Blinded @ Blind Pig

It was one of those midweek-get-together-to-get-through-the-week that saw us heading to Blind Pig at Legaspi Village. 

Hubby and I were early because we wanted to get dinner first and thought we could do that at Blind Pig. But as it turns out, Blind Pig is a prohibition-esque bar with light nibbles, so we head over to Stockton Place next door. 

After dinner, we headed back to Blind Pig to joine our friends. To be honest, I really like Blind Pig's idea - like we were off to some clandestine rendezvous. And the entrance to bar fits the whole theme excellently. There's no signage to say that this place is Blind Pig. The only identifier is a Braille brass plaque on the wall. To get in, we have to knock on the door (such a shame there wasn't a secret knock) and the waiter/waitress will open it to let you in. 

It was a very small place and very dimly lit. Once shown to our place, and the waitress handed us the menu, which also laid out the bar etiquettes. It mainly has speakeasy cocktails, but that's not really our poison, so we had whiskey instead. 

The shocker came when we asked for our bill. For 3 whiskey between the two of us (hubby had 1 Hibiki 12 years and I had 2 Laphroaig quarter cask), the bill came up to Php 3300 excluding taxes! 

When I related my experience to another girlfriend, she said the drinks Blind Pig are expensive and she has been there once but hasn't been back since. Maybe it is part of their strategy to keep the clientele exclusive. I don't know. 

One thing for sure, it is living up to its name (pun intended). 

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. 

Now that's what I call customer service!

Just before Christmas last year, while window shopping at Borders @ the Curve, I stumbled across Chef Michael Smith cookbook. Now he is one chef whose show I love to watch. A lot. Because he made cooking looked so simple and easy. And I love how he talked the viewers through, in his easy-going and laid-back manner. And most of all - I love his walk-in pantry. Rows after rows of dried herbs and ingredients that's so easy to look and reach out for. That is my homemaker's ambition - to have a walk-in pantry like that. LOL!

Anyway, since I love his show so much, I also told myself that if Chef Michael ever publish any cookbook that I can easily get my hands on, I'm gonna buy it. So imagine my delight when I saw the cookbook in Borders. But it's all wrapped up in clear plastic. So off I trotted to the service counter and asked for assistance/permission to take a look inside.

The guy who served me, I would say I'm really really impressed by his customer service. He's a Malay chap, really really chatty and with a quirky demeanour to hoot! Come to think of it, his demeanour actually reminded me of Harith Iskandar. So he started asking me who's this chef and la, la, la... And I went into how much I love Chef Michael's show and his walk-in pantry. He also asked me if I'm a serious buyer of the book. I said I would like to take a look before deciding. He opened the wrappers anyway and told me that if I decided not to buy, just leave the book back at the service counter.

After browsing through, I was 50/50 on whether to buy or not. But I guess I fell for the friendly customer service that I received and decided Heck! Just buy it la. When I was paying for the book, again more small talk, and he asked me if I have Borders loyalty card. I said I wasn't sure, went flipping through my purse and his sharp eyes saw it before me and help me to fish it out. And then he made extra care to deactivate any sensors in the book. I mentioned in passing that as I was coming into Border earlier, my shopping may have a sensor that triggered the alarm. He went the extra mile and offered to deactivate it for me. But somehow there wasn't any hidden in my shopping.

He then asked could it be my bag? I didn't think so but handed it over to him to deactivate it. And to my surprise it was my bag. When he handed back my bag to me, I looked thoroughly inside to search for the sensor strip but just cannot find it. It was so weird! Until today. Apparently it was hidden in my purse all this while. 

ITC Kuningan and outlet shopping @ Mal Ambassador

Over last year's year-end holiday season, I got introduced to two new shopping destinations. And I really mean SHOPPING DESTINATIONS. They are ITC Kuningan and it's next door neighbour, Mal Ambassador.

All over Jakarta, you have these kinda of local malls called ITC which stands for International Trade Center. These ITC are rather similar to Sg. Wang shopping center in KL, which has a lot of small, independent stores selling clothes, children clothes, shoes, bags, fashion accessories, pirated DVDs, beddings, baby items, batiks, just to name a few.

However the ones in ITC Kuningan/Mal Ambassador stood out. Why? When Hub's childhood friend who was visiting her hubby wanted to go to these places and said that she read off the internet that there are fashion outlets at these places, I was a bit skeptical. ITC? Because so far the ones I've been to before were rather dismal. However, with a sense of adventure, I went along with her and her two kids.

When we reached there, as usual, the ground floor of these places seems to be filled with pirated DVDs. And as always none of us can resist buying them. After the courtesy rounds, we begun to explore. And I'm lost in shopping paradise. See my stashes below. ;p

Some shirts I bought for Hubs

These are for Me!

