--> Aswin and Alia's Food Journey: 2009

Mamak Kitchen: A Fusion of Singaporean, Malaysian, and Thailand Cuisine

Opened in the mid of 2013, the restaurant is serving a fusion of Singaporean, Malaysian and Thailand cuisine

Bali (Culinary) Trip in March 2014

Finally, after a year of planning, we are able to set up a trip to Bali. Very excited! Alia has been mentioning about Ubud for quite some time and now this trip is about to be realized.

Welcome Home: Nanny's Pavillon Housewarming

On 30th of April 2014, we were invited to the housewarming of the newest Nanny's Pavillon restaurant in Jalan R.E. Martadinata (Riau), Bandung.

Caffe Bene: Korean Coffee Shop in Bandung

Alia has been craving to visit this place for a while, so when the time comes to visit she was delighted

Warung Sangrai: Real Indonesian, Eat With Their Bare Hands!!

Located in the opposite side of Mamak Kitchen, the restaurant is serving traditional Indonesian Food with one particular course that are standing out: Quails

12/25/2009

Sari Rasa, Kios Taman Pondok Labu

Soto Ayam, Tempe Mendoan & Fried Calamary
Soto Ayam, Tempe Mendoan and Fried Calamary. Funny combination eh?
It will have to do, at least until Burger Blenger is open...

Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-
Posted by Aswin

Lontong Solo, BSDCity





















Very unique presentation of the food. For the taste sadly, its not as expected.
For the location, I forgot the name of the restaurant. Be sure to look for it, the next time I passed the location.

Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-
Posted by Aswin

Saribanon Restaurant, Teraskota-BSDCity





12/24/2009

Blenger Burger, Kios Taman Pondok Labu



























































For 1 US$, you can get a REAL grilled beef burger that are guaranteed to satisfy you.
Only in Indonesia, only in Jakarta, and my favorite place to tries it, only at Kios Taman Pondok Labu.

Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-
Posted by Aswin

12/22/2009

Best Durian


Cafe Bali






Tizi's Restaurant





12/20/2009

Serabi Eka Rasa, Batagor Riri, Saboga & Martabak San Fransisco


Martabak Telur Malabar, Kosambi Bandung


12/17/2009

Atmosphere Restaurant





Alia has been craving for a while for Rum Raisin ice cream. As we're searching for it around Bandung (we literally search high and low for it), we decided to try to find it in this Restaurant, Atmosphere.

We have considered Atmosphere to be one of our favorite dining place in the Southern part of Bandung. The location, which is near our home and the cozy situation here makes this restaurant a perfect place to celebrate birthday and any other special occasion.

At the time we got there, we're able to get the sofa beds, due to that we come in weekdays and not in a busy eating hours. This sofa beds are very comfy, especially if you come here in groups.

I ordered the cheesy fries, tornado cellyphone (?), which is basically beef steaks with potato croquette, and lemon grass tea (?!!). Alia ordered the fettucini and (finally) a Rum Raisin Milkshake.

Overall the taste in our opinion is so-so, not spectacular, but not bad either. Note for the lemon grass tea, after I drinked it, as it tasted like herbal I'm actually feel more healthier.

If you're happen to come across the southern part of Bandung, and you really like to have a place to hang around with your friends and family with a medium range of meal price, then we definitely recommend this place.

Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-
Posted by Aswin


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The Strudel

Yesterday in our grandma house, one of our relatives comes by and brought a box of Apple Strudels from the Strudels.

As it is kind of unique, due to the packaging and its content, we decided to try it.

Strudels is basically pastry-based cake (?) made into layers. The main disadvantages on eating a Strudel in our opinion is the messy crisp layers that are easy to crumbled everytime we tried to ate it.

But for the taste, we really liked it. The apples are fresh and the custard tasted very good. It's definitely worth the second platter.

If you're curious to try, you can visit the shops at Jl. Progo, Bandung. Or alternatively, you can go and visit www.thestrudels.com for more information.

