BIRDCAGE PARC

Last Sunday, I went to Birdcage on Jl.Wijaya 9 no.23. I went there for several times, 5-6 times maybe, but only for drinks.

I really like the environment, I love the cozy daybed, pretty decorations, but surely its location wins me straight away. I can just walk from my house.

This time I asserted myself to try their meal and to have a good seat on the ground floor, which has different theme. Bird Cage Parc. I was so happy to find its 50% voucher from the internet. RAP and I ordered "Escargot with salsa on baguette" for entree,  Wagyu fried rice and Aglio e olio spaghetti with tuna". The overly friendly waiter told me that the Aglio e olio is one of the most favored menu. And for drink, we had iced latte and butterscotch iced tea.

The entree was OK. The tomato salsa tasted great on a very crusty baguette. But I hope, they put more garlic to more overcome the less-fresh escargot.

The mains, were quite a disappointment. And they came from one of my favorite place to hang out. The fried rice had a few sliced of wagyu beef and almost tasteless, apart from its red appearance. The egg was also not nicely presented.

The aglio e olio, hm..very plain. I know the aglio e olio is the option for the lighter taste of pasta sauce, but I think it was far too plain. So, I asked for extra chillis and salt. Much better afterwards.

Very disappointed. Could it be because the chef had known that we'll be paying just a half of the normal price? Still a mystery.

Well, I will still come back. But only for drinks.

SOTO BETAWI H. MAMAT

For 2 weeks in a row, my colleague and I had lunch in this place after the meeting. Have to admit that the soto quite satisfied my tummy.

The place is a 'house-store' or 'ruko' area. Located exactly in Ruko Boulevard Summarecon, Gading Serpong. Non air-con. There were 6 big tables on the ground floor and more on the upper floor.
People sit everywhere available, next to someone they do not know, but they would not mind as long as they can taste their favorite soto.

This resto have a few menus; soto betawi, oseng-oseng ayam/daging/campur with kuah santan or sop (17k). Also there was otak-otak (the fish cake).
They put the broth and the meat separately.
I tried both kuah sop and santan (coconut milk). Of course, the coconut milk one was more tasty. There were lots of chopped 'cabai rawit' on top of the meat. Be careful if you don't like spicy food.

Hot soup, hot chilli, with ice tea and 'krupul aci' (cracker) was a very joyful dining experience.
I ate really fast.
Really good for indonesian food lunch under 30k.

5 LIFE LESSONS THAT WE CAN LEARN FROM FOOD

Last time, I was browsing through the internet about another food blog when I found this very interesting article in a blog called ladyironchef.com .

He was talking about 5 life lessons we could learn from food ;

#1. Life is more about taking a risk.
.

#2. Why bad things happen?

      Bad things happen so that we could learn to appreciate good things.
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#3. Whatever you are doing, it is very important to manage expectations.
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#4. Just do something you’ve always wanted to do, DO IT (before it’s too late).
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#5. There are always two sides on every coins,

       there are always to versions to every story,  don’t be too quick to judge.

Berry nice!=D

NINETY NINE

After tired walking around Grand Indonesia, we finally made up our mind to dine in Ninety-nine. Beneath the east mall drop-off lobby. We strolled around while he was showing me some renderings about Grand Indo (which was very berry uber cooll...!!)

Filled with pretty people, as usual. Loved the Javanese tegel floor and sofas.

RAP ordered "Medium well - Sirloin steak with mushroom sauce and roasted cauliflower" (??). The texture of meat was very nice and delicate. The sauce was a bit too sour, but of course the sauce shouldn't be left by itself. It complimented the roasted cauliflower.

I did not feel like eating a main course. So, I ordered a dessert. Yeah, after I stole a bite of his steak, i went straight to the "Creme brulee with pistachio ice cream" (36k). I love love love love it.

Cracking the crunchy caramel with my spoon and scrapping the creme while topping it with the pistachio ice cream...omg...really lifted up my mood. They were not too sweet.
But after 5-6 small spoon, i kind of felt bloated. Very understandable because it consists heavy cream. Luckily I have RAP to finish it. As always. Yeahh...=)

SIEM REAP BY INDOCHINE

This is a story from someone whose taste i trust really much. He stays in Singapore and loves to explore foods around him.

