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A feast for both the eyes and the appetite was piled high on a dining table in a house in Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta. The array of diverse foods and their accompanying sauces filled the air with the aromas of onion, garlic, bay leaves and coconut milk.

As lunch approached, members of the Azanaya Underground Dining Society slowly filled the house.

Ennie Hasyim, the hostess, dressed in a white veil and long orange dress, and Lisa Virgiano, co-founder of Azanaya, welcomed the guests to Ennie’s house to celebrate the first anniversary of the dining society.

The Azanaya Underground Dining Society was started last year by Lisa and fellow foodie Sari Hartonto as a way of sharing their passion for eating with others.

The “underground” refers to the society’s practice of keeping its events secret until the last minute, notifying attendees by text or e-mail a day or two in advance of the location and nature of the meal they will be eating.

For this special meal, Ennie, a direct descendent of the 17th century ruler of Palembang, Sultan Mahmud Badarudin, prepared a selection of dishes from her family’s authentic royal recipes.

The recipes are not widely shared, and the dishes are not available in any restaurant, Enni told the assembled diners.

“This is a rare opportunity to taste food made by royal recipes from the Swarna Dwipa land,” Lisa said. Swarna Dwipa is Sanskrit for Palembang.

Defying expectations, there wasn’t a single piece of fish cake — Palembang’s signature dish, popularly known as pempek — on the table.

Instead, the diners were served opor ayam (chicken cooked in coconut milk), sambal goreng buncis (snap beans cooked in red chillies) and freshwater fish soup.

Ennie explained to the gathered crowd that the signature ingredients of Sumatra’s food, and particularly of Palembang, are fish, coconut milk and, not surprisingly, pineapple.

The fruit is so integrated in Palembang’s food that it is used in almost every dish, not just desserts.

Ennie’s opor ayam, for example, was not merely chicken cooked in coconut milk. She added a thick, spicy gravy and pineapple sauce, the latter of which gave it a markedly different flavor from the Javanese version.

Ennie said the opor ayam is properly eaten with ketupat (rice cake), and malbi (beef tenderloin cooked in garlic, ginger, onion, tamarind sauce, palm sugar and soya sauce). The result was satisfying, sweet and spicy.

“We usually serve opor ayam only for Idul Fitri,” said Ennie, referring to the Muslim holiday that marks the end of Ramadan.

For members who preferred rice, Ennie said the most special dish on the table, pindang sale , was the perfect accompaniment. It is a soup made with tender smoked fish, and Ennie told the group that what made her’s special was the fish itself.

“I always use the baung fish. It is a freshwater fish that is only available in Palembang,” she said. A kilogram of baung can cost around Rp 200,000 ($22), and Ennie said she had to order it a month ahead of the event.

“However, if you find it too hard to get baung fish, you could also use fresh shrimp; the ones with bluish skin taste so much better,” Ennie said during a quick explanation on how to cook the soup.

The secret to her pindang sale, she said, is the liberal use of terasi bangka (or fermented shrimp paste). Ennie also suggested using gula aren (palm sugar) because it releases toxins in the body and is therefore healthier.

Her pindang sale had a refreshing taste, spicy with a little sweetness from the palm sugar and sour from the tamarind juice.

According to Ennie, the correct way to eat pindang sale, other than with white rice, is with two kinds of sauce: ikan asin jambal and cakediro.

Ikan asin jambal is a sauce made from sauteed red chillies with shredded, deep fried salty fish, garlic, onion, tamarind juice and palm sugar. Cakediro sauce is made from red chillies mixed with steamed eggplant and fermented shrimp paste.

The two sauces definitely increased the dish’s heat, exactly how most Sumatrans prefer their food.

Aside from the opor ayam and pindang sale, the diners were also treated to a special Palembang desert called pulur, consisting of pineapple, broccoli and sambal nanas, which is chilli sauce mixed with palm sugar and pinneaple.

“I like the opor ayam. It is the friendliest kind for my taste, because it is the least spicy,” said Vivi, one of the members who recently joined the random culinary adventures of the dining society.

Another member, Yuli, said she liked the pindang sale because she likes spicy food. Both are Javanese who had never tasted Sumatran food before.

“If it wasn’t because of the society, maybe I won’t ever try an indigenous food this spicy,” Vivi said.