Best Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-
Posted by Aswin

Sent via BlackBerry®

12/14/2009

Lemans Lamb Satay



















Sorry for the absentees for the last few days, we will try to make it up for the lost posting for the next few days.
For today's topic, I would like to share some information about a restaurant that are considered as one of our favorite restaurant in Bandung. The name of the restaurant is Lemans, ,like in the Pontiac LeMans sports car or the Le Mans city in France when pronounced.
Their favorite food in the menu is the lamb satay. The satay itself is very tender, composed from their secret ingredients and served with soy sauce. If you can eat lamb whether for health or personal reasons, you can try their chicken satay. They're also tasted quite good, although I still prefer their lamb satay.
For the price of Rp 25,000,- you will get 10 sticks of satay consisted of 3 large meat in skewers.
The restaurant is located in Jl. Lodaya, Bandung, next of Waroeng Steak, in front of the Lodaya Baseball Stadium. I will try to add the direction and photographs later in my next visit there.

Best Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-
Posted by Aswin

12/10/2009

How to Prepare Frozen Meat/ Fish Before You Cook It

Another lesson I learned from Michael Smith (bear with me guys, I know it's a lot information I take from  him, but it's just that he shares a lot of useful information in his TV shows). This time is about how to prepare your frozen meat/ fish before you cooked it.

It's best for you to prepare the meat that you're planning to cook early, especially if it's frozen. So if you are planning to cook your meat/ fish say on this weekend, then it's better for you to move those frozen meat/ fish from the freezer to the refrigerator.

Why?
Because when the meat/ fish are put into a frozen state, they tend to lose their water content, which at the end will make the meat/ fish tough. If you suddenly put those meat/ fish from the freezer, and just moved it to hot water bath, they toughness of the meat/ fish are still there.
But, if you move the meat/ fish to the refrigerator, and let them sit for a day/ two. They will gradually obtain their water content, which at the end will make them gradually almost come back to their initial state when you purchase them from the meat/ fish shops.

Best Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-
Posted by Aswin

12/09/2009

Cooking using Woods

By cooking with woods, you will get a better result from your grill. This is what I learned from AFC. Two prominent cook in this TV show, Robert "BBQ King" Rainford, and Michael Smith both stated that by using different kind of wood during your cooking process, you will get different smell and different taste from the meat/ chicken/ fish that you grill.

For more detail you can visit here or here. Happy Barbecue-ing!

Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-
Posted by Aswin

Bumi Serpong Damai Heavenly Foods Part 1

To be honest Bumi Serpong Damai has become our second home and what we like the most is the variety of food that you can find there. From Chinese food, Sundanese food, Western food, you can find all of short food here. Of course, we start from the one that we like most.

1. Pecel Ayam Pak Jono
If you going to have a lunch in Serpong area, you have to taste this. I think it was the best Pecel Ayam I ever had in my entire life. The fried chicken you find it very crispy and tasty and the best from all is their sambel. If you like hot and spicy sambel then you must try it, it so spicy that you find it the taste is good. Even one day, I found that the crew of Bumbu Desa -because they wore shirt written www.bumbudesa.com, odd isn't it?- had a lunch there, maybe for survey purpose, well seemed like it.

Pecel Ayam Pak Jono, located on Jalan Serpong Raya, near the Depo Bangunan, and the opposite of Super Kitchen. Don't try looking for a banner written "Pecel Ayam Pak Jono", well you'll not find it, it just say "Pecel Ayam" and the place not too eye catching, but you will find many cars are parked there.

2. Bakmi Pelangi




Bakmi Pelangi actually one of bakmi place in BSD that we're like, but because it is different than the other bakmi, so it is worth trying. What I like about Bakmi Pelangi is the noodle that come in colorful look, green, red, and violet. It says that the noodle contain vegetable in it, so it's very healthy and the taste well, good enough, of course you can't compare it to Mie Akung in Bandung, but I think they're not using vet-sin or MSG in their soup.

Beside Bakmi, there are other kind of food like Porridge, Nasi Tim, and so on, I've been taste them and well it's not bad, even the porridge is great. The other think that I always order in here is their Vegetable Juice, healthy and also taste good.

Bakmi Pelangi located on Ruko Tol Boulevard and also Ruko Versailles in BSD, you will find it easily because it really has a big banner.

Best Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-
Posted by Alia

12/08/2009

Holy Trinity of Food

Not just in religion, that we know the terms of Trinity. In food, actually there's a trinity of food that are differs between countries. In Chinese, the trinity is scallions, ginger, and garlic. In Cuban the trinity is garlic, bell pepper, and Spanish onion. In Italy the trinity is tomato, garlic, and basil. The most famous one, in my opinion is the France trinity, which consisted of celery, onion, and carrot. They are also famous to be called as Mirepoix.

