Eats: Sunday brunch redeemed @ Common People, Kemang

On the other hand, our Sunday brunch which has now turned into Sunday lunch got redeemed all and proper at Common People. We have been here before on previous occasions for dinner with friends and the experience had been good so far.

When we stepped in, Common People was packed except for a few tables. Definitely looked very promising. :)

Something funny that kinda describe very well our breakfast experience that Sunday. But then again, never stand between a man or a woman who's serious about their bacon and eggs on Sunday. So you've been "warned" ;p

There were some interesting breakfast choices at Common People apart from the usual eggs benedict and fry-ups. I settled for the Spanish eggs which consisted for baked eggs with chorizo and tomato with sourdough bread on the side. Absolutely yummy, although I wished they put in more chorizo.

Hubs had the eggs benedict with crab cakes. I tasted a bit of it and the crab cakes was really yummz.

Common People is definitely a keeper especially on days when we don't feel like driving all the way to town for Social House.



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Common People
Plaza Bisnis Kemang I,
GF, Jl. Kemang Raya No. 2
Jakarta 12730

Lousy brunch @ Lulo Kemang

On last Saturday, as we prepared for bed, Hubs mentioned that he thought of checking out Lulo, a cafe in Kemang which, claims a couple of online Indonesian news and lifestyle portal to serve a wide variety of breakfast choices. It's been awhile since we do a Sunday brunch, which by our definition means a fry-up i.e. bacon, eggs, hams, sausages, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms and all the works, so I said why not.

From the decor and furnishing, Lulo looks like a comfy place to chill out on a lazy Sunday, but that is ALL I can say about this cafe. As the waiter sat us down at our table, there was only a couple of Japanese guys who were already halfway through their bottles of Bintang and about to order their meals. Since we took awhile to look through Lulo's eclectic breakfast menu, by the time we ordered, another group of 4 who came in slightly later than us had placed their order ahead. So it means that we only have to wait for 6 breakfast sets ahead of us before it's our turn.

We ordered 2 lattes which arrived like after a 15 minute wait. While it look more like somebody poured warm milk into my coffee, the latte which was lacking a thin layer of foamy milk turned out to be OK, probably saved by the quality of beans that they used. And that marked our 1 hour wait for our brunch.

I mean, honestly how long does it take to fry a couple of eggs and bacon and assemble everything on the plate. Therefore to wait for more than 1 hour before our food finally arrived is really an insult to my amateur cooking skills. We waited to the point that conversation ran dry between us and we started fiddling with our phones. Halfway through, the waiter served up 2 Oreo cupcakes which looked hard, as an apology. I hit it with my teaspoon and it actually made a "thud" sound! Cupcakes turned out to be cold and hard.

At this point, Hubs got frustrated and walked over the the drinks and bar counter to find out what exactly is wrong. He came back with a disgusted look on his face. According to the waiter, it usually takes that long to cook breakfast. WHAT?! We decided to wait another 10 minutes and if no food turn up, we will just pay and leave.

And the food arrived shortly after that. Mine was a Spanish breakfast set which according to the menu consisted of potato tortilla which pork bacon. Potato tortilla turned out to be more of a potato omelet that was not salted. I had to eat it with the the crispy pork bacon to add some flavour. And the pork bacon, it wasn't even hot from the fryer/oven, meaning that it was definitely prepared way before hand.

Hubs was a German breakfast which consisted of 2 pork sausages which felt like the processed type because it sure wasn't filled with ground meat like those you get gourmet deli. He had the same crispy pork bacon, 2 sunny side up and one sad-looking grilled tomato. The more we tried to feed ourselves with what was served, the more we got upset with having to wait 1 hour for such a sad and dismal brunch. In the end, we just eff it, paid and left with most of the food untouched.

The age-old adage of "never eat at an empty restaurant" proved to be very true time and time again. We ought to know that something isn't quite right. From the moment we stepped in, the cafe was empty except for the Japanese chaps. And it was also already very late in the morning. Had the cafe been serving quality food, it wouldn't have been this empty.

