The Immigrant Dining Room

Finally a post after almost two months!  Been very busy with work and life stuffs, I literally don't have time to write a single post or two. I have tons of pictures waiting to be edited and reviewed, but for now let's start with the one I love the most, the new hippest place in town: The Immigrant Dining Room.

 Everybody probably knows Immigrant as their favourite nightlife destinations, but not everybody knows that after renovating for months, Immigrant is reopening with a new concept. The Immigrant Dining room is the restaurant, and as their tagline said, it is the place "where deals get signed and the rumors begin". And don't worry, the club area will be reopening soon! ;p

 Interior wise, I love love how they designed the place. They combined exquisite and earthy materials to amplify the cool yet cozy mood and encourage the guests to relax and chill. I could picture myself sitting all day at that leather sofa, just chilling and having light conversations with my best girls.

But as a dining room, of course food is the most important. So here they are:

 Caesar Salad (IDR 75.000)

You know I'm not a big fan of salad. But this salad has probably changed me. Romaine lettuce, anchovy, crispy beef bacon, poached egg, parmesan & croutons, love every bite of it! Haha I might love it because the grilled chicken is big and thick and good, but all the other ingredients also blended well together. I couldn't believe I almost finish this huge bowl of salad by myself.

 Forest Mushrooms (IDR 45.000)

Portobello, porcini, button,black truffle mushrooms with parmesan and thyme foam. Soft, creamy, and it has quite strong taste of mushrooms. Nice appetizer to start your meal.

 Tea-Smoked Salmon Omelete (IDR 90.000)

Tea-smoked salmon, garlic sautéed mushrooms, roasted baby tomatoes and lemon fraîche over the boat-shaped omelete. Such a unique presentation! The omelete itself was not as fluffy as the usual omelette. It's more like soft and dense, but in a good way. The topping came in big fat chunks, as you can see in the picture, and all taste nice.

 Grandma's Cannelloni (IDR 80.000)

Might not be the most photogenic dish of the day, but I find this to be one of my favorite. If you love creamy and cheesy dish as much as I do (which is so damn much), then this one is the right dish for you. Oven-baked cannelloni pasta with chicken, mushroom, garlic, spinach, and mozzarella served with wood-smoked tomato puree and bechamel gratin.

 Wagyu Beef Burger (IDR 140.000)

Grilled patty of Australian wagyu beef, tomato chutney, jalapenos, cornichon and mozzarella gratin served with leaf salad and chunky potato fries. I think the picture said enough. Just look at that thick and juicy beef patty! One of the best burgers I've ever had, I must say.

 

GTO (IDR 98.000)

 Gin, triple sec, orange, grape, lemon, lime, and grape fruit. This cocktail looks milky and creamy, but it's not actually. You could taste hint of sourness when you take a sip. I think this one is perfect for a lady.

Sangria Blanca (IDR 98.000)

Well because I'm not too lady-like, I prefer this one: Sangria Blanca. I've always had a thing for sangria, the combination of white wine and fresh fruits tasted so refreshing!

 

 Varlhona Dark Chocolate (IDR 65.000)

Desserts are what we always looking for after having a nice meal. And choco lava cake could never fail me, especially when it's made of varlhona bar! Perfect dessert to end our lunch that day.

Bread and Butter Pudding (IDR 65.000)

Well another well-made dessert from Immigrant. Soft textured oven baked bread pudding served with vanilla ice cream. I'd still prefer the choco lava though, but my sister loved this so much.

If what I wrote above hasn't give you enough hint, let me say it out loud: Well done Immigrant! Great place, great food, great service. Loving my dining experience here so much. Would definitely be back in no time. And thanks Cynthia for having me here :D

The Immigrant Dining Room
Plaza Indonesia, 6th Floor (next to Plaza Indonesia XXI)
JL. MH. Thamrin Kav. 28 - 30
Ph: +6221 2992 4125 / +62 812 9930 0099

Laughing Stock Steak & Seafood Grill

Last week, I got an opportunity to taste the food of Laughing Stock Steak and Seafood Grill, a new restaurant in Cipete area. Before you start reading, I have to warn you that this post will be a long post containing lots of foodporn, and I will not take any responsibility for the drooling consequences, so read at your own risk :p Oh but I hope if you decided to read, please read it till the end, because I'm saving the best part for the last.

