Happy Chinese New Year!

Hi all..

didn't mean to be so absent in my blogging (wondering whether anyone read my blog or not), but because of the Chinese New Year, this time we went to Surabaya to celebrate it with my family.

It was fun, tiring, and I learned my lesson! Next time I'm bringing my nanny with me! This time I thought I can handle the kids, which I can (easy peasy!), but that leaves me no time to talk to my parents or meet my friends. It's just kids all the time... the good thing is I spend a lot of time with my kids over there..

ookay.. now that's done, let me show you the Chinese New Year's eve dinner that we prepared.. (yes, me and my mom cooked, and my husband watched the kids for me!)

the cold dish with the lucky hair

the shrimp. we squaled like a pig when we fried the shrimp. oil everywhere!

abalone and the white mushroom

porky feet and mushroom, my dad specialty

crab, bought it in Istana Berkat, not so good, Kenari has way better crabs, but they all sold out

fish, bought in Ikan Bakar Cianjur.

And so, those are what we ate in our family's dinner. And here's my two girlies, wishing you all a prosperous, blessed New Year!

intermezzo from art journal..

Since I got couple more minutes, might as well I'm posting another blog...

I haven't post about food for so long now, it's all about scrapbooking only..

So here we go food, Tony Romas in UOB building in downtown Jakarta:

the view of traffic and downtown from our table

delicious calamari ring

huge onion ring

baby back ribs! yumm!!!

We ate there around 5:30 pm.. I know it's like old people's dinner time.. he he he.. but after you have two kids, I simply have no energy to stay up till night. I sleep at 8 or 9 pm, because I can't open my eyes anymore!! I have to force myself to wake up around 9 pm and give my youngest her milk because she hasn't sleep yet!!

okay, that's really all for today.. gotta go!! he hehe..

La Duree

Hi friends!!

On the Idul Fitri holiday, one of my friend's sister went to Paris. And of course, I can't stop the urge to ask her to bring me back a box of macaroons from La Duree!! And I asked, and she said yes!
So after she got back from Paris, my friend dropped by to my house and voila! 2 boxes of La Duree macaroons!! More than what I've asked for, which is soo greattt!! ha ha ha...

I totally appreciated her kindness of bringing me these. You know it has to be hand carried, so that all the macaroons won't get crumbled along the plane ride! So, dear friend, if you're reading this, many many thanks even after all those yummy macaroons are eaten.

The texture of the La Duree macaroons are very crumbly, and tasted so great! It has green tea, black sesame (my favorite, who knew??) dark chocolate, caramel, lychee, coconut, raspberry, lemon, green tea, and who know what else?? Next time I'll go to Paris, totally going to visit the store myself!

Happy wednesday, y'all!

Ocha Bella

This is a continuation of restaurant blogs that we went to during the Lebaran.

After so many months listening about Ocha Bella, how hip it is, how it's the newest place where the Jakarta's celebrities go to, cool place to hang out, pretty good food, we decided to visit and dine there.
What a perfect time to go because all of Jakartanians are out of town, so we thought it shouldn't be too hard to get into without a reservation. We got there at 6, and it's not that crowded, so we got a seat right away. But when we leave, all the seats are full, and there's waiting list. So lucky to come earlier...

The place is good, friendly, open to a small garden, and there are tents on the garden where they transformed them into tables for eating. The garden is filled with twinkling lights and my daughters specially loved the rocking chair and hammock.

Here's what we order:

 

I personally think the food is just so-so, not so good, and not so bad for the price range. The service is also a so-so. Maybe I need to order something else next time. Definitely going back there because of the ambience, not the food. But the ice tea though, it's the best ice tea that I've ever tasted. Almost the same with Social House grandma's ice tea, it's served with lemon gelato in the ice tea.

If you want to hang out with your friends,  to relax and chat and drink, this is a very good place for it. Especially at night time.

Back after (non) holiday....

Hi everyone..

After two weeks of Lebaran, my maid have finally come back, and now I have the time to blog again.
It's really a non holiday for me and husband, since we have no maid and have to do household things.
I'm doing fine when husband wasn't working yet, but when husband started to work, and I'm alone with two kids and housework.. nerves started to fray... emotions run high... ha ha ha...

I think now it's time for me to cool down and have some "me" time, eh??
I can't imagine all my friends who live in Vancouver, and for them it's daily life, doing housework, dealing with kids and all by themselves, without support from parents or relatives. It will get to you, I suppose, unless the person is the housewife and loves being a housewife.. to which I applaud loudly..... they're really brave and strong and patient kind of person housewives....

Anyway, since it's lebaran, we almost went out for lunch everyday, but I forgot to take photos of them. I take some, but not all.. This holiday is actually a great material for my food review blog.. ha ha... but I totally forgot to take some photos!! gahhh..

We went to Central Park for lunch, on one of those days... because the kids love feeding the koi fish.
And this time we went to Penang Village, one of my fave restaurant... I love the decor, it's like you're outside but you're inside... and as always, food is good...

This is my youngest sitting in a baby chair, eating her own food. She loves eating noodle with her hand, and she eats a lot!! I took the photos with leme leme cam in iphone. Too yellow for me I guess.

And these are what we order:

malaysian fried noodle. very good. kids eat them until they're gone and I just have to say 'wait!' to take pictures

the sweet fried milky prata. It's huge, and it's crunchy, sweet and salty.

very very good tofu with silver fish. love this very much.

nasi lemak.

ayam goreng terasi. it's good, but I prefer the one in the Soup Kitchen.

the deep fried soft shell crab.

That is all for today... I will blog more for the next days...