This time he went to Holland Village. And here the fling goes....

This is the first time i went to holland village, a street dedicated for more adventurous culinary journey in Singapore (beside the hawker center of course). After a couple mins walk,I picked random restaurant called Siem Reap by Indochine. justifying the name they supposed to serve Cambodian dishes, I walked in to be seated in an asian themed cafe with Budha statue and other asian influenced ornaments, reminds me of Budha Bar but in smaller scale.

 (omg..only 3 pieces???)

I started with the Tam Som, which i found a bit irritating, because of the extreme level of acidity and a bit of bitterness that come from the shredded papaya and lemon juice. its quite refreshing at first bite to be frank, but i couldn't carry on longer. This maybe suitable to person who like to eat unripe mango.

Moving to the chicken, it was grilled properly, but I couldnt find anything special with the chicken, it was like ordinary grilled chicken, quite disappointing since I was expecting more than this, I was expecting the flavor that comes from lemongrass, coriander rootm and white pepper that didn't show quite strongly in this meal.

To my amazement, the star of this dishes is the rice! the fragrant Jasmine rice had a perfect texture. It had the crunchy texture that came from Thailand rice yet very soft inside. I could also control the rice perfectly using chopsticks, the thing that I found it a bit difficult to do with rice other than Japanese rice (which is very soft and sticky).

So overall the dishes wasn't quite an amazement. For 16$ seems that I could find anything better than this.

= = =  Thanks for sharing = = =
X O X O

BOKA BOKA FRENCH RESTO

Last week, I sneaked out from the office for lunch with Lea and Jess. Finally I have lunch mates who work in south Jakarta area that closed to my office. Yeay.

I proposed to try Boka-boka French Resto. Located on Jl. Cipete Raya no. 7.
Another place that I have wanted to try for so long.

This small resto has a small,homy and comfy ambiance. With red painted wall, wooden chairs and tables, and beautiful little water garden at the back. Apparently, we were the only guests there.
I ordered 'Special beef fillet with mushroom sauce n potato gratin n vegetable'(98k). The gratin was soooo niceeee. It balanced the taste of the mushroom sauce. Would be much better if the meat was more tender and juicy.

Jess ordered 'Grilled beef with cream cheese'.
( 98k). The cream cheese bought her straight away. It was really yummy in fact.


Lea ordered the sounds healthy one, 'Salmon with lemon sauce'.(95k).

Cute plates. A quite nice place to hang out overall. The waiters were very friendly too.

DELTORO'S BBQ RIBS & STEAK + CHURRERIA

Yesterday, I went to meet my old high school friend in Grand Indonesia. We dined at Del Toro's Bbq Ribs & Steak. The place was quite warm with the wooden panel and frames of mirror that made the place even bigger. I ordered the speciality menu which was the Del Toro's bbq ribs. Unfortunately the US ribs was run out of stock, so i had the local one (90k).

The sauce was too sweet for a ribs sauce. Way too sweet. But the meat was very tender. I had the half rack and the portion was very satisfying.I forgot to take picture because I was too hungry.


We continued with dessert. We decided to try Churreria. Very prominent location as it sits in between west and east mall. I tried the orriginal churros with 2 dips. Dark and white chocolate melt. (48k). Quite nice.

But they still cannot beat the churros in front of Flinders Station in Melbourne=)

The place was quite crowded. Lots of people waiting for an empty table. And the waiters, in my opinion, were not so friendly. As they keep asking to pick up our empty plates and glasses, right after each of us put aside our fork.

MIITEM - PLAZA INDONESIA

Yesterday I went out with Lea. We were supposed to have dinner at Red Tomato ( That 's what I thought ) but we had to get out as the place was over-packed. Nowhere to sit or stand still.

Hooray to our luck, we found this 'miitem', the resto that I wanted to try for so long, but always forget whenever i am in Plaza Indonesia. Always have other destination to go.