So, what's the fuzz about these trinities anyway? So, they (food expert) say that in all countries this holy trinity are always found in their local recipes, at least two of them are featured in most of the dishes. So in France, most of the foods are consisted with two of these following ingredients: celery, onion, and/or carrot.

For more detailed information, you can see here.

Best Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-
Posted by Aswin

Overnight Beans

I'm writing this blog while watching my favorite chef and his show on AFC. Yes, Michael Smith and Chef at Home is always amaze me with his wide knowledge of information.
Right now, what I'm learning is about overnight beans. If you keep beans in a container and soaked it with plain water, and let it stay for a night, the result is amazing.
By soaking the beans, you will be able to make the beans back into their original form. So if you soaked a half container of beans, by the next day you will have a full container with restored beans. Neat huh?
All you have to do after you clean the beans, you can cooked it, and have a better beans compared with the non-soaked one.
Hmmm.... Interesting...

Best Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-
Posted by Aswin

Risotto Pizza at Cafe Milan

Today our journey takes us to Cafe Milan. Located in the area of Lingkar Selatan Bandung, we considered that this place serves the best pizza in Bandung area. Initially Alia was craving for a Rum Raisin ice cream (they also serves ice cream here), I'm more interested to taste the Risotto Pizza.
It turns out that they run out the Rum Raisin ice cream (poor Alia), but the Risotto Pizza is available there. Risotto Pizza??? You must be thinking that we ordered two kind of food, Risotto and a Pizza. We'll you're wrong, we ordered the Risotto Pizza.

After waiting for quite a while (around 15 minutes), finally they serves the food. So, in general the food consisted of Risotto of your choice (Smoked Beef, Chicken, Beef, Tuna, etc) placed inside pizza batter, and baked as a usual pizza.

The taste? Well, to be frank the composition is kinda odd, because you can imagine: a carbohydrate inside carbohydrate and baked. But yet, it tasted great according to me and Alia.

Maybe in the future, we'll see Rice and Pasta, or Pizza with pasta topping. Looking forward to taste them.

Note: they also serves Dolce Pizza, or Sweet Pizza. It also tasted kinda unique, or odd if I may say. Depends whether you like sweets or not.

Best Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-
Posted by Aswin

The Menu


12/06/2009

River Cottage Treatment

There's an unique show that are presented in the (AFC) Asian Food Channel. It was presented by Hugh Fearnley-Whittinghall, the show is about how Hugh is trying to change the eating behavior of the people that are visiting the River Cottage, from Junk food to healthy food. In a way, we can safely say the show is about recovering an addiction to junk food and switching it into healthy and better way of eating habits.

Interesting concept I might say. I wonder if we can implemented it in Indonesia. I mean, with unhealthy eating habits that Indonesian people have, I think the risk of food habit-based disease is very much almost the same with the people living in US.

Best Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-
Posted by Aswin

12/05/2009

Breakfast at the d'risoles (I have to add the "the" word...)

Restaurant in Bandung area (and in Indonesia in overall) have the tendency to try making English words more "Indonesian". One of the common method that they use is by making the word "the" to become "d", such as d'canteen, d'village, d'farm, etc. This place is also falls into that category.

After all of the family are failing to eat Dim Sum at Pagoda (as it turned out Pagoda only serves Dim Sum on Sunday only), we decided to try to have breakfast at d'risoles. At first we're quite a bit confused on how to order the menu, but after we hear the explanation from the waiter we finally understand.

So to order the breakfast here, first we have to buy some kind of a coupon in the reception area. By paying an amount of Rp. 16.500/ person we can order one main course (a selection of fried rice, lontong kari, kupat tahu, yellow rice, nasi uduk, lasagna, sandwich, or chicken porridge) and free refillable tea/ coffee.

For the taste vs price, we can say that it is a win win solution for owner and customer. Although the taste is not spectacular, but with that price it's understandable. We conclude that most of the customers are visitor from out of Bandung (Jakarta in particular) who stayed in a budget hotels which they don't serves breakfast there. They are looking for an affordable breakfast, but with the taste of Bandung.

One plus point for the foods and drinks here is that they serves a very good tea. The tea is very aromatic and tasted great.

