— E S S A Y · JUN 2026 —
Not Just a Burger, It’s a Feeling
A childhood memory disguised as a burger, one house full of cousins,
Jojo the mangy dog and the orange sauce.
I am not a foodie. As much as I want to be one, to truly enjoy food, eating for me is mostly just a way to stay alive. Perhaps because of this character flaw, I used to really enjoy the food-travel show Wisata Kuliner, hosted by the late Bondan Winarno. His love for food was contagious.
Despite my limited ability to appreciate food, there is one burger that, for me, was not just a burger. It became a feeling. Bernardi Burger. Here’s the story.
This story begins in the 1990s — cue the Jurassic Park theme song — when every July, my younger sibling and I would be shipped off like cargo to Surabaya. From a village in Sleman, Yogyakarta, the two of us would be sent by shuttle car to spend a month of school holidays at Bude’s house. Bude is my mum’s older sister.
The journey began in a shuttle car, which back then felt like a golden royal carriage. Somewhere along the way, while our eyes were still sticky with sleep, the car would stop. Even after years of making the same trip, my small eyes were always mesmerized by the giant restaurant building where our shuttle always took its break.
In the darkness of night, the restaurant stood grandly in the middle of nothing. Mama would ask if we wanted to eat something. I can’t remember the details of this pre-dawn restaurant visit in the middle of nowhere. I only vaguely remember a bowl of soto; clear turmeric chicken sup, and a glass of warm tea in front of me. A stack of crackers near the cashier. Clouds of cigarette smoke. What stays in my memory is the feeling of uncertainty, of being unsteady in a different world. A strange city, a strange restaurant, among strange people. And at the same time, a quiet thrill inside my chest because a new adventure was about to begin.
Near dawn, the shuttle would move slowly through residential streets, turning right and left. Then, suddenly, I would recognise the road ahead. The security post with the green roof on the corner. The narrow street lined with houses behind iron fences. And then, at the end of the road, the black iron gate with its circle patterns, and the noni tree in front of it. The feeling of strangeness would be replaced by warmth spreading through my heart. I would grin and wake my younger sibling, who was asleep beside me.
During the holidays, I spent my days being bored together, playing together, and fighting together with my sibling and cousins. The school holiday was the time when Bude’s house transformed into a transit terminal for parents who were tired of looking after their children and needed some healing.
July in Surabaya meant my birthday celebration, complete with cake and blowing out candles. My sibling and I would then secretly climb onto the roof of the house and sit there, sipping cheap plastic bags of “fruit” ice in a radioactive red colour. We roamed around the neighbourhood all day without fear of being kidnapped by thugs or searched for by our parents. In the afternoons, I would squat over the gutter, behind the rubbish bin filled with discarded fronds from Bude’s gardening. My thighs would start trembling as I tried not to plunge into the thick black muddy water. All in the name of competition, because there was no way I was going to lose a game of hide-and-seek against Hendra, a boy who lived across the street from Bude’s house.
Bude’s house was always full of random animals wandering around. At one point, there were two tortoises and a hamster living there. Not to mention an iguana that seemed to be shedding its skin every second of its life. We believed the iguana was actually suffering from ringworm. Then there were dogs. There were always more than two dogs at a time in Bude’s house. Sometimes they were nice-looking dogs. Occasionally, even a stunner. More often, they were goblin dogs of questionable nobility.
Jojo.
There was one dog named Jojo. In his youth, Jojo could have been a playboy, with his soft brown fur puffing out around his backside. Sadly, Jojo had been neutered. So instead of seducing the pretty lady dogs, Jojo’s life journey was filled with rage at the injustice of the world. For more than a decade, Jojo bit the hands of people who fed him, chased anyone who tried to pet him because they naively thought he was only lonely and lacking affection. For years, not a single drop of water or soap touched Jojo’s fur. Everyone had accepted that Jojo would become an air freshener scented like dead gecko.
Then came the time when Grandpa Jojo began showing signs that his final days were approaching. Every day we would stare at the mound of anger under the sofa and whisper, “Is he not dead yet?” Finally, Bude scolded us. “You kids, every time you pray for him to die, he lives longer!” Bude snapped.
Jojo decomposed further. Bude’s house increasingly smelled like a landfill.
“Bude, the flies are starting to circle Jojo! Like a dead rat. But he’s still alive!” I shouted, half amazed, half disgusted.
