It stars Dian Sastrowardoyo, Nicholas Saputra, Hannah Al Rashid, Oka Antara, and Ayu Azhari.

[1] The story focuses on the friendships and romantic entanglement involving two men and two women all in their 30s with thematic references to local culinary wealth.

[3] Aruna Rai (Dian Sastrowardoyo), an epidemiologist and foodie living in Jakarta, is assigned by her company to investigate an outbreak of new avian flu cases throughout Indonesia for the government agency PWP2.

She decides to take her friend Bono (Nicholas Saputra), a professional chef who wants to find authentic Indonesian recipes, so that he can explore the culinary traditions of each region.

They picked up the film rights in 2016 but the adaptation process took longer than expected, prompting Edwin to pursue Laksmi Pamuntjak's The Birdwoman's Palate first instead.

[7] The film reunites Dian Sastrowardoyo and Nicholas Saputra who rose to popularity in the 2002 high school romantic drama hit Ada Apa dengan Cinta?.

[8] With the two joining Oka Antara, Hannah Al Rashid, and Ayu Azhari, Pamuntjak expressed that she was impressed by the film's cast, having commented "It’s almost like writing the book with these actors in mind because they’re very suitable to play the roles".

[11] The 21 Indonesian dishes described in the film, chosen based on various considerations during research and pre-production while staying true to the original source[12][13] included bakmi kepiting, chai kue, pengkang, Pontianak-style fried rice,[14] rawon, lorjuk, soto lamongan, rujak soto,[15] sup buntut, kacang kuah, madumongso,[13] and mi loncat.

[16] For the Lantern Festival scene, the crew needed a lot of local extras and bit parts in Singkawang with the ability to speak in Javanese with a Surabayan dialect.

Real lanterns were installed in street corners with an actual dragon dance performance taking place to make the scene look more vibrant.

Music arrangers Ken Jenie and Mar Galo add old jazz pop nuances[17] with well-known songs such as January Christy's "Aku Ini Punya Siapa", a cover of Jingga's "Tentang Aku" by Fe Utomo, a cover of Andre Hehanusa's "Antara Kita" by Monita Tahalea,[18] as well as newer songs such as Yura's "Takkan Apa" and Mondo Gascaro's "Lebuh Rasa" and "Lamun Ombak".

[26] Responding to the lackluster reception, Producer Zaidy pointed out that there are opportunities for the film to reach a wider market thanks to the collaboration with South Korean production company CJ Entertainment although it was also still uncertain.

[28][29] Writing Kompas, Francisca Romana Ninik praised the film's treatment of the themes of friendship, public corruption, and religion with heavy culinary references but found it too cliché.

[31] Aulia Adam of Tirto.id also wrote that Edwin delivers a "heartwarming romantic comedy" in contrast with his darker, cold, and bitter themes of his previous films, such as capitalism in the short film Kara, Anak Sebatang Pohon (2005), systematic discrimination against Chinese-Indonesians and military oppression in Blind Pigs Who Want to Fly (2009), and toxic relationship in Posesif (2017).

Finance Minister Sri Mulyani commented that the film explores "our culture, feelings, way of socializing, and culinary wealth that we still don’t know about", whereas the Creative Economy Agency Chief Triawan Munaf, father of actress Sherina Munaf, called the film "an effective way to promote Indonesian cinema and cuisine".

Richard Kuipers of Variety felt that while the execution was good and the actors had great performances, singling out Aruna's narration in the film, the story "struggles at first to balance its fun-and-food aspects with the downbeat reality of a looming heath crisis".