We are very serious about our Sunday brunch fry-up. Despite claiming to serve a wide variety of fry-up breakfast, Lulo's version is utterly disappointing and deserves a mention to prevent serious fry-up fans from falling for this trap.

Weekend muckin' around the pool

Some random pictures that I took when we decided to muck around the pool over the weekend. Our first visit eversince we moved in more than 3 months ago. 

Recipes: Penang Prawn Mee

Cooking prawn mee from scratch has been on my mind eversince I saw one of my friends posted this on FB sometime last month. When I searched for the recipe online, most of them called for a lot of prawn shells and heads to prepare the stock.

So that's what I did - collecting my prawn shells and heads painstakingly for about 3 weeks before I have 1 kg worth. In order to reach this 1 kg goal, I bought in total 1.8 kg worth of prawns, all of these in batches because it's only two of us and there's only so much prawns that 2 people can eat over one to two seating. And each time, I shelled, cleaned, bagged and freezed the shells and heads until I think I have just about enough.

So without much futher ramblings, here's the recipe. :)

Penang Prawn Mee (serves 4)

To prepare a day before:

Prawn stock
1 kg of prawn heads and shells
3 cloves garlic, chopped
100 gm dried shrimps, soaked in some water to soften
1 chicken carcass
1 onion, sliced
5-6 cloves garlic, smashed
1 inch ginger, smashed
4 liters water
8 pcs of rock sugar or to taste (I used the cubed type)

Method:
1. Heat up some oil in wok and fry garlic and dried shrimps till fragrant. Add in prawn head and shells and fry until the shells turn red
2. In a big pot, bring water to boil and add in chicken carcass, onion, garlic, ginger and cooked prawn head and shells. Bring to boil over high heat before reducing the heat to simmer for 2 hours.
3. Cool and refrigerate overnight.

To prepare on actual day of serving:

Sambal belacan
20 pcs dried chillies, boiled to soften and deseeded.
20 pcs fresh chillies
1 bulb garlic
10 pcs shallots
10 tablespoons water
20 gm belacan, toasted
Salt and sugar to taste

Method:
1. Blend both types of chillies, garlic, shallots, belacan and water until turn into smooth paste.
2. Heat up enough oil to fry the chilli paste. Pour in the paste and keep on stirring on medium heat to prevent burning. Fry until paste turn fragrant or when it turns from bright red to dark red colour.
3. Add sugar and salt to taste.
4. Set aside to cool.

Prawn toppings
300 gm prawns, shelled and deveined

Method:
1. In the same wok used to fry sambal belacan (unwashed), heat up some oil to fry the prawns until cooked.
2. Dished up and set aside.

Prawn mee soup
Prawn stock
15 - 20 pcs bite-sized pork ribs
3 tbsps sambal belacan
1 tbsp fried shallot crisps
Salt and rock sugar to taste

Method:
1. Bring prawn stock to boil.
2. Add in pork ribs, sambal belacan and fried shallots. Simmer for about 45 minutes or until pork is cooked.
3. Take out the pork ribs and set aside.
4. Strain the soup of prawn heads and shells.
5. Season with salt and rock sugar to slightly saltier than your usual taste.

Condiments
Yellow mee and/or mee hoon, scalded and drain of excess water
Kangkong, scalded and drain of excess water
2 hard-boiled eggs, halved
Pork ribs
Prawn toppings
Fried shallots crisps
Sambal belacan

To serve, place a portion of mee/meehoon, kangkong, pork ribs, hard-boiled egg halves, and prawn toppings in a bowl. Ladle hot prawn soup over. Sprinkle with some shallot crisps and one teaspoon of sambal belacan.