“He must be using black magic,” my uncle commented.
“Evil people do live long lives,” said Bude, the philosopher. “Dogs too.”
“Jojo, it is okay for you to rest now. You can go in peace,” Bude coaxed him gently.
And then Jojo died. With three flies still loyally circling his body.
We buried Jojo’s remains in the yard. Standing around Jojo’s grave, Bude said a prayer. “Jojo is now at peace. Thank you, Jojo, for faithfully keeping our house safe, with your scent. Thank you, Jojo, for colouring our lives with your cuteness and cheerfulness.”
I exchanged glances with my sibling and cousins. I opened my mouth, ready to comment, then closed it again without saying a word.
“Ameeeeen,” we all said together.
Bernardi.
Once or twice, Bude would take all of us to the most magical place of my childhood. Swimming in a super luxurious pool inside a super fancy mall. Ps. it really was not, but hey, childhood magic. I think it was called Margorejo Swimming Pool. There were two slides decorating the pool area, which consisted of two or three separate pools. One large, short slide would always be the first thing I tried. Then, once feeling brave, I slid down the other slide, the one that curved and twisted, long and narrow. My cousins, my sibling, and I would hide, chase each other, and shriek. After all, four little girls in rainbow-patterned swimsuits with bows on the right and left shoulders were capable of wildest imagination.
Three or four hours later, depending on Bude’s boredom level, she would herd four small children in flip-flops, their wet hair stuck to their scalps, out of the swimming pool. As we walked towards the bend in the complex, my heart would begin to race. Would he appear?
Sometimes, the universe showed its love, and the planets aligned perfectly to release a powerful cosmic energy. That cosmic energy manifested itself in the form of a magical royal cart painted in red and white stripes. A man was in control, pedalling the bicycle that pulled the cart around the neighbourhood. On the side of the cart and its glass display, large yellow and black letters spelled out: BERNARDI. And somehow, we would end up crowding around the cart, our pupils widening, saliva gathering in our mouths.
Without blinking, we watched as the Bernardi man opened a packet of burger buns, spread margarine on them, and toasted them. Then a thin, pinkish round beef patty was placed on the other side of the grill. Very slowly, at least to our impatient eyes, the Bernardi man spread red-orange sauce on one side of the burger, then added a thin slice of red tomato, a leaf of fresh lettuce, and the beef patty, now browned. He placed the other bun on top, wrapped the burger, and handed it to the outstretched hands waiting for it.
Sitting in a row, we each opened our burgers. At the first bite, the soft bun, the savoury beef, the fresh lettuce, and the tangy orange sauce made our eyes widen. Then came the smile, as the bite of burger travelled down our throats, when the burger was no longer just a delicious snack. It became a feeling.
The feeling of being loved. The feeling that
I belonged. I was loved. I was important to someone.
I was among my tribe. My people.
“If Jojo were still alive, he would ask for our burgers,” my younger sibling commented.
Thirty-five years later, Bernardi Burger returned, but in a different form and in a different place. And even in a different continent. This time, around a large round table with a lazy Susan in the middle. A yum cha restaurant I was visiting for the first time. Waiters shouted in Mandarin, a language I did not understand. Trolley after trolley rolled towards our table, filled with bamboo containers that released warm steam from the food inside each time their lids were opened.
A waiter asked me something. Or shouted at me. I could not tell the difference. My eyes widened and I turned to my friend Jessie, who was sitting beside me.
“Jes, Jes, why is she screaming at me?” I panic-whispered. I can speak Suroboyoan dialect, not yum cha lady dialect.
In my mind, there were only two possibilities: either she was offering me the chicken feet or accusing me of killing the chicken.
Jessie launched in.
“We want this, we want that. Chicken feet anyone? Tripe? Prawns?”
This was starting to feel like a scene from a seaside slaughterhouse.
Later, all the girls agreed that the waitress had actually been very attentive.
Steaming chamomile tea, scorching hot chicken feet burning my tongue, conversations that went on long after the restaurant’s closing time. The waiter threw us a dagger look. One Tuesday afternoon in April. Eight people gathered to celebrate the birth of someone forty-two years ago. Leaving laundry on the clothesline, husbands at home, and K-dramas on Netflix, just to talk until the cows came home.
The waiter seemed ready to throw a machete.
A line from a song echoed in my head.
Home let me go home.
Home is whenever I’m with you.