TIM HO WAN PIK JAKARTA

Slowly, reasons to go to Singapore for food hunting is getting lesser and lesser with one by one being brought here. After Song Fa and Nam Nam, now comes Tim Ho Wan taking the same location at Pantai Indah Kapuk. 

[CLOSED] MAD (Modern Asian Diner) Jakarta

MAD stands for Modern Asian Diner, a new establishment under Singapore's Tung Lok group. They serve variety of dimsum and Chinese ala carte cuisine, horfun, fried rice, laksa and what seems to be their specialty, claypot rice. The latter one is the main actual reason of me dragging my whole family there last Sunday. My folks, has a thing for claypot rice, so when I heard about MAD's claypot rice, I knew I had to bring them here.

Canton Paradise

After Paradise Dynasty, Taste Paradise and Paradise Inn, another one under Paradise group opens their first outlet in Jakarta. Managed by Boga group, Canton Paradise's presence brightens up Cantonese cuisine in town. I have always love every single restaurant from the group, both their food or design concept have always win my vote. When I went to Canton Paradise for a Saturday night family dinner, I was surprised to find their interior is not as fancy as the one look from outside, infact the only quite fancy one I can relate to is their dining utensils. 

Tim Ho Wan, Plaza Singapura

Tim Ho Wan finally opens in Singapore with the first outlet took place at Plaza Singapura. This tremendously famous dimsum eatery franchised from Hong Kong has been well known as world's cheapest one michelin star restaurant, also been highly raved by American celebrity chef, Anthony Bourdain. 

Crown Palace

About two months ago, lines of board flowers outside Pluit Junction caught my attention. The mall had been a solitude place for quite some time. Most of food tenants in the mall were closing down, so I was surprise to see a Chinese restaurant recently opened there. 

Couple weeks ago, after the very very very unpleasant breakfast at Lei Garden (will post soon, so lazy to have to write about an awful food experience), my mom and I went to Crown Palace on our way back home. It was not  lunch time so the place was almost empty. They occupied two places, upper floor took place of the former Cuisine Cuisine was meant for ala carte formal lunch or dinner, meanwhile the one at the ground floor took place of the former Mame Sushi meant for much simpler food, serving dimsum, xiao long bao, lamian and rice/ noodle set. 

Chef's Table by Din Tai Fung

Last Saturday, I was on my way to one of my friend's house when I passed Emporium Pluit and saw the signage of a new restaurant just opened, Chef's Table by Din Tai Fung. The later night, I went there with my parents and hubby. It was located on the 4th floor across Stickhouse & food court. As expected, new restaurant must be lined up with people, luckily the wait list was not too many so we decided to wait. 

There's nothing really to say about the interior of the place. It was white, sleek and clean. They didn't really put effort to make a special design, and just like other Din Tai Fung, they have an open kitchen only for the chefs making Xiao Long Bao.

Around 15 minutes, we got our table. Originally we were thinking to have Chinese main dishes, but looking through the menu, they didn't have too many selections on it, so we thought we just order their Lamien and Xiao Long Bao, both they were famous of, along with several dishes. We asked for Steamed pork dumpling -6pcs (49k), Braised lion head with salted egg yolk ala Shanghai (38k), Tofu with salted egg yolk (55k), Tom Yum seafood noodle soup (55k), Cha Jiang noodle (43k), Roast duck noodle (58k) and Chilli prawn udon (60k). For the noodle, we can opted regular one or spinach one. My mom and hubby chose spinach one for their Cha Jiang & Roast duck noodle, while dad sticks with the regular one for his Tomyum seafood noodle soup.

The orders didn't took look to be served, and surprisingly the service for a soft opening restaurant turns out to be very good and polite. The Cha jiang & roast duck noodle came first and they put it in a plate instead of bowl, I'm not good with food plating and decoration, but I think it will be nicer if they served it in a bowl. Serving those small portion noodle in a wide plate just making it look even smaller portion. Tom yum seafood noodle came in a bowl because it was a wet noodle. All the noodles tasted quite ok, it was not superb but not bad either, well seasoned not tasteless like the typical Lamian I had at Din Tai Fung. There was no difference though between the spinach and regular one, only the color.

Cha Jiang Noodle

Roast duck noodle

Tom yum seafood noodle

The lion braised and tofu came. I'm not sure why they called it lion braised with salted egg yolk as I didn't see any egg yolk for sure. Mom said that braised lion was a popular dish in Taiwan and she liked it when she ate it there, not feeling the same thing as eating the one they had here. I don't know whether they just can't cooked or my mom just simply had a weird taste with the braised lion she had in Taiwan, as this one was not good at all. As she's my mom, I will just put it simple by saying they were the one who can't cook. =) Basically it was rounded minced meat cooked with oyster sauce. Fortunately, the tofu with egg salted yolk was the hero for our night. I loved the soft Japanese tofu covered in salted egg yolk. Although, I thought that 55k was quite high for a tofu but I didn't complain when I ate 3 of them, it was yummy.

Braised Lion Head with salted egg yolk

Tofu with salted egg yolk

The steamed pork dumpling was nice, after all it was what they were famous for in the first place. The dumpling skin came in the right thickness, not too thick, also not too thin that easily ripped off.

Steamed pork dumpling

Finally, my udon came and it was as expected. On the picture from the menu book, it looked dark brown as how a fried udon supposed to be, however turn out they cooked the Udon with sweet sour sauce, so it tasted and looked like pasta. Me not likey but mom thought it was not bad.

Chilli prawn udon

Overall, with a 20% discount due to soft opening, it was not a bad dinner, it's just didn't came through on my expectation. I might be back for some light breakfast, Xiao Long Bao with Chinese tea. But not for dinner. Well, a plate of Tofu with salted egg yolk wouldn't hurt. 

Chef's Table by Din Tai Fung

Emporium Mall Level 4 unit 39

Jl. Pluit Selatan Raya

North Jakarta

Ph. +6221 29071918

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