Travel stories: Dive and makan-makan trip to Manado/Bunaken

Yay! Hubs and I managed to go for our first dive trip after getting our open water dive cert. We so badly needed this because it has been 6 months ago since we completed our dive course zilch diving action. ;p To refresh what we have learned, we even reviewed the open water video clip the night our departure to Manado/Bunaken. Thank god that upon arrival at Manado, our dive instructor Wulan who organised this trip, took the group to Manado Bay for a dive check and everything we learned came back to us.

While in Manado, we stayed in La Rascasse Resort that overlooks Manado Tua and Bunaken island on the horizon. La Rascasse is a typical dive resort - basic amenities but clean. The rooms are air-conditioned and fitted with hot showers as well. Food-wise, we were surprised that La Rascasse serves up very good dishes. We certainly have no complaints upon eating our first meal there, after enduring a 3-hour journey on Lion Air that did not serve any food/beverages.

View of La Rascasse very own jetty and dive center

Hospitality at La Rascasse is top notch. The resort manager, Jeffry Massa and his staff are extremely friendly and made efforts to ensure their guests have a comfortable and enjoyable stay at La Rascasse. For example, one of the member in our dive group requested "Nasi Kuning" a local specialty for packed lunch during the one of the dive trips and it was considered done. Similarly, Jeffry also asked us if we like to try another local specialty "Bubur Manado" for breakfast and voila on the next day, there was "Bubur Manado" bought from one of the shops outside the resort, served up at the breakfast buffet.

A local specialty for breakfast - Bubur Manado. I had 2 bowls of this!

The dive sites around Bunaken are simply amazing. Underwater visibility was very good and Hubs and I were really excited by what we saw on both days. I will never forget a few personal "firsts" - a giant clam "contracted" underwater, the opportunity to see up close-up a giant turtle perched on its resting place before slowly swimming away, a giant Napolean wrasse and schools of butterfly fishes swimming gracefully that for a moment, I thought I was in an underwater garden.

Manado Bay

The island of Manado Tua

 Unbelievably crystal clear water

Sunset at Manado

Local peddler on a boat. Our group bought smoke cakalang

(i.e. skipjack tuna) to share as in-between dives snack ;p

Specially ordered packed lunch i.e. Nasi Kuning with smoked cakalang

On our last night in Manado, a few of us together with some of the dive guides went to a nearby restaurant i.e. City Extra for dinner. Apparently coconut crabs are a local specialty so we gotta have that before we leave. And it was very yummy indeed, although personally I prefer the coconut crabs cooked in black pepper sauce because it kinda masked the slight bitter taste of the crab meat.

Top, from left to right: Black pepper coconut crabs, steam coconut crabs, humogous crab claw

Middle: Our dive group members

Bottom, from left to right: Smoked prawns, squids cooked in ink, stir-fry pakis with papaya flowers

On our last day in Manado, we had some time to spare before our flight back which we hired a car to drive us to Manado city for massage and lunch. I certainly think that massage after diving is an excellent idea and the masseuse at Tikala Spa were really good. As usual, we asked for strong masseuse and gotta say I really enjoyed the deep tissue massage to rub those tired muscles. :) And the price was quite reasonable as well I must say. For a two hours session, we paid Rp 265,000 per person which included one hour of foot massage and one hour for full body massage.

For lunch, Wulan recommended us to try this restaurant called Puncak Manado. Situated on a bit of a hill, Puncak Manado offers bird's eye view of the city. And the food, needless to say, is another brilliant meal which showcases the Minahasa cuisine.

Bird's eye view of Manado from the restaurant

Clockwise from left: Ayam isi di bulu (chicken baked in bamboo),

Sogili woku woka (smoked eel), stir-fry pakis and papaya flowers,

and condiments of sambal and dabu-dabu (tomato salsa)

When we first touched down in Manado airport, I was strucked by this triangular stained glass feature in the main departure hall because it's kinda unusual to see this kinda of structures in a Muslim country. As it turned out to be, Christianity is the predominant faith in Manado. And it is very evident along the main road leading to the airport - it is dotted with a lot of churches of various denominations every couple hundred meters.

