MADAGASKAR PLAZA SENAYAN JAKARTA

Madagaskar is a newly opened restaurant in Plaza Senayan with a unique concept. Their customer target obviously are family with kids, seeing from the "kids friendly" design. The whole idea is turning an imitation of tropical jungle with replicas of animal creatures, trees and plants to look like a restaurant inside a forest. The moment you stepped inside, you would find their souvenir store with mostly stuffed animals for sale, and walk further inside is the restaurant with a very dark lighting. I never really like a restaurant with dimmed lighting, especially a family restaurant type, but I think the lighting has something to do with the whole jungle theme. 

Applebee's Plaza Senayan Jakarta

Having to not go on any New Year holiday this year, I guess cafe hopping is one of the thing left to do. Honestly, I was not really keen on trying Applebee's, but it was the first day of 2015, and some of the restaurants that are not located inside shopping mall were closed. So, hubs and I went to Plaza Senayan where Applebee's first outlet is located. 

Unacho Plaza Senayan

It was Saturday. Went to Plaza Senayan for dinner and movie date. Have you seen Nightcrawler? It was not that good but Jake Gyllenhaal's acting as Louis Bloom deserves an A. If you have seen the movie, you would agree that it's not the finest look of Jake, but there's one scene where he tied his hair into a messy pony tail and he looks so hot!

AW Kitchen by Akira Watanabe

These couple days has been so tiring! My big bro is on holiday at the moment, and leaving me with his work for 10 days! I'm not complaining, I mean... Family helps family, that's what we do. But the timing couldn't be worse, physically feeling hard to cope with. Hubs and I are moving to new home soon, now under renovation and Gosh, who would have thought how stressful it is to renovate a house? I swear, after this, I will not be thinking about moving for at least 10 more years.

Eric Kayser Indonesia

It took 11 days to finally open my laptop again. A rare thing as logged on to it is like my first five things to do every morning after I wake up. These couple months has been tiring. I even just got off on being hospitalized for three days. I guess I tried to tell my self that I wasn't tired, but the physic can't lie. Finishing writing some of the pending posts, but after this, blogging might comes a bit slow. Mentally, physically, I need a break.

TWG Tea Salon & Boutique

I have always admire TWG's concept design, whether it's the two at Marina Bay Sands or the other two at Ion Orchard. They have other branches in Spore, but the spoken malls above were the two I went to for their teas & macs. When I first saw the 'coming soon' sign in front of Sogo Plaza Senayan, I was thrilled to see how they will design it.

Garcon

Couple days ago, I was meeting up with my bestie for a late lunch. Initially, we were planning to go to the new recently open, Salt Grill, but the place were closed for private function that day, so our second option went to Garcon. Garcon (read: Gar-son, means waiter in French) is the newest addition in the fine restaurants complex of Plaza Senayan's 4th floor, serving a semi French fine dine with full of temptations cakes' display welcoming us as we entered the bistro.

Rustique grill & wine

A belated birthday dinner...

Several weeks ago was my birthday. Instead of dressing up and planning on where to have my birthday treat, I spent the whole day doing photo shoot for Lemon and editing until late midnight. You know how there was a saying that age is just a number? 

Well, I am always someone who believes that age doesn't define your character nor personality. But, somehow as I grow older, especially after I got married... My mindset changed, priority changed, I changed... Somehow, birthday no longer serves as something die die also must be celebrated kind of day. So on the day, I was pretty much satisfied with the birthday noodle cooked by hubby and the vanilla fruit cake. :) 

How can you not love Union?

Even with so many new restaurants nowadays, Union still remain to be one of the busiest diner, proven from until this very day, it still need quite an effort to get a table even with reservation first. After our brunch at Monolog, we were wandering around for a while and I told hubby about Union's delicious red velvet, and he was tempted. Seeing it was Sunday, I was not sure that we can get a table as a walk in customer, but I thought, we could just took away a slice if no table was available. Out of the blue, it turns out there was a table available for us to be used for 1,5 hours. Yes, as I said before, even with so many new diners in town lately, Union still going strong.

Sunday Brunch at Monolog

One of my favorite meal of the day is breakfast. Brunch to be exact as I am not a morning person, and even if I wake up early, I hardly can eat in such early hour. Fortunately, plenty cafes in Jakarta serve brunch in reasonable hour for sleepyhead like me. Some even offer an all day breakfast, though personally I never like to have breakfast kind of meal in hours after 12 afternoon. 

Union

Finally! After the so many times of wanting to have a meal here, several days ago I finally able to have a lunch there with my two close friends. Ever since its opening, Union had been crowded daily with customers. The place was always in a long waiting list couple times I went there, so few days ago me and my friends have a movie date in Plaza Senayan, and I was very excited as it was Monday noon and I figured that normally weekday will not be as crowded as on weekend. I was wrong. I think in Union there were no difference on weekdays nor weekend as even it was a quiet view on the mall, but stepping inside Union was a different view. The place was jam packed with people. Luckily before we went it to see "The Vow" (nice movie, must watch), we went to Union first to make a reservation for lunch after our movie, so we were safely seated without having to wait. 