Unbranded skirt for me again! ;p

Fashion accessories galore!

Hugo shirts for my dad's christmas pressie!

Both these places has quite a fair bit of fashion outlets for adults and children alike, located on the ground floor of ITC Kuningan, and also 1st floor (Premium) and 5th floor (Passport) of Mal Ambassador. According to my friend who bought for her kids, generally they were lots of jeans, dresses and t-shirts in the likes of Guess, Burberry and Gap. For adults, what I've seen are Nike, Burberry, Hugo, Bebe, Superdry, Fred Perry and some H&M.

Some may asked "are these real?" To be honest, I really don't know. But my policy of shopping for these items here in Jakarta or even in Bandung, is to touch/feel and see for myself the texture and quality of the cloth. If they are decent, then I would buy them. And based on my experience so far, they are pretty good quality. Bandung, a neighbouring city has always been known for its outlet shopping. But the journey to which takes 2 hours can stretch up to 5 hours when coming back, especially on Fridays and weekends, due to what else but traffic! Definitely will be back from time to time!

Papaya Japanese Grocer @ Jln Melawai, Blok M

I have heard so much of Blok M, specifically Jl. Melawai being the "Little Tokyo" of Jakarta. We decided to pop over for a look-see when I found out that a friend of Hubs was running a sample booth for Huon Salmon at Papaya, a Japanese grocer located at the corner of Jl. Melawai.

The moment I step into Papaya, I felt like I was in Japan. Everything is neatly displayed, fresh food items hygienically packed in white styrofoam and wrapped with cling film, and rows after rows of imported Japanese groceries and household items. And the place was packed in Japanese expats, stocking up their weekly groceries.

And little wonder, because the quality of the fresh food is really one of the better ones I've seen, besides Ranch Market in Pondok Indah and Lotte Mart in Gandaria City.

Papaya also has a selection of cooked Japanese food items and salad, which seems to be very popular with the local Japanese community.

And they have a bakery as well, which smell and look ABSOLUTELY DIVINE! When I saw the selection of breads and buns, I half-jokingly asked Hubs if I can load myself up with tonnes of antihistamines and oral prednisolone to keep my wheat allergy at bay to savour some of these wheat-y goodness.

And judging from the queue to pay for the bakery items, I reckon it would have been worth it! LOL!

Trying out Blue Bird Group Apps

I finally tried out the Blue Bird apps today, to order a taxi for a friend and myself for our little excursion to Plaza Grand Indonesia, with a little bit of hints from Hubs. Hubs had to take a taxi to work this morning and decided to order a Blue Bird last night. When he got into the taxi this morning, he messaged me that the apps worked fine and told me to try it out.

The apps only work if you have a local Indonesian number and they inform you as well, once you have downloaded the apps. There were a few preliminary steps that I had to go through, which involves setting up my account with them, key in my mobile number to which they sent a verification code to and I'm ready to go.

As you can see at the bottom left hand corner, there's an "Order" icon to order my taxi. Once I keyed in the necessary address, date and time of pick-up, a confirmation notice was sent instantaneously to my phone.  When I pressed the "Tracking" icon, I saw my order status as "In The Queue"

Just about half an hour before pick-up time, another notification (below) was sent to my phone, informing that the taxi and its ID has been dispatched.

As you can see below, the status has changed to "On The Way" and a little car icon has appeared next to the designated pick-up location. 

At about 15 minutes to 11am, I went down to the lobby but didn't see my taxi. I called Hubs to cross-check what he did this morning, and he told me to ask the lobby receptionist if my taxi has arrived. A phone call to the security post revealed that my taxi has arrived and was waiting outside. Finally, taxi came into the compound and we got into the taxi alright! And oh yeah, I also saw that the ID of the taxi was also visibly pasted on the dashboard above the glove compartment so that passengers can cross-check that they got into the correct taxi. Awesome!

The Birds of Jakarta

A very reliable way to get around Jakarta is via the Blue Bird Taxi Group. With Blue Bird, one hardly goes wrong. Drivers are courteous, they apologize if they accidentally took a wrong turn and had to make a longer route (happened to me!) and all major shopping malls in Jakarta usually have a dedicated queue for Blue Bird taxis.

For economy prices, go for the blue color taxis. I remembered once I decided to fly into Jakarta quietly without telling Hubs, with the intention to surprise him. That was really my first time of taking a public transport over here. As soon as I exited the airport, I feverishly searched for the turquoise blue bird logo. At the airport, hailing a taxi can be chaotic. And if you don't keep your wits around you, you may end up with a less reliable taxi service. I nearly got touted but stood my ground and insisted my blue bird. Phew! Close call...

