New Dessert Creations at Mandarin Oriental Cake Shop

For me, the name of Mandarin Oriental Cake Shop began to be heard often since last July, when they became the first cake shop in Jakarta who serves the famous CRONUTS! From back then until now, the Mandarin Oriental's cronuts still remains as one of the best cronuts in Jakarta, and now they also create more variants of cronuts.

And not only cronuts. Now that their pastry chef, Chef Wita Girawati, has completed an intensive training at LeNotre Culinary Institutes in Paris, she and her team has created the hotel's new dessert menu that will be offered at the famous Mandarin Oriental Cake Shop. And last week, I happened to be so lucky to be one of the first people to taste her new dessert creations.

The food tasting session was held in Cinnamon, Mandarin Oriental's buffet restaurant which is also connected with the Mandarin Oriental Cake Shop. The restaurant was facing the garden, it was warmly light and quite cozy. At the center of the restaurant, there's this huge dessert table, offering us not only the new dessert creations, but also their favourite and best sellers too.

The new dessert menu itself is ranging from the high end desserts to some innovative eclairs and handmade chocolates. Most of them are served in the Individual Portion at the price at IDR 50.000 and Whole Cake which starts from IDR 340.000. The portion they served us that day was actually the bite-sized portion, it's smaller than the Individual Portion. They made it special for this occasion, because there were so many desserts to taste.

Caramel and Apple Tart

Caramel chiboust cream with caramelized apple on the top of almond crust tart. Creamy, crunchy, and sweet. It was such a lovely dessert. Love the texture play and it has the perfect sweetness that match my tastebud.

Piemonte Hazelnut Cake 

Chocolate caramel mousse cake with hazelnut bavaroise on hazelnut biscuit. Presentation wise it was such a beauty. Got tempted immediately by the look of it, both the bite sized and the whole cake. But too bad I'm can't handle too much chocolate mousse. It was so good at the first bite, but at the end I'm getting overwhelmed by the creaminess and sweetness. It might be a good choice if you are a chocolate person though.

Alliance Apricot

Apricot and mascarpone mousse with sable breton biscuit. Now this is more suitable for me. Even though it's a mousse, it has the tangy taste from the apricot so it's not overwhelming for me. I was expecting hard and crunchy biscuit at the bottom and found out that the sable breton biscuit was actually kinda soft, but it actually tasted good together with the mousse at it's top.

Matcha Goma Cake 

Layers of white chocolate mousse, green tea biscuit, and sesame seed jelly. Another decent cake with strong green tea taste. 

Other than the whole cakes, there are also eclairs, lime and raspberry macaroon, cassava cake, and of course their famous cronuts. All of them were so lovely that I'm getting sugar high! Never eaten that many desserts at one time before in my life.

Anyway, to enjoy their lovely dessert, you can simply drop by to the Mandarin Oriental Cake Shop, or enjoy the Afternoon Tea Package at Cinnamon. For IDR 130.000+, you can enjoy one of this high tea package.

Classic High Tea

Assortment of finger sandwiches (egg, smoked salmon with cream cheese, cucumber)

Home baked scones served with strawberry jam and clotted cream

American chocolate cake, tiramisu cake, and strawberry tart

Oriental High Tea

Basket of dim sum with char siew chicken bun

Prawn and siew mai dumplings with chilli sauce

Indonesian kue klepon, lapis legit, and banana cakes

Wait no more and get your sugar fix at Mandarin Oriental Cake Shop now! 

Mandarin Oriental Cake Shop

Jl. MH Thamrin 

Jakarta 10310

ph. (021) 2993 8889

fb. Mandarin Oriental Jakarta

Bacchus Bar at InterContinental MidPlaza Hotel

Bacchus Bar is one of the restaurant at InterContinental MidPlaza Hotel that specializes at Asian Food. Last Thursday, I was honoured to get the opportunity to enjoy Lunch at Bacchus Bar.