Located at the foodie street Jl. Cipete Raya, Laughing Stock looks pretty humble from the outside but it is warm and comfortable at the inside. The two-storeyed shophouses is designed with lots of bricks and concrete element to create the industrial look, yet provided warm sofas and bright sun light to make you comfortable. My favourite spot is the colorful Scandinavian sofas by the window at the second floor, you should aim for it right away!

Sharing a little background of the restaurant, Laughing Stock is a family business started by Mrs Febri, for her love of food. She loves cooking since she was young, and she and her family love having people eating her food. Having her own restaurant has been her dream since a long time. At first they tried franchising a quite famous restaurant, Seruput, and now that they've already got the experience and knowledge about restaurant business, they finally opened Laughing Stock for public this late January 2014. 

The food they served here is mainly grilled seafood and steak, as the name said, but they also provide all-day breakfast and Indonesian food. They also served limited choices of milkshakes and desserts, well for me I think milkshakes are too heavy to accompany a heavy meal such as steak, but their desserts are definitely must-try.

Chicken Mayo Bruschetta 

Chicken Mayo Bruschetta is one of their new appetizer menu, basically there are four slices of crunchy French breads topped with fresh shredded lettuce and chicken and corn mayo. A fresh and light dish to start our lunch.

Oxtail Balado (IDR 110.000)

Fried AUS Oxtail in Balado style, served with steamed white rice, pickled vegetables, soup, and crackers. To be honest I wasn't a big fan of oxtail and spicy food at the beginning, so I doubted this dish would be suitable for my liking. But it is! The oxtail was perfectly tender and the balado chilli was hot, but deliciously hot that I fell in love with it instantly. The soup was also light and savory. Dip your crackers in the soup, and eat it together with the rice and balado oxtail, yummm! 

(Psst, people said that the Oxtail Balado here are even better than Hotel Borobudur's! Curious?)

Pan Fried Salmon (IDR 120.000)

Pan Fried Norwegian Trout in miso broth served with baby tomatoes, baby potatoes, spinach, enoki mushrooms, and ginger flakes. It is another dish that has hooked me at the first bite. The combination of the perfectly crisped skin salmon fried together with spinach, enoki mushrooms, and miso broth are amazingly well balanced and delicious. Very light and healthy, yet addictive and contagious.

US Hanger Steak (IDR 110.000)

Seared 200 gr US Hanger Steak served with caramelized onions, mashed potatoes, sauteed vegetables, and Beef Jus Sauce. Hanger is a part of the plate section of the cow, which is also known at butcher's steak. There is only 400-650 grams of hanger meat in a cow, and the meat is very tender, that the butchers usually keep it for themselves instead of selling it. But here in Laughing Stock you can try the Hanger Steak, even better, it is served with Laughing Stock's special sauce, the Beef Jus. Beef Jus (or Au Jus) sauce is made of beef broth and wine reduction. The texture is kinda watery, it tasted light yet rich and a little sweet. I really love the outcome when you eat the steak with the sauce, caramelized onion, and mashed potatoes together. Totally the best main course of the day!

Surf and Turf (IDR 175.000)

Grilled Rib Eye Steak topped with fresh seafood in garlic and herbs butter served with mashed potatoes or French fries and asparagus. It is the dish for people who doesn't like monotonous food. By ordering this, you could have a huge steak together with fresh grilled prawns, sauteed squids, and battered-fried dory fish. Overall it is a nice dish, liked the salty and garlicky sauce, but for me the amount is too little for a steak that big, since I love to have my steak eaten with sauces. Oh and I have to give credit to the presentation! It's really artsy, beautiful, and unique, isn't it? The most photogenic food of the day, haha.