For our flight back, it turned out that our original Lion Air flight was cancelled and they moved us into a later flight operated by Batik Air, a premier subsidiary airline of Lion Air. I thought this was a rather thoughtful gesture by them - to offer prayer cards in the seat pockets to pray for safe journey. And the prayers are available for most major faiths: Islam, Protestant, Catholic, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism! How cool is that!

Until we meet again. Manado/Bunaken has been most unforgettable...

Ennichisai 2013 @ Blok M

Ennichisai is a traditional Japanese festival that has been running for four years in a row, in Blok M otherwise known as the Little Tokyo of Jakarta. I read about it from last year, wanted to go but then missed it completely. So I told myself that I shan't miss it this year.

Since we have been exploring Blok M quite a bit for the past few months, we sorta guess roughly where it will be held and were kinda confident to drive ourselves there. Traffic was heavy getting there, so to save time, Hubs decided to valet the car and we walked out to the streets where festival was. And when we down to the street level, the festival is PACKED! Both of us didn't realised how popular it is.

As we walked along the streets, there's a carnival atmosphere in the air. Booths lined up on both side of street, selling all sort of Japanese street foods, merchandise and games to attract the crowd. At the same time, we also saw Indonesians dressed up in cosplay to join in the fun. 

We decided to grab lunch at our favourite Boci Boci before walking the streets again. As we made our way back to our car, we noticed that some folks were getting ready for the Mikoshi parade. There were three Japanese shrines that paraded the street that afternoon:

The smallest for children...

Mid size for women that had a woman standing on the shrine, chanting and dancing the the rhythm of the drums

And the largest shrine housed on a carriage pulled a group of male volunteers. This shrine also had children providing the drum beats which the entire parada marched to.

The Ennichisai festival ran from noon till night over a period of two days, which ended last night. There were fireworks as well on the concluding night, which we had vantage point to view the display from the comfort of our home. 

Eats: Char Kuey Tiaw in Jakarta

If you are a Chinese born and bred in Malaysia, Singapore or even Brunei for that matter and living abroad, you can't run away from missing that special char kuey tiaw stall that just know how to whip up that plate of especially satisfying char kuey tiaw.

Whenever we have cravings for char kuey tiaw, there is this Kwetiaw Akang along Jl. Arteri Pondok Indah that we will go, to satisfy ourselves once in awhile. We almost always order their kwetiau goreng spesial (by the way the spesial is not a typo, it is how they spell the word special locally) which comes complete with prawns, crab meat, fishcakes, charsiu and lapcheong. The crab meat is real, unlike the vegetarian crab steak that you get in Malaysia because one can sometimes accidentally bit into some remnants crab shells.

Apart from kwetiau goreng, they also have kwetiaw siram (which is Cantonese fried kuey tiaw i.e. wat tan hor), kwetiau sapi or beef kuey tiaw. You can also opt for telor bebek or telor ayam (duck egg or chicken egg) to be fried into your kuey tiaw. I did that the last time but did not get the special aroma that one gets from Penang duck egg char kuey tiaw. So was kinda disappointed. But all in all, Akang is still a place that I would go for decent char kuey tiaw

And then we discovered Kwetiau Kerang Singapore. Now, THIS is truly a serendipitous discovery. Hubs was coming back from a company meeting in Thailand on a Saturday morning. After picking him up at the airport close to lunch time, Hubs suggested why not lunch at Pluit since we were close by. Being so impromptu, I suddenly lacked ideas on where to go and somehow couldn't find any interesting place except Tabona in Pluit Sakti which we had already try the curry noodles.

Anyhow, we decided to head to Pluit Sakti first and then take it from there. Once there, Hubs saw Kwetiaw Kerang Singapore and read that they have very good char kuey tiaw from some blogs. So Kwetiaw Kerang Singapore it was. Despite its name, Kwetiau Kerang Singapore turned out to be a Chinese sit-down restaurant. Too tired and hungry to go anywhere, we ordered two dishes, a rice and their specialty kuey tiaw to share. While the other dishes were good, I didn't bother to take photos of those because the star is really the char kuey tiaw.