'Miitem' uses squid's ink infused noodle for their cuisines. At first, we intended to share the 'Miitem in Tom Yum Soup" (48k)..I wished the soup had stronger taste.But we love the texture of the noodle! hoorayh!

But wait....it's not enough. We ordered this Chicken Cajun in Pita bread (50k) This one was actually very satisfying. Reminded me of Flemington kebabs in Melbourne.


.

I took away "Miitem Pesto with Salmon" (66k). Either i ate it the day after or it was just not good enough. The noodle was too dry.  I always have my heart on pestos, but not this one.

Miitem, I will be back to try the "mie tektek"!

POTATO HEAD - PACIFIC PLACE

I went to Potato head last night. Even though Potato Head has been there for a long long time...but yesterday was my first time having dinner meal there. But as usual, hip environment filled with pretty people=)

Sitting on the upper floor. Dining by the ramp and beautiful old 'krapyak' window, RAP had the "imported large sea scallops n prawns riviera served with garlic n linguini pasta" (180k),

while I had "Slowly roasted pork tenderloin stuffed with pruneaux. Served with a forest mushroom cream sauce n potato crust paillasson" (120k)

I love my food! Especially when I bit the potato crust, the tenderloin and the pruneaux (with the sauce of course) altogether. They completed each other very well!

Not a big fan of the linguini pasta tho'

INDIAN FOOD..YESS INDIANN FOODD

This picture was taken when I had my first Indian meal in a real Indian Resto in Jakarta. Not in a all-you-can-eat lunch in a hotel or in Go!Curry (although i love their hot red curry). The name of this resto is KINARA, located in Jalan Raya Kemang no. 78B.

I forgot the exact  Indian name of the cuisine my friends and I ordered. We ordered fried cheese, lamb and chicken with naan and the puffy bread (poori?). OMG! I really can't remember what they are called now..*should have taken some note*. But what we chose had the symbol of 'chef recommendation'. SO, we reckoned they would taste great.

The waiter said that the food is combination of northern and southern india. I love the fried cheese but the others tasted less spicy than what i was expected.  The mango lassi tasted great btw!

There were 4 of us and we spent around 500k.

Love the environment and how the waitress were dressed. I hope they have belly dance performance some day!

.............hm...now i'm thinking of Go!curry's hot red curry......yumm......

STRAWBERRY BROWNIES CAKE

My dad had his birthday on the 28th. And as a not ignoramus, i tried to make him a birthday cake. After watching tons of Australia's master chef episodes, I became excited on making cakes, cutting them to layers ad stack them back with creams. Cutting the cakes into layers actually has its own method, so you can get even and neat layers.

I used my old time favorite brownies recipe. Not only i am so in love with brownies, but also i did not have enough time to do trial and error to bake the proper chocolate cake. And also, I was more interested on cutting and make the cream to stick them. So, i just used brownies recipe and cut the sugar measurement into half.

I cut the layers, spread each of layer with cream cheese and cheese cake spread ( you can see the recipe here. I tried to make no-bake cheese cake before but it failed to turn into solid. It has amazing sour taste though, which i thought will be a good balance for the chocolate. So i just it as the spread.). In between the brownies layers, i also put some fresh strawberries.

The most interesting and enjoyable part is to pour the ganache.
I boiled whipped cream about 100 ml. After it was warm enough, i poured it over dark chocolate chips. About 100 gr and stirred it until it has reach the right consistency and the glossy look.
After that, i poured it to the layered brownies. Make sure you cover all side, do not bother with the top side, because it will blend evenly by itself. Put into the fridge.


Will do the next one with the spongy chocolate cake recipe.

MACARON CUPCAKES

 

My third attempts on making cupcakes. I used the Vanilla cupcake recipe.

The first attempt did not went well as i did not carefully measure the ingredients.

The second attempt was failed as well. I have measured everything tediously but the low-calories sugar ruined it. As the cake turned to be bitter. ( Lesson learned, if you want to eat a delicious cake, don't bother the calories...just enjoy it please)

The third one....I quite like it. I pushed myself to try the recipe for the third time as I wanted to give it to my niece for her 3rd birthday.