Grilled Maine Whole Lobster (IDR 250.000)

This was supposed to be the highlight of the day. Grilled Maine Whole Loster in garlic butter seasoning, served with sauteed vegetables and choice of shoestring french fries, mashed potatoes, or rice pilaf. Unfortunately, this lobster was not as fresh as I expected. It's not fishy, but the texture is kinda soft, it didn't have the seafood-ly crunchy texture, if you know what I mean. It would be much more delicious if the lobster was just a little bit fresher, since the seasoning was great and having pilaf rice as the side dish is a perfect choice.

Uncle Romy's Hotplate Chocolate Brownies (IDR 55.000)

Homemade dark chocolate brownies served with vanilla ice cream and dark chocolate sauce. This restaurant's favorite dessert was named after Mrs. Febri's husband, Mr. Romy. He loves chocolate so much that he ask Mrs. Febri to create a chocolate dessert dish at Laughing Stock, so it is named after him. This dish looks like no other, at first it is a simple chocolate brownies topped with vanilla ice cream, once you start pouring the chocolate sauce, it will start boiling and create the hot-and-cold sensation to the dish. Such a creative and unique dessert, this might be the next IT dessert on instagram. lol.

Apple Crumble (IDR 55.000)

This is the reason why I told you earlier to read till the end. The new creation of Laughing Stock, warm caramelized apple served with cookie crumble, vanilla ice cream, and white sauce. After I took a bite of this, I literally raised my eyeballs and told the others that this is really good! Apple is cinnamonly sweet and has the perfect texture, and the crumble is not just like any other cookie crumble. It's really crunchy like it's covered with sugar, but it is not sweet, so I don't know what they did to the crumble to make it that good. Take a bite of it with the vanilla ice cream and the rum-scented white sauce, and that's heaven in your mouth. Like, seriously.

(FYI, this apple crumble is Mrs. Febri's new creation that will be launched with some other new dishes on April, so you wouldn't find it on the menu, but you can ask the waiter directly if you want to order this)

At the end of the post I know I seems like praising this place so much, so I'm going to tell you that this is NOT an advertorial post, and I didn't receive any payment for posting this. This was just like another food tasting, but I really love the restaurant, they've got amazing food with beautiful presentation and lovely taste, comfortable seatings, and natural daylight to help me capturing the food better. The only thing I regret is the fact that Cipete is far from my house, and the traffic is mad.

Lastly, thank you Mrs. Febri, Norwin, and family for hosting such a nice food tasting session. Please do wait for my next visit :D :D

Laughing Steak Steak and Seafood Grill 

Jl. Cipete Raya no. 7BC

Jakarta Selatan

Ph. (021) 7591 3285/86

t. @LaughingStockID

Johnny Rockets

Another American burger chain has opened in Jakarta recently. They've opened two branch in Jakarta, and the one I tried is their PIM Branch. The place was not too big, the interior was taking the concept of classic American diner. They've got red diner seats, checkered floor, and even the music jukebox. Pretty much similar as what you've seen on TV.

The food they served are mostly burgers and sandwiches. For a fast food chain restaurant, I think the food was kinda overpriced, since the burger price starts at IDR 80.000 before tax and service. Anyway, here's what I had.

Philly Cheese Steak (IDR 84.000)

Thinly sliced sirloin steak grilled to perfection and topped with grilled onions and cheese, served on hoagie roll. It was really good at my first bite, all the elements blended well, perfect seasoning, and I especially LOVE that hoagie roll. It was warm, soft, a lil bit sweet, yum! Even though the picture shows a lot of onions, there's actually also a generous amount of steak behind them. But at my latest bite, I was getting overwhelmed by the cheese. Oh, it also came with generous amount of French Fries, and they were fat and thick and good.

Chocolate Milk Shake (IDR 50.000)

In the other hand, I found this Chocolate Milk Shake waaay too sweet. While I was getting overwhelmed by the cheese, drinking this made it even worse. Oh I knew I should just order soda. 