The first thing popped in my mind when I stepped in was "Niceee". Yes, it was crowded, full of noise and we sadly got seated at smoking section, but I like the dining concept. It was very American type, intimate concept with pastry area welcoming us as we enter the entrance, and our eyes were spoiled with all these beautiful tempting cake. Bar area was at the left side in smoking section. 

As we seated, we quickly order as the waiter had informed us in advance that we got only 2 hours due to the long list. Not something I particular fond of to be cautious on timing while enjoying my meal, but if that what it took to experience Union, then an exception were made. I have made up my mind that either full or not, a slice of Red Velvet cake (50k) had to be the one ended my lunch there, so I ordered that to share along with 

Bratwurst sausage w/ mashed potatoes (75k). While my friends chose Crispy skin salmon with mashed potatoes, orange & ginger soy (125k) and Crispy duck leg with green chilli and aromatic rice (90k). 

The meals came and we shared each of our food. Overall, I think all the dishes were just ok. The one that exceed my expectation was the red velvet cake. I have heard so many good things about Union's red velvet, but as someone who was not really into cakes, I was blown away by its taste. It was very moist with surprisingly non smelly cheese and I liked the crunchy peanuts. 

Union 

Plaza Senayan Ground Flr (inside Sogo)

Jl. Asia Afrika No. 8

South Jakarta

Ph. +6221 57905861

Paradise Dynasty

Normally me and my family always go on family trip during Lebaran period as it was the only period we can run away from our busy activities, but this year I decided to not join them as my husband can't leave his business for that long. Turns out I quite enjoy having to spend my holiday in town. The traffic was just sooooo frickin greattt! I mean from Pluit area to Senayan took no more than 15 minutes. If only this thing could happen not only once in a year. 

On the last day before my family went on their trip, we went to Plaza Senayan. There was nothing to do there actually, we just wanted to enjoy the smooth traffic. =) After wondering around we were feeling on grabbing something to eat, so we headed to Paradise Dynasty. I have read many reviews on food blogs around last month when they just opened, and seems along that time many of my friends always put the famous Xiao Long Bao as their picture's profile at BBM. Bottom line I was very curious.

It was Monday noon and public holiday, but the place was full house. We were on the waiting list for about 15 minutes before ushered to our table. The place was nicely decorated with modern Chinese ambiance and touch of black and gold as the main color. It was a franchise from Singapore. I've been to one of their restaurant under the group, Taste Paradise at Ion Orchard and the ambiance in here was more or less the same as the one there. 

Okay back to the menu, we ordered the famous Signature dynasty dumplings (78k) with 8 flavors. By right we should eat it in following order: Original, ginseng, foei gras, black truffle, cheesy, crab roe, garlic and sze chuan, but as we only ordered one and there were 4 of us so we didn't pay attention on the order and just eat whichever we like. I cannot remember which ones I ate, but the four of us loved all the dumplings. They were tasted great, I loved how the dumpling skin had the right thickness, not too thick but also not easily tear up, and the broth inside the dumpling was nicely seasoned.
My second favorite one was the pan fried pork and french bean dumpling (18k). It was really good that I asked my family to let me have the last dumpling, while I was usually the type of person who let others have the last bite.

Their ramen selections however were not as remembered as the dumplings. We chose Lamian w/ vegetable pork dumpling in signature pork bone soup (42k), Lamian with scallops, prawn and crab meat (58k) and Lamian w/ poached marble beef in Sze chuan style (58k). The last two were their chef's signatures but to me they weren't counted as Ivy's signatures hehehe... Well, yes the broth was different from the usual clear chicken soup, their signature pork bone soup was dense but to me it was tasteless and tasted so so. But I do admire the Lamian's bowl. I want to have those bowls for my kitchenware.

Anyway, it was a pleasant lunch and I am glad I have another good options when I crave for Xia Long Bao.

Paradise Dynasty
Plaza Senayan 5th flr (across XXI)
Jl. Asia Afrika
South Jakarta
Ph. +6221 579000146
Other outlets at Mall Central Park

Tesate

Last month on a Saturday night, my husband and I along with my parents went dining at Tesate. I have noticed the place quite some time but never really wanted to try. As my husband got a IDR 200,000 dining voucher at Tesate from a certain credit card, so I decided it would be the right time to try.

Tesate serves authentic Indonesian food. The place looks small and only have around 3 tables from outside, but turns out when we walked in, there was a long white alley with blue lights which ended in a sliding door to enter the restaurant. The inside was quite big and occupied with crowds. Almost all tables were full. When we entered, we saw there was an open spot to bake Kueh Serabi (rice flour cake) made for order. The place was decorated nicely, modern with no Indonesian restaurant ambiance except for the Kueh Serabi baking spot.