And for the topping...BIG THANKS to Raymond for the macarons he gave me. Really saved the look of the cupcakes. And who says macaron and cupcake couldn't go together?

PUBLIC HOLIDAY CHICKEN NOODLE

 

Today is public holiday. Oh I love how I can waking up late. Around 8.30 am. (It was also because my dad was going out for golfing, otherwise, he would wake me up at 7am) I feel like i have utilized the meaning of holiday, which is to sleep moreee...

When I woke up, mom was preparing herself to cook chicken noodle for all of us.

I offered to help. So what i did is boiling the noodle. ( She got it from nearby market)

And make the topping.

First topping is the sweet soy sauce chicken and mushroom.

Ingredients :

- Chicken fillet, sliced

- Button mushroom

- Garlic

- Sweet Soy Sauce

- Lots of pepper

How to :

- Saute the garlic until you can smell the fragrance.

- Put in chicken fillet until it turns white, put the mushroom. Stir

- Put in the sweet soy sauce and pepper.

- Cook it until it dries.

Second topping is the chopped chicken fillet

My mom boiled the whole chicken and used the oil for the noodle.

She taught me how to guillotine the chicken using dagger.

My chopped chicken was a bit messy, as I had to try harder to open my eyes when the dagger hit the fillet. Hehe...( i was a bit scared)

Then.....

Boiling the dry noodle, my mom taught me to put enough water and wait until the water is boiling enough so the noodle will not be sticking to each other.

The chicken noodle is very comparable to the ones in restaurants. The most important part is the chili pickled sauce.

It was made of :
- Chopped cucumber
- Chopped carrot
- Bottled chili
- Bottled tomato sauce
- Sugar and salt
- Vinegar

How to :
- Cook chili and tomato sauce in a hot pan
- Marinate the cucumber and carrot with chili sauce
Serve it on top of the noodle...zuppper yumm!!

Especially when you eat it with your family during relax holiday time =)

HOMEMADE STRAWBERRY JAM

Eh..1 month already since my last post.Woops..I haven't tried much new recipes, until yesterday, with any available ingredients in the fridge. ( I wanted to try banana muffin, but there was no butter..so cant bake any cake nor cookies).
Anyway..i have strawberries. And it turned out pretty much like the one sold in commercial jar ( with less jelly-ish taste. =)

Ingredients :
- a box of fresh strawberry, sliced
- Raw sugar / low-calories sugar. ( low calories one is preferable)
- half of lemon

How to cook :
- Stir strawberry on the pan until it performs lumps. Do not add any water
- After the strawberries are fully smashed, add sugar, taste it accordingly.
- Add lemon water
- Boil it until it becomes thick
- Put it in a glass jar and refrigerate it overnight.

BACK FROM SOUTH SULAWESI TRIP

I went to South Sulawesi over the easter break.. Got somo photos to show...uploading tonighttt..!! or tomorrow =p

A friend of a friend took us to a famous resto that sold Coto Makassar(17k). They served it in a small bowl with lime, sweet soy sauce and ketupat (packed rice).

 

And this one is Palu Basa (20k), quite similar to Coto Makasar, but i think they put more coconut milk in there. Again, They served it in a small bowl and lime.

 I actually ate lots of food there, such as Konro, Palu Butung, etc. But unfortunately, I didnt take good photos so they do not deserve to be published here. 

Just to sum up, Mostly food in Makassar use lime as the condiment. ( I still don't know why, maybe it's their main local production). The local people will even add them to the regular chicken noodle and they were surprisingly good.

=)

PAULANER BRAUHAUS MUNCHEN

Last week I went to this place called Paulaner Munchen in Grand Indonesia. Really tickled my curiosity. Try to go there during dinner time and so on. You will find a very long queue in front of a security gate (yeah, like the one in front of hotels and airport).

I thought it's like a bar with hip clubbing music cause the place is famous for its beer.  But actually, it's an eatery with cool rustique interior ( there's a King Arthur's castle style of chandelier), up-scale pricing ( They have exactly the same drink menu and price as Kempinsky Hotel's ), and pretty people hanging around.