If you have a bit more cash to spare, there's the executive class called Silver Bird. These taxis are almost exclusively Mercedes Benz. And they go back black colour with white "Silver Bird" wording. Pretty executive I would say. Price-wise, slightly more premium, but I don't think it's a lot. Maybe after USD, it's probably few bucks more premium that the blue ones. Personally, I have not sit in any of these, but I heard some of the drivers can speak some English. So not too bad a way to travel, if you need some local commentary. 

I have also found out pretty recently that Blue Bird group have apps supported by iPhone and Android for you to order your taxi. I have since downloaded it for just-in-case, but have not personally experience its reliability. But from what I heard, it was quite ok.

And this is one sure way to travel.  What happens when you need a big people carrier? Well fret not, coz Blue Bird has just the solution. Say Hello to Big Bird! :))

Kopi Luwak Reeducated

Last Thursday, I was lucky enough to tag along Hubs to meet up with his friend to understand more about kopi luwak supply here in Indonesia. This friend i.e. Pak B. was the same person whom we bought our first packet of kopi luwak from.

After braving the usual traffic congestion (what else?!) we finally made it to the meeting point, which was Pak's office-cum-cafe for potential business contacts to taste coffee samples. After the usual pleasantries, we finally got down to some kopi luwak tasting session. Me likey! :)

And so here they are. First up is kopi luwak robusta beans. I didn't realise that they classify them to this extent. My previous understanding of kopi luwak was just well.. kopi luwak - where coffee beans are just fed to the civet for them to be "processed" by the digestive juices of the civet to get that special taste that is kopi luwak. Personally I didn't quite like this. It had a kinda flat/neutral with a slight burnt taste to it. In fact, it reminded me of the Vietnamese weasel coffee that Hubs bought previously, which unfortunately we still have 4 packets sitting in the kitchen and nobody knows what to do with it. So probably the Vietnamese ones were produced using robusta beans.

And since we have kopi luwak robusta, we definitely must have kopi luwak arabica right? So here it is, and it had a very contrasting difference in taste compared to the robusta brew. It's difficult to describe exactly how it taste like but the arabica brew had a rounded taste that's both rich and delicate and definitely smooth and mellow. I took out my camera to snap both cups of coffee with flash just for fun and noted a difference in the colour of the brew. With the arabica - it was a clear brown liquid while with the robusta i was almost black. You can see it at the edge of the coffee cup, indicated by the yellow arrows.

Pak B also showed a few samples of the dried up kopi luwak beans. Ta-da...

It definitely looked a lot more processed compared to the ones I've seen in the farm in Bali. According to Pak, the civets are very picky eaters. Of course, these days we are talking about farmed kopi luwak for hygienic processing purposes. Once the berries are picked, they have to be served up fresh to the civets. And these peculiar animals will only eat the freshest (maybe in their taste buds, the highest quality) berries. If the berries are set aside overnight or even a couple of hours - sorry, it's reject goods.

I reckon this is probably the novelty surrounding kopi luwak - that these cats"pick" out the freshest beans that produce what is probably known as the most expensive coffee in the world.

Up up and away @ Skye Bar Jakarta

Skye Bar is the latest F&B outlet from the Ismaya group. As the name suggest, it is situated on the 56th floor of Menara BCA at where Plaza Grand Indonesia Shopping Town is. We came here sometime in July this year, to meet up with Hubs's cousin and a few of cousin's friends.

We were there around 4pm on a public holiday and the bar area is already packed, with all tables fully booked. Jakartans are very hang-out folks - every new and happenin' cafe/bar/restaurants are usually packed to the brim in the first few months of opening. And Skye Bar is not exempted.

We end up sitting along the walkway like some of these folks in this picture, with a foldable small table open up for us to "mark" our territory! Lol!

 It's no brainer why Skye Bar is HUGELY popular at this moment. On a clear day (which is a rarity in Jakarta), it offers a beautiful skycraper view of the CBD area. It wasn't very clear that day we went. And this was the best I could do with my camera.

 Some night view of the city skyline...

And how the bar area looks like at night...

We had dinner at the restaurant as well. The main meals were pretty good but I thought that the desserts were unusual and memorable. I had the "Pineapple Nachos" where cubes of roasted spiced pineapple were tossed with pineapple marshmallow and chocolate coated nachos, and finished off with mint anglaise and coriander. I enjoyed my dessert, a surprise for me-self because i'm not a dessert person. The dessert just somehow comes together really well although individually they were rather odd. Another friend ordered the "Tape Creme Brulee" which is tapai of casava with palm sugar anglaise on the side. I had a taste of this and it too was very creamy and yummy!  Too bad no pictures of the food because the ones I took using Hubs's iPhone were accidentally deleted by him before I could download them. 