At first bite, both Hubs and me looked at each other and said, "Now, THIS stuff really taste like home." Indeed it was. Although the portion was small - only had baby cockles (seriously very baby sizes, but I'm ok with it because I'm not a big fan of blood cockcles) and few pieces of sliced-up fish balls, that plate of char kuey tiaw had enough "wok hei" to warrant me to order another plate after we finished our food. That's how deprived I was of char kuey tiaw.

Now what is wok hei? Wok hei (in Cantonese) literally translates as qi of the wok. Sounds very zen-nish but this wok hei is the essence of Chinese stir-fry and char kuey tiaw. It's high heat to cook the food in a few stirs of the spatula, and the dish comes up just to the right doneness. Even Kwetiau Akang cannot beat this Kwetiau Kerang Singapore.

Car jockey of a different sort

Every now and then, whenever I make a trip to the wet market in West Jakarta, it is common to see lines of people standing by the roadside, signing "1" with their index fingers. You get to see a lot of these folks especially on roads heading into the CBD area. These are the car jockeys of Jakarta.

In its effort to reduce the number of cars traveling into the CBD area during early morning and after-office rush hours, the local council has come up with this rule that each car needs to have 3 person per car, including the driver. Hence, a new business opportunity sprung up for the ever-entrepreneurial poor Indonesians trying to eke a living in this city.

I've heard about and seen the folks lining up the streets to make a living this way, but have never personally engaged the service of one. Until probably about few weeks ago, when I had to go into the CBD, just me and driver in the evening. Traffic was bad after we dropped Hubs off at Pacific Place, and it was drizzling fast. My driver told me that he needed to pick somebody up because of the rule. And there were hardly any jockeys in sight. I reckoned my driver must be thinking "Should he risk breaking the rule?" until we came upon this boy of probably the age of 11-12 years old.

My driver gestured to the boy to get his attention. And he saw us. We stopped the car and the boy hopped in quickly. And then we continued our journey into the CBD.  Just before we turned off into Plaza Grand Indonesia, my driver stopped the car, paid and dropped the boy off. I asked how much did that cost. My driver paid him Rp 20,000 (roughly RM 6).

I kinda felt sorry for the boy, for I hoped that it was enough for him to get back home. Or maybe he already had more than enough for his young age that day. One will never know. 

Eats: Fusion Italian @ Ocha Bella

My first visit to Ocha Bella is probably one year ago, for drinks at night. All of us had prior dinner elsewhere, which means there were only space for nibbles. Although my memory of that night was rather vague, but I recalled that the food was good.

I had the opportunity to visit Ocha Bella again came when one of Hubs's longtime friend visited and wanted to meet up for dinner on a Friday night. He was staying in Central Jakarta, so naturallly dinner has gotta be somewhere around there to avoid traffic jam. Ocha Bella has a sister restaurant that was opened recently at Plaza Indonesia. We initially wanted to go there but can't secure a table. And that's when Ocha Bella came up. Hubs made a call and we got our table! :)

After picking up Hubs's friend we adjourned to Ocha Bella which turned out to be very near where his friend was staying. Surprisingly, the place isn't as packed as I thought it would be, because most restaurants in Jakarta are almost always fully booked on Friday nights. It's hard to get a table if you walk-in with a group of 4 onwards and even if they are able to sit you in, you gotta vacate the table by 9ish onwards because of a preexisting booking.

Through some social events, Hubs got to know the executive chef of Ocha and he came over to say hi when we were finally seated at our table. He made some recommendations of their specialties, and we left it to him to whip up a selection of their specialty starters and a pizza to share. And as they say, the rest is history as we were immediately transported to gastronomic heaven when the food arrived.