Kitchenette

Kitchenette is over at Plaza Indonesia, and it's my husband's favorite restaurant.
Everytime we go to PI, he always suggests Kitchenette, sometimes I defer, and sometimes I accept.
He always order the same thing, tomato soup and the Eduardo galette. He likes it because it's a light dinner. He loves light dinner. Not so with me...
I tried different things everytime, because one can get bored always ordering the burger over there.
The food is good, the service though, is excellent!! You will find no experienced, knowledgeable, friendly waitress/waiter everywhere else! Except in Paris or Italy maybe...but not in Jakarta!

You can go there anytime of the day, and they're always full. So go early to avoid line up. That's how good they are...  Do some reservations if you can.

So here's the photos of what we order...

Eduardo galette, ham, mushroom and cheese

tomato soup

enchilladas: my order. it's very filling, cheesy and yummy.

What did you eat over at the weekend??

Seroeni

Sorry that I blog about 3 restaurants all at once.. he he he...
in the fasting month no less!!
Like I said, once I have the time, then I have time, and when I don't, then I don't.

Let's party on with the food! ha ha ha..

I took my grandma to Plaza Senayan last month, because she and I love books, and I have to meet a client over there. I choose Seroeni restaurant on the 3rd floor in Plaza Senayan, because it's a good chinese restaurant and my grandma will enjoy them. And enjoy them she does. It's very nice to make people happy, then you'll feel happy too.

Here's what we order, and she loves the noodle and longan beef especially.

the malaysian noodle, I forgot the exact name, I will edit once I remember

the longan crispy beef. It's so crispy and nice

Po Chai with the egg and asparagus

My friend, Tini, brought us here one time with the daters, and I really enjoyed it. It's good food, and almost all you order is good. Except I would rethink the po chai vegetable, you should order the buncis with meat. That's a better veggies over in Seroeni.

Will be back with my scrapbook mini album!

Vietnamese food

Hi all..

I love vietnamese food, I do, when it's good and proper like in Vancouver or Sydney.
But, in Indonesia, there's not much of them here.

Here in Menteng Plaza, there's this vietnamese restaurant called Do An, which the beef noodle soup is just so so, but we love the fresh spring roll so much. I'm not a fan of fresh spring roll (my husband is a big fan), but this one, I have to agree, is the best in town. My husband introduce me to it, and I gotta say, I like it. I tried a lot of fresh spring roll everywhere in Jakarta, and the best one is still in Do An.

My favorite vietnamese food usually is the beef noodle soup with beef ball, and the deep fried spring roll. Aaah.. I still can taste the spring roll in two resto in Vancouver.... I miss them a lot!!

the fresh spring roll. If you order this one only for your lunch, you'll feel full already

the fresh spring roll and the lemon grass tea.

deep fried spring roll

seafood fried rice for my daughter, who's fanatical about it.

 Another surprise that I love is the lemon grass tea. Try them if you're in Do An, or any other vietnamese restaurant. It's so refreshing to drink.

Oh, and the bonus when I went to Menteng Plaza, which is the adorama building, is the turtle and the fish! My daughter loves looking at the turtle!

Turtle is not shy either.. this is the best shot of turtle that I have ever got, it's because it's standing up straight and curious about the daughter and the camera.. he he he..

have a great week, y'all!

chill out..

Happy monday everyone..

I'm going to start blogging about food again, after all those heavy stuff that I share last week..

To cheer you all up.. he he he..

One of my fave restaurant in town is Pizza Marzano. It's good pizza. And salad. If you like both, then don't forget to try them.
This time I went with my daughter to eat pizza with her, that explains of no salad. Usually I split the salad with my husband...

What I order is the new menu for mushroom bruschetta, which my daughter loves... and she finished all of it by herself! without realizing that there's mushroom, which she doesn't like.. :)

And as for me, it's the usual pizza, I forgot what's the name, but there's olive, mushroom and pepperoni!

What did you eat on your weekend??

cupcakes

Hi again today..

yesterday's my husband's birthday. We didn't go out and celebrate, as both of us are too tired to go out.
Maybe this weekend we're going to celebrate instead.
But, last night we got a sweet surprise, as our friend, Nadia, the baker, the owner of ChocoLove Cupcakes send us a dozen cupcakes. Yum.
She makes a mean chocolate cheesecake, with the reasonable price.

If you want to order some, here's her link in facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/chocolovee

So, thank you, dear Nadia and Andre, for your thoughtfulness and generosity...
Love the cupcake, btw, it's perfect vanilla and chocolate. Guess which one is my favorite??

macaroon cupcake

chocolate cupcake

strawberry cupcake

Nadia, if you're reading this, that's a really good maccaroons! Did you make it yourself??

Happy Friday y'all!

Food with daters

3 in a row! wow! A first! ha ha..

I'm blogging about the same Korean restaurant, Go Ju Mong in Panglima Polim. We went there last wednesday, on the holiday, with our fellow daters, instead of having date in our house.

We order another crazy amount of food with agreement budget, because as you well know, Korean restaurant is pricey here. There are around 12 of us, and we spend Rp. 85,000, to get all the food in the photos here. We have a good time together, and all of us went home with a very full stomach.

abundance appetizer, and we keep asking for more

Chap Jae, the best in jakarta

Radish beef soup

the grilled beef

soft boiled egg

korean pancake

grilled squid

We also celebrate Hannah first birthday on the occasion. She turned one! yay!

Hannah and the proud parents

pink birthday cake

inside of the cake

I guess this really is it. I'm not blogging till next week. Have a great week, y'all!