Ravenously Hungry

At first, I did not really recognize this place, I thought it was just an “ordinary” eating place at Oakwood complex in Mega Kuningan. I often visited the neighboring restaurants, but never to Pancake Parlour, that was until my buddy invited me for a lunch there.

At first I thought, “Why would I have a pancake for lunch?” But hey, it was a treat, so I just went there with open mind and eyes.

If you never been to Oakwood, it’s one of the hip place in South Jakarta, located at the northern tip of South Jakarta. This complex consist of an exclusive apartment, and a public amenities below it. I used to be a member of a fitness centre here, that was back then when the only operational place was that and the supermarket below. Right now this place is buzzing with activities, and with the exclusive apartment opened, it can’t be more livelier.

Back to the lunch, my buddy told me that this place is originally from Melbourne, and the one in Oakwood is a franchise. He knew because he studied there awhile back, and just recently return here. He said, if this place in Oakwood can match the taste—at least 75%—it should be all right.

Browsing the menu, I must say that ordering pancakes for main course is something new for me. For dessert or snack, now that I used to. So, just for the sake of trying it first, I ordered a dessert menu, which is a fruit pancake with apple and served with ice cream on top of it. I didn’t remember what my buddy ordered, but it was something served with strawberry—I think.

10 minutes later (felt like forever) our order arrived, served groggily by the waiter (wonder why). The look and smell of the pancakes were mouth watering, and seconds later I found myself happily munching the warm and tasty pancake. This is good stuff!

It seemed I pick the “right” combination of menu, where the warm-tasty-pancake melt the ice cream and provide an avenue for the apple fruits to slide easily into my stomach. On the other hand, my buddy found his combination of strawberry stuff kinda too much–too sweet and sticky. Despite that, we both agreed that the pancake alone is very tasty and well done.

RH Conclusion (scale from bad to good, 1-5)
Taste: 3
Service: 2
Location: 3

PROS
Best pancake in Melbourne has arrived in Jakarta, and it bring the taste too!
CONS
The HRD should train their waitress to act more like one.

Greetings gentle reader,
As most of us is already familiar with chinese food, we often took for granted the abundance of eating places that served this kind of cuisine. In Jakarta alone, there are throngs of places that either specialized in certain kind or those that provide general type on their menu. In general, from my experience there are 3 main differentiation; demographic, type of menu, and wether it will be “halal” or ”non-halal”.

Last month I got the chance to visit Rice Bowl at Pacific Place, one of the growing chains of chinese restaurant in Jakarta. At that time I was hungry, and looked for a place that can offered good deals for their food and drink. Location wise, since it was in Pacific Place (one of the top elite shopping mall in Jakarta), one would assume that naturally most of eating places there charge a lot of money. Fortunately, on lower level of the mall, there are rows of affordable with good deal eating places, and one of them is Rice Bowl.

I’ve been to the other branches of Rice Bowl, there’s one in Mall Kelapa Gading 3, as well as in Plaza Semanggi. Their specialisation is rice dishes and they also have noodle variation of the rice as well. Since it was a hot day, and I was on tight budget, I ordered a bundled menu of Roast Chicken Noodle with an Ice Tea, all for Rp 23.000,- (I think - it was definitely less than 25k). Oh, they have 2 option for the noodle, a home made one and “chinese noodle”, which refer to the long slender noodle. The first had the soup separated, while the latter will have it grouped with the noodle. I picked the first.

Less than 10 minutes later, my ordered arrived. It was good. Really. Tasty fresh noodle with succulent roast chicken. The soup “merged” the taste well in the mouth. Refresh!

It would be fantastic if the actually lower the price tough, just a bit. One could not help to compare the noodle with similar kind menu, namely the famous Bakmi GM or Bakmi Abun. Their prices are more affordable as well. To be fair, those places do specialization on noodle, while Rice Bowl tried to cater wider selection of menu, which eventually lead to increase in cost.

On other note, this Rice Bowl on Pacific Place has great seats and tables, its very comfortable for me anyway. My back used to be problematic, so I have a knack to know whether a seat or table is ergonomic or not. Good one!

RH Conclusion (scale from bad to good, 1-5)
Taste: 3
Service: 4
Location: 3

PROS
Another nice addition of ever-growing fusion chinese restaurant in Jakarta
CONS
It’s always the same ol’ kind of menu, nothing too special.

Java Kitchen has many outlets in Jakarta and apparently in Singapore as well (they have their own site at: http://javakitchenresto.blogspot.com), and the one outlet we visited was located in Kelapa Gading Boulevard.

Visually, the restaurant overall design helped attracted potential customer - just like me. The one in Kelapa Gading was quite small - it’s on the 1st floor of a “ruko” - and has a nice layout. One thing I like is on the wall side of the restaurant - next to the tables - they’ve built some kind of open air cupboard to put all the food utensil, sauces, and tissue. On ordinary restaurant, all of those items usually are put in the middle of the table.

For the menu, we tried Nasi Langgi, with melon juice and tomato juice as drink. Most of their menus are very Javanese centric type of food (soto ayam kampung, nasi goreng jawa, sop buntut, etc…) and they have plenty of “es” for dessert (es campur, es kopyor, etc…).

Price wise, Java Kitchen seemed on the “high” side, but then we haven’t see, smell, and taste the food ourselves. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Dear lunchgoers,

today I want to share my liking of this small place to eat at Mangga Dua Square Mall lvl 2 - next to A&W, Gunung Sahari. It’s called Meigy, and their speciality is Mie Kangkung. I’ve tried several of their menu (Kwetiau Goreng, Kwetiau Jamur, Pek-Mpek, Roti Bakar, etc…) and overall the taste is constantly tasty and yummy. The food supposed to be healthy as well, since Meigy claim that all of their dishes are free of preservative and food colouring.

Although small, the layout of this place is pretty and always look clean. Another strong point of this place is that most (if not all) of the waitress are good looking, always smiling, good at sweet talking, and they all can ride an otopet. Why otopet? [Read the rest of this entry...]

Gentle Reader,

Few days ago I ‘ve got the chance to revisit the Red Pepper food court in Plaza Indonesia. Some friends of mine still refer that place with the old name - the Spice Garden. Although it share the same spirit of nice & cozy food court, designwise I like this new place much better.

Last time I was here, I ordered Kwetiauw Penang from the vendor next to the juice bar (Rp. 25000,-), and it tasted ok lah - not so amazing nor bad either. This time I ordered a Mixed Rice (consists of Nasi Hainam, chicken tender, chicken charsiu, ati ampela, and some vegetables) from the leftmost Vendor (Chinese Cuisine) that also offer various bakmi and bakso celup kuah. They also have roasted ducked displayed just like ordinary nasi campur vendor. 1 colleague of mine ordered Kwetiau Penang from the same place like me, and another one ordered Bebek Panggang from this Balinese kind a cuisine vendor. [Read the rest of this entry...]