For the menu set above, they charge you Rp. 250.000,-. To be honest, the foods were just so so..but it's a place to see and to be seen anyway =)

SOUTH BEAUTY JAKARTA

I was so excited to visit this restaurant as few months back, I read about the interior review on architecture interior magazine. The entry hallway is exotic. As it dominated with black and gold colour, the painted wall, the laser cut and..the iconic mask. 

 

But entering the dining area, I kinda lost the 'wow' feeling, i think it was because they let sunlight in too much and ruined the lighting.

Talking about the food, they are very well presented.

This cucumber-tied lettuce with peanut sauce and blueberry jam....

kungpao chicken, etc etc.

It was a pity when we order the pig ribs, first they served it in a very nice basket, but it couldn't be served on the table as it's too big. Then, they have to move everything to several smaller plates. Aw didn't get the chance to photograph the first one =(.

When u order, beware! When the waiter ask if u want the medium or hot one, do not under estimate it. We ordered the medium one and they burned our stomach. They are quite salty as well.
But they are very satisfying after all. The price ranges also vary. Worth to try =)

KWETIAU AKANG

Kwetiau Akang aka kwetiau medan.. I tried this over the weekend when My family and I went around Gading Serpong. The shop house is just nearby the main street. Very simple shop house. When you enter the shop, you can directly smell the flavor and it really tickle ur tummy. The left one is "mie kwetiau goreng" and the right one is "kwetiau siram tomat". The one with the tomato is a bit sweet and bit more sour. If you are used to taste Medanese food, maybe u will love it and come back again, but not me =)

KAHLUA BALL

These kahlua balls were actually made for Kathy, who had a birthday dinner tonight, but i realized that it will be a mess if I meet her in another 3 hours, the chocolate will melt and sticks to the paper..haha..

Made of crushed crackers and kahlua, dipped in melted chocolate and rolled in cashew..

=D

BEBEK BENGIL - THE UBUD JAKARTA

Last week, when Raymond came, we accidentally found this resto adjacent to GI. At first i was interested at this resto as it was published in archdaily,,an architecture website. I did not expect the food will be so nice. BEBEK BENGIL or dirty duck is its speciality. At first, this peculiar bebek bengil did not look very attractive, but once i tried the crispy skin with the onion chilli and kecap..not forgetting the traditional salad.. OMG! so yummy..
And the soft flesh inside..complemented with the orange and watermelon to balance the oily bits. Surrounded with tropical bali aura, almost PERFECT! (as it was lacking of Balinese traditional music)
Will try the one in Dharmawangsa Square next time! =D

PESTO FETTUCINE

I think this one is quite a success..apart from the pasta is not cooked enough,,the mushroom pesto sauce was really delicious !

The basic ingredients are :
- 2 handfull of fresh basil
- a handfull of toasted cashew
- lots of garlic
- salt, taste accordingly
Put them all together into a food processor.

How to cook :
Sautee the basil mixture first with olive oil, set aside.
Heat up oil, put inside whatever ingredients you like. Here I put mushroom and minced beef. Wait until they are half cooked, put in the basil mixture.
Cook until they are boiling and there is not much water inside.

Toss together with the favoured pasta.

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If you want healtier choice - put olive oil

If you want tastier choice - put extra cheese on it ( i just used sliced cheddar cheese)

If you want tastier, creamier and yummier - put more butter on the pasta

HEARTY CHIC on COUSCOUS BED

Hey kamuh! Happy new yearr..!! My resolution to write this blog at least twice a month turned out to be a vague saying. But yeah, whatever..many times I forgot to photograph my cooking.
Okaiy...another day off for me.. I made this hearty chicken that I purposely cut into heart shape. (fingers crossed at the back). You can imagine how hard it was! =p.

So, the chicken breast was pan fried with thai sweet chilli sauce and was put on the bed of boiled couscous. Completed with the bell / cherry tomatoes. Resulting crispy sweet and sour taste from the chicken, softness of the couscous and freshness from the tomatoes. I am very sure Raymond will love it. Come on dear! So, come here soon =)