Located at the Lower Ground Floor of the building, the venue itself wasn't too spacious yet it gave you the warm and private ambiance. Most of the seats are bar stools, but they also have nice comfortable sofas at the back. And they got their own wine storage room with lots and lots of wine selection. 

For the appetizer that day, we tasted two favourite menus from their Pan Flair Asian selections, Thai Beef Salad with Mango and Chilli Vinaigrette (IDR 98.000) and BBQ Chicken Wings with Blue Cheese Dipping Sauce (IDR 98.000). Their Beef Salad's presentation was such a feast for the eye, isn't it? Really love the bright colors. Taste wise, it was tangy and fresh, it also got a nice dressing, but for me the aroma of Basil was too strong. In the other hand, the BBQ Chicken Wings came in a generous portion, thickly marinated in a nice sweet BBQ Sauce. 

For the main course, Bacchus Bar have two options, you can either order the main course from the Pan Flair Asian selections, or order it from the live cooking stands. The live cooking stands is a collaboration between Bacchus Bar and Deli Restaurants, every weekdays during lunchtime, they served Pasta and Nasi Bakar (Indonesian style grilled rice wrapped in banana leafs). We ended up trying both of them, for they were both really tempting, especially when you see them cooked right before your eyes and you can smell the aroma.

Pasta Set (IDR 90.000 including bread and choice of Iced Tea or Iced Lemon Tea)

Here at the pasta stand, you can build your own pasta! Here's what you need to do:

1. Pick your pasta. The pasta selections varies everyday, that day they got penne and green linguine

2. Pick the sauce. There are tomato based sauce, carbonara sauce, pesto sauce, or simply aglio olio

3. Pick the meat, veggies, and cheese. You can choose up to three meat and veggies available. For the meat they have chicken, prawns, squid, beef bacon, pork bacon, sausages, etc. And for the veggie selections they have broccoli, tomatoes, onions, asparagus, mushrooms, etc. 

Easy right? And only for IDR 90.000 nett, you get your pasta served with bread and butter and also a glass of drink, which is a very nice deal, for having lunch in Sudirman area. That day I decided to have Penne Carbonara, but I was confused on which meat and veggies to choose, so I'll let the chef decide it, and it came with Prawns, Beef Bacon, Sausage, broccoli, mushrooms, and tomatoes! Phew that was a lot of toppings. But the taste was really great. The penne was al dente, the carbonara sauce was amazingly balanced between the creamy and savory taste, and for the toppings, I especially love the generous amount of fresh prawns. Oh I'll deal with you later, cholestrol, for now please just let me enjoy the fresh and crunchy prawns.

Nasi Bakar Set (IDR 82.000 + including a choice of Iced Tea or Iced Lemon Tea)

For the Nasi Bakar, you only have to pick your rice flavor (it also varies everyday), and it will be served with Balado Eggs, Sauteed String Beans, Shredded Chicken and Duck Meat, and Fried Tempe. That day they only have two flavor of rice, Oncom (fermented products of soy beans) and Ikan Peda (Indonesian salty fish). I'm not familiar with oncom, so I play safe and choose the Ikan Peda flavor. And that was a decision I wouldn't regret. The rice was very very fragrant and tasty, and all the side dishes were great and compliment it well. It was spicy but still tolerable for me. Well I'm not a big fan of Nasi Bakar before, but I am now. This dish was really satisfying for me, even better than the pasta! The best Nasi Bakar I've tasted so far!

I'm really impressed that their simple yet humble live cooking stands could create such an awesome food. Thank you InterContinental and  Catrina (Social Media Officer of InterContinental MidPlaza) for inviting me and being a really nice lunch companion! I definitely will come back to this place :D

Bacchus Bar

InterContinental at Jakarta MidPlaza Hotel

Lower Ground Floor

Jl. Sudirman Kav 10-11

Jakarta - 10220

ph. (021) 2510888 (front desk)