Still... I'm craving for Dim Sum... Maybe tomorrow morning we can go there? If we do, we'll be sure to post the review tomorrow.

Best Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-

Posted by Aswin

12/04/2009

The Kiosk, Bandung

At lunch time, after finishing my Friday prayer and finishing my Pre-Toefl test (which I feel won't resulted very well... Although we will not discussed it here), Alia, Mom, and I goes cruising to one of the new Modern Food Court in Bandung called the Kiosk.

The concept of this Food Court is to gather many famous food stalls and vendors in Bandung in one place, so people can reached it in just one location. Currently there are three branches that they open: one in Dago, one in Braga, and on in Setiabudi.

As usual, the menu that I ordered is the Kupat Tahu Gempol, although I'm already ordered it like for every time I go to the Kiosk branch. There something about this Kupat Tahu that makes me want to order... and order... and order... again. This time, Alia tries the Mie Kocok (up until now I still don't understand on what the fuzz about this food... Really guys, do you like it? I know I don't), and Mom ordered the Baso Tahu (although Sinchan tasted much much much better in my opinion).

For the drinks, I usually try the Es Campur. But now, as deep down I know they don't have any durian and avocado (they always runs out) I just ordered bottled tea.

Note for myself: for my next trip to the Kiosk, remind me to ordered the Iga Bakar. No more Kupat Tahu... Or maybe I will ordered both of them...

Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-

Posted by Aswin

Mie Chie Loom (Mie Aceh)



Yesterday, Alia and me suddenly have the initiative to go on a walking trip around our neighborhood early in the morning. Our goal is to take a walking trip, with resting point is this Mie Aceh restaurant.

In here we ordered their famous fried rice, canai bread with milk (weird combination), and martabak. For drinks we ordered cold tea tarik for Alia, and hot coffee tarik for me.

For the taste, the fried rice itself is not as spicy as it used to be. The martabak that I'm eager to expect turns up to be an omelet with (to many) extra shallot. The canai bread is great... but, combined with milk the taste is kinda weird.

For the drinks we give good grades. The coffee tarik tasted great, and the tea tarik... Well... It's okay... Although, still for me the best tea tarik is the ones that I tasted in KL.

Overall, for a kinda good price (around $ 4,00/ Rp 40.000 for all of the foods and drinks) it's worth the money.

Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-

Posted by Aswin

12/02/2009

Arugula and Apples

Just finished watching our favorite Cooking Show in Asian Food Channel, the "Chef at Home" with Michael Smith. There are two interesting information that I learned from him today.

The first one is that there are a plant named Arugula (Eruca Sativa). Huh? What is that? It turns out that it is an edible plant, and usually called rocket. It is full of vitamin C and contains potassium. For full information you can see the explanation from Wikipedia here. Hmm... Sounds interesting. Be sure to look for it in our local supermarket...

The second lesson that we learn from him, is that Apple is an edible food that can be cooked savory or sweet. There are many types of Apples in the world (more than 100 variants), but in the Cooking term they are divided into two types of Apples: the pie Apples, and the sauce Apples. The pie Apples are Apples that keeps their form after cooked. These types of Apples are good for pies or other type of sweet foods. The second type is the sauce Apples. In contrary with the first type of Apples, these Apples are easy to crumbled when cooked. This way they're good for making sauces.

Regards,
-Aswin & Alia-
Posted by Aswin

12/01/2009

Umami Who?

According to one of my (and Alia's) favorite cook of all time, Michael Smith (not to be confused with Michael W. Smith-the singer) there are actually five (not four) basic tastes that a human can taste. We already know that we can taste bitterness, sweetness, saltiness, and sourness. Actually there are the fifth taste that we can taste, which is Umami (savoriness).

As I was born with a curious sense built in me, I took the time to browse the internet, and found out that actually scientist already confirmed it's existence. Check the description in Wikipedia or Google it to find more information about it.

Interesting...

Regards,
-aswin & alia-
Posted by Aswin

1st Posting

Hello Guys,

Welcome to our blog.
We'll try to provide information about our food tasting journey, locally from Indonesia or abroad.
Our commitment is that we will post messages everyday. If we can't post it, then we will post two messages in the following days, and so on.
Looking forward to hear your comments.

Regards,
-aswin & alia-

Note: jejak rasa in English means the traces of taste.
Posted by Aswin