friendship. Bagus started things off by asking everyone to stand up one by one and share one good thing that happened to them recently. This process took a while, and courses had to be served in between some of the shareouts, but it bred an infectious camaraderie in the room, and I had the feeling after leaving of having met forty individuals, not just the people at my own table.
The most surprising thing about the dinner for me was how multicultural (and well-traveled) its audience was. Several people at the dinner were Indonesian, and had come for a taste of home, but others had recently traveled back from Malaysia, South Thailand, Bangkok, and Mexico. When one couple shared that they were in NYC for a one-weekend visit and had squeezed in a visit to Studio Bumi, Bagus seemed particularly tickled: “Sorry, I just died,” he said. “What the fuck, you guys?”
At the closing of the dinner, Bagus released us to eat dessert while standing so we could mingle with new people we wanted to meet after our intros. Before setting us free, he ended the dinner on a serious note: “It’s crazy to be in a city of 8.1 billion people and not be able to make friends. I’m so grateful that we’re friends now.”
And he meant it. Prior to dinner, he had asked each of us to fill out a form with our contact information, and a week or so after the dinner ended, we all received a specialized newsletter with links to find each and every one of the participants on various social platforms. All this to say: Even if you’re not good at making new friends, Bagus is good at making them for you.
April’s communal dining events are already sold out, but there are already more listed in May and June.
Some other pop-ups to watch out for
Julia Longo is a friend of mine from high school, and also, now, a pop-up chef. After experimenting with a dinner series called Girl Dinner, she hosted her first official, open-to-the-public pop-up last Friday, out of 38 Avenue B. She’s calling it La Puttana, which means “the slut” in Italian, and there’s already merch.
Julia wanted to use La Puttana to promote an Italian dish that’s usually overlooked, so she picked panelle, a Sicilian chickpea fritter that you rarely see sold in America — though Julia tells me that it’s a common meal in any half-decent Italian American household. Her chickpea cake is cut square and fried soft, then plunked onto a roll, with a schmear of housemade ricotta on either half. Julia serves it with a generous hunk of lemon, too, which I used liberally. Such a treat, and, as she emphasizes, it’s chill for Lent, which apparently forces Italian Americans to forgo meat solely on Fridays? Anyway, she’ll be back in the same space serving more panelle sandwiches and potentially some other fun Italian sides after she’s finished with jury duty; stay up to date here.
This periodic cheese-based gathering is co-run by another Hannah, who is also, presumably, eating; she messaged me long ago to say hi and I am so pissed that I haven’t been able to make it to a single one of her subsequent cheese parties, where she and her cheesemongering friend Cori curate choice slices of dairy for the masses. Something is wrong with their Instagram such that I cannot paste in a photo, so you’ll have to just navigate there yourself, but it looks like they have events coming up on 3/21, 3/27, and 4/6, with tickets priced on a sliding scale.
I’ve never physically moved to purchase something faster than when I read
’s lovely feature on Cinnamania!. As you all know, I am very much still on the hunt for the most perfect cinnamon roll in New York, and I’m happy to report this one comes pretty close. Chef Nina Rosenblatt is baking bulk cinnamon rolls from her Brooklyn apartment every other weekend — with only one arm, which is a serious feat when it comes to rolling out dough — and they’re marvelous. My official score is 8.7/10, and I plan on ordering them over and over again via Nina’s jotform, so just know that you will be in direct competition with me whenever slots drop.
My new Substack buddy,
, recently hosted a meetup (which I sadly could not attend!) where she invited her friend Justine to serve hot cocoa as the first pop up for her new brand, Not That Sweet. Per the Not That Sweet website, Justine has dealt with some serious health concerns that left her unable to eat many foods, but cacao has always remained a safe option. She began experimenting to create a hot chocolate that was health-conscious, which led her to integrate a variety of different liquid bases ranging from coconut milk (which I can picture being quite good) to literal bone broth (for a protein boost???). I’m not sure I believe that this can taste good, but I am extremely curious to try it.
I don’t really know anything about this pop-up except for its Instagram bio, which reads: “just a boy and his ice cream machine / DM for orders (you deserve it).” That said, ice cream season steadily approaches, and when it comes, I’ll have my eye on Roro’s.
In Other News
In my most recent Ask a Cooperator column for Skylight, I interviewed Chris McGinnis, who lives in a SoHo co-op and has taken it upon himself to learn how every single fixture of his building works. Read about his mantra, "Read the Fucking Manual,” and the changes he has implemented in his building.
That’s it for now! (Sorry, Grandpa, this one randomly had a lot of cursing in it.)
xoxo,
Hannah
This was the nudge and reminder I needed to buy a ticket to Studio Bumi.
The Bumi write-up!! Love it. You captured the vibe perfectly. Special hang.