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SKYE Bar Jakarta
Menara BCA - 56th Floor
Jl. M.H. Thamrin No.1, Jakarta

Here comes the ambulance... NOT!

Had a really funny encounter on the road yesterday morning. Just as we were about to enter a tunnel with heavy 2-way traffic while on the way to Hub's office, I heard a yelp siren in the distance. Immediately in my mind, I was thinking "How on earth is the poor driver going to maneuver our car to the side and allow the ambulance to pass through in such heavy traffic and limited space? This is a must-watch!"

And so I waited as the siren got closer and closer. As I heard the siren passing by our car, I looked out and LO and BEHOLD!

It was an ordinary citizen on his scrambler that was fixed with a yelp siren and the hazard lights a-blinking!

And I blinked stupefyingly.

There was a short moment of silence between Hubs and me before I commented "I seriously thought an ambulance was on its way and was wondering how is Sumiran going to let it through in that tunnel!" And we both laughed.

"Well that's Jakarta for you," was Hub's comeback.

Indeed.

Travellin' with cold chain

OK.. this is a first. I'm heading back to Jakarta tomorrow and will be hand-carrying some pretty important meds on cold chain. These were prescribed to me last week and have to be kept cool between 2 - 8 Celcius for optimal activity. Even when I left the clinic to head home after the doctor's visit, the nurses gave me a cooler bag with 3 dry ice packs to ensure that the meds are kept cool at all times. I have to start self-administer these meds in 4 days time while in Jakarta and my doctor had provided me a Customs clearance letter to explain that these meds are for me. Exciting times ahead!

Of robbers and muggers...

Last week, I had a sense of dread knowing that I was due to fly back to KL. Apart from another bout of separation from Hubs, it is knowing that I'm coming back to a land of crimes and daylight mugging that worries me. I don't even need to read online Malaysian newspapers to know who's the latest victim and the where, when and how it happened. Thanks to social media, I get to know what's going on in streets of KL on Facebook. In fact a family friend even added me to a social group created by a concerned FB-er to raise citizen awareness about the rising crime rates and what Malaysians can do. Just one click of the mouse and all the happenings are posted here!

But jokes aside, it is extremely unsafe for single females in KL these days. Just couple of nights ago, a new friend that I just made got mugged at the traffic lights in Bangsar. Her car window was smashed and the perpetrator robbed her of her bag and personal belonging which was placed on the front passenger seat. When the news came to me at midnight, I was thinking "this is getting way too close for comfort"

I can't help but to reflect on what happened to me that same day but earlier in the evening, when I flew into KL. While waiting for my friend to come and pick me at LCC terminal for Air Asia flights, I casually rested my handbag on top of my cabin-sized luggage and was holding on to the push-up handle. I was just keeping a lookout for my friend's car when I felt the need to shift my attention to this 50s looking thin Indian man walking intently towards me. Instinctively I grab my handbag and continued looking at him. At the same time, as he walked past me, with a glare in his eyes, his right hand swinged out and flicked away his ciggie butt which flew past in front of me.

I can't imagine what would happen had I not grab my bag. Because the glare he gave, made me uncomfortable and of all places, why did he need to flick away his ciggie butt right in front of me. Just too many coincidences that feels downright uncomfortable.

So be really aware of your surroundings especially in the streets of KL these days!

Eats: Cafe Batavia @ Kota Lama Jakarta

Cafe Batavia is really one of those "must dos" of Jakarta. Located in the Kota Lama (i.e. Old City) square of Jakarta,  stepping into Cafe Batavia instantly transport the visitor into the distant past. Food verdict is fair and probably the best bet if you are in the area. Personally, I have been there twice, just to soak in the colonial ambience. Oh! and I forgot to mention, the toilets are worth a visit! ;)

Cafe Batavia @ Kota Lama

The sun parlor before entering the cafe

 

 Ground floor drawing room - lovely for afternoon get-togethers!

Eclectic collection of pictures and unique decor that exude the distant past.

Grand salon dining area on first floor. Reminded me of old Hollywood glam

 

 On the left: dining menu that doubles up as picture frame. On the right: brunch menu

Sampler of food that we have tried so far. Left: scrambled eggs with asparagus. Middle: Eggs benedict with smoked salmon. Right: Nasi uduk, a type of traditional Indonesian breakfast.

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Cafe Batavia

Taman Fatahillah  Jakarta, Indonesia