So will I be back? Well actually the food was good and service was fast and polite, but with that price, I'm not sure. I spent more than 150k for the two items above after tax and service, and they are fast food. Credit card discount, pretty please? ;p

Johnny Rockets
Pondok Indah Mall 
Street Gallery,2nd Floor No.204B 
Jl. Metro Pondok Indah Blok 111B 
Jakarta Selatan 12310 
ph. (021) 29529757-59
fb. Johnny Rockets Indonesia

also available at:
Lotte Shopping Avenue 3rd floor
Jakarta

Beachwalk Space L1-C1
Bali

Locale 24

Locale 24 is a new restaurant joint which just opened recently in Pantai Indah Kapuk. Being a regular at Pantai Indah Kapuk area, I've already attracted to this mysterious green bus even when it was still under construction. Now that it is on business, I was beyond excited to visit it yesterday for a late lunch.

Having the green bus as their facade is a brilliant idea to attract customers and make it stood out among the other restaurants around. Well at least for me, seeing a cute restaurant like this, I have that urge to pay it a visit and have a nice lunch inside at a table by the window (pardon me and my weird urgency). Too bad that time all the table by the window was occupied, so I have to stick with the accustomed restaurant interior. The interior was more simple, the green and white colors still dominating the ambience.

The choices of food was not too much and to be honest it was not tempting for me. No pictures, no description for most of the food, and some of the selections was too ordinary. Well but that was just my opinion, who knows if they could pull out something special out of ordinary dishes? So here's what we had there.

Appetizer Platter (IDR 46.000)

It was one of a few dishes that comes with description, so we decided to have it. The platter consists Potato Wedges, Fish Fingers, Chicken Wings, and Nachos, also comes with BBQ Sauce for the chicken wings and Tartar Sauce for the fish fingers. Overall it was a decent plate, I really love the seasoning on the potato wedges and the sauces. Portion was also satisfying. But the nachos comes with grated cheddar cheese topping, and I think I still prefer Mozzarella on my nachos.

Country Fried Steak and Milk Gravy (IDR 42.000)

You can choose the steak between chicken and beef, and I went for beef, simply because they came in the same price (HAHA). Again, portion was generous. The seasoning on the steak was nice, but the milk gravy tasted kinda too milky that it's getting overwhelming at some point. And they need to work on something for the sides, pretty sure that were just lazy frozen french fries and frozen vegetables with mayo. I don't mind smaller portion if the sides compliment it better.

Overall I think this restaurant has potential, looking at it's creative concept and the affordable pricing. But a slight improvement on the menu and dishes could do them much better. Oh and have I mentioned that they open 24/7?

Locale 24 Diner & Bar 

Rukan Garden House Blok B 10-11

Pantai Indah Kapuk

North Jakarta

Ph. +6221 29033162

Union

Meet the first and still the most wanted red velvet in Jakarta. Since it's first appearance on mid-2011 until this very moment where red velvet can be found easily anywhere (even BreadTalk is now serving this cake), Union's still remains to be my (and maybe everyone's) favourite. Four layers of  moist chocolate based cake, cream cheese frosting, and crunchy caramelized nut topping at the price of IDR 50.000. Heaven!

The fact is, even though I've had Union's red velvet for countless times, this was my first time dining in. Usually I won't bother waiting, I'll just take away the cake and eat it at home. But this time we waited 40 minutes just to got seated. Luckily we don't have to wait in boredom. We just have to register our name and leave our phone number at the front desk, and they'll call us when the table's ready. Meanwhile, we can do the shopping ;p

At first we only planned to have dessert, since we've had our lunch before, but in the end, we also ordered a plate of Calamari (IDR 75.000). Portion was very generous, too much for two people. It tasted good, love the tomato sauce.

Service was very satisfying. The waiter were friendly and polite. One tips, if you're not a smoker, came here before 3 PM. 

UNION

Plaza Senayan Courtyard, Ground Floor 

(Inside SOGO Dept. Store)

Jl. Asia Afrika no.8 

Jakarta, Indonesia

ph. +6221 5790 5861-62

f. UNION Jakarta