The menu book was made like satay fan. It was unique. The service however was slow, I think they were short of staffs. We found difficulty finding a waiter to serve us. Finally when the waiter came and I asked him what's the favorite, he couldn't really explain, just repeatedly mentioning dishes appeared in the menu book, so we just give a shot and chose what we feel like eating that night.

We chose Padangnese beef satay 6pcs (78k), Grilled US short ribs served w/ sweet potatoes cooked in rendang sauce (169k), Belacan fried rice w/ oxtail (79k) and Lontong cap gomeh (74k). My belacan fried rice came in big portion but with very small chunks of oxtail and I didn't taste any spiciness from the belacan sauce. The lontong cap gomeh was quite ok, came with gepuk, chicken and egg besides the vegetables, the broth was also quite tasty.

Padangnese beef satay

Grilled short ribs

Belacan fried rice w/ oxtail

Lontong cap gomeh

Overall to me the dishes was just standard and overpriced. I might be coming back, only if I get another dining voucher from certain card. 

Tesate

Plaza Senayan level 4 unit CP 4

Jl. Asia Afrika, South Jakarta

Ph. +6221 5725521

Monolog

From de Luca, we were actually very full already, but I really wanted to try their Palmier since I read the review on Jenzcorner. My poor hubby were sleepy and wanted to just go home and sleep, yet I still forced him to seep a glass of coffee first. 

Unlike de Luca, Monolog's ambiance was with light wood & bricks and bright lights. They had pastry selections displayed so we can see and pick the pastry our self. The place itself was very modern looking, minimalist and good for place to hang out.

We ordered Flat white (28k) for the coffee and Iced chocolate hazelnut praline (38k). For the pastry, they had buy 1 get 1 promo starts from 8pm. I of course chose Palmier (10k) and for the free one, we chose Almond financier. Palmier was like Genji Pie from Monde which you can find in supermarket, but this one was thicker, bigger and 10 times more delicious. Loved it so much that I regretted why I didn't bought some for take away. The financier was served cold since it was almost 10pm, and perhaps will be nicer to eat if it was hot. My iced chocolate hazelnut praline was not good at all. The waiter told me that their chocolate was handmade and melted with hazelnut, but the chocolate was way too much that it was too thick to drank. I asked them to put more water inside but the taste was still too viscous that I ended only took 2 seeps. However, I will be coming back for their delicious palmier and other pastries.

Monolog

Plaza Senayan parking lot P1

Jl. Asia Afrika 

Jakarta

Ph. +6221 5725144

http://www.monolog-coffee.com/

de Luca

Saturday night, me and hubby went to Plaza Senayan for a dinner & movie date. Both of us were movies addict and seriously devastated when imported movies were banned into XXI and Blitz. I mean, how ridiculous was that? Even now, I noticed some travel agents put up a package to go see movies in Spore and KL. I do really hope this issue will solve up soon. In the mean time, so excited that next week I will be going for buying trip for Lemon's, so I can catch Harry Potter and hopefully Transformer 3 will still be playing there. *finger crossed*

Anyway, we were planning to see Larry Crowne but we reached there 8.45pm and the latest show before midnight one was at 9pm. So we canceled movie and went straight for dinner. I noticed for some time that the furniture store at Plaza Senayan's parking lot had been shut down and recently turned into restaurants. 

There were 2 restaurants there, one was Italian named de Luca and one was coffee shop named Monolog. Both were full house. Lucky for us, de Luca still has 1 table left for 2 persons. The place was not big but they put tables outside the restaurant along the alley. It was designed with dark wood and dim lights. 

I wanted to try the across coffee shop after dine so we skipped appetizer and go straight to main course. I was craving for pizza and the waiter recommended me Americano pizza (68k). It was delicious! The pizza was thin crust with beef sausage, mozarella, tomato sauce and fried potato. One of the best pizza I tasted. My mind was even already planning to come back for other pizza selections. My husband was a meat lover, almost every time we dine he will opted for steak. He chose Veal alla milanesse (128k) served with mashed potato and aragula salad. The veal was butter crumbed and pan fried, it was tender and tasted quite ok but winner of the night really went to the pizza. 

Complimentary bread

 

de Luca just opened end of May and turns out they were in same management with Monolog, the coffee shop across them along with Immigrant and Rustique. For restaurant that just opened 2 months, the service was excellent. Even crowded, but the food serving was fast and the waiters were all very promptly when we asked for something. 

From the food and service, I will surely be back to de Luca. Very very soon! 

de Luca

Plaza Senayan Parking lot P1

Jl. Asia Afrika

Jakarta 

Ph. +6221 5725144