For starters we had pan-seared scallop with some tomato garnish served individually on a potato chip, a sauteed dish of seasonal mushrooms, beef churrasco and pizza of tomato sauce, rocket, ham and mozzarella. The pizza was served last and when we saw all the starters with the pizza, all of us were left wondering if we can finish our mains. However, everything was yummy and with good company, we somehow managed to finish all of it. Regrettably I couldn''t taste the pizza because of my wheat allergy, but trust me I was so tempted to because it looked, smell and according to my fellow tasters, tasted delicious.

For mains, Hubs ordered the aglio olio with angel hair pasta, which according to him was awesome, while I had grilled pork chop that's marinated in a spicy tomato sauce. The pork chop was quite a thick cut but the marination was done very well in such that even the middle portion of the meat was bursting with flavour.

Hubs's friend brought along two of his friends and I requested permission of one to take a photo of her meal. I thought it was an interesting dish because it was baked spaghetti with assorted seafood in a tomato-based sauce. I probably would have ordered this, if it's not because of my wheat allergy. According to her, it was very delicious.

To end my meal, I ordered green ocha to help with the digestion of such an indulgent meal.Of course,  no Italian meal is complete with limoncello served at the end of the meal and I was pleasantly surprised when our waitress served up 5 glasses - compliments of the chef. And of course, I can't help but to take a picture of my final course that night, which I thought represented the restaurant very well. :)

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Ocha Bella
Jl. KH Wahid Hasyim No. 70
Kebon Sirih Menteng Jakarta Pusat

Eats: Cantonese Porridge @ Kamseng Jakarta

Kamseng is Hub's favourite. Even though I managed to convince him to try another restaurant  i.e. Bubur Kwang Tung, he still thinks Kamseng is the best. Probably he's right.

Kamseng is a chinese restaurant located near the Chinatown of Jakarta. I think one of the reason why Hubs adores Kamseng is because they serve pork, unlike Kwang Tung which is halal. Last weekend, I had some cravings for Cantonese porridge and suggested to Hubs "Let's go Kamseng." Certainly, no argument from Hubs. Lol!

I think majority of Chinese in Jakarta are Hokkiens. Why I says so is based on how the menus describe some of the ingredients. For example, when I glanced through Kamseng's menu, I saw this word "tito". My brain just can't compute how would somebody's name end up in a menu. Then I look at the Chinese description. It's actually pig stomach and the actual pronunciation of this in Hokkien is "tu tor". Finally comprehension! Another example is "hipyo" which is a phonetic spelling of fish maw.

Back to the food. No surprise what Hubs' ordered which was sliced pork porridge with egg, while I decided to try their prawn porridge. The prawn porridge wasn't my first choice. I wanted fish head porridge but they ran out on fish head. So prawn it was. Both were yummy, and the texture of the porridge is not too glob-by like how May Star (a chain of popular Chinese restaurant that's located mainly in shopping malls) serve theirs. Personally I prefer Kwang Tung porridge texture - it is a tad runnier than Kamseng, but don't think I wanna go back because I feel they put a lot of ajinomoto into their porridge.

The main attraction at Kamseng is really their Cantonese porridge but you can order various small dishes ala like eating Teochew porridge to go with the porridge. Normally, Hubs would order a small dish of steamed minced pork with duck egg yolk, but we decided to try something else which is braised pork trotters. Unfortunately ran out again! So we ordered braised samchan (local lingo for 3-layer pork) and it was pretty good. The braising liquid is really yummy.

Kamseng is currently undergoing renovation but they are still open for business. An added pluspoint of this place is that it is 24 hours. Whenever Hubs has friends from KL over, late night clubbings always invariably end up with a steaming porridge at Kamseng to clear up the alcohol. Maybe that's why they seems to run out of this and that. LOL!

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Kamseng Chinese Restaurant
Jalan Mangga Besar 1 No. 26
Jakarta Barat, DKI Jakarta 11180