Tukang Ngamen (Singing Beggar Man)

If you open a food stall on the street here in Jakarta (or maybe in other cities in Indonesia)...

You don't need a CD player...
You don't need CD's plates...
You don't need a sound system...
You don't need sound speakers....

Why?

Because there are people with their guitars who will sing from one food stall to another food stall and ask for money. So, while you are enjoying your food, you also can enjoy listening to your live music ;)

A man with his guitar, trying to find a food stall.

What a sweet smile on the lady's face :)

Tape Ketan & Uli

This man is selling Tape Ketan and Uli.

Tape Ketan is sweet fermented black glutinous rice and the Uli is the white glutinous rice cooked with coconut milk and salt then wrapped into banana leaves.

According to the seller man, the tape ketan will turn into alcohol after 2 days. Hence, it need to be eaten directly.

Rujak Potong - cut fruit (2)

Still remember my post of the original Rujak - Indonesian fruit salad? This is another version of rujak. If the original rujak has many fruit assortments with mixed peanut brown sugar sauce for dressing, then this rujak has limited fruits assortment and instead eating it with sauce, there's salt mixed with chopped hot red chili to substitute the sauce.


The limited assortment of the fruits are Mango (mangga), Water Apple (jambu air), Ambarella (kedondong) and Jicama (bangkuang).


But then, as you can see in the behind glass box, the vendor also sells Water Apple, Mango and Pineapple seperately in plastic bags.

Salt mixed with chopped red hot chili for the dipping.

Chef in Black

Yesterday, Sid from Big Boys Oven told me that he's invited that afternoon for a cooking demo and new Brazilian tapas menu by Emmanuel Stoorbant - the Belgian celebrity "Chef in Black" who has his own show on the AFC (Asian Food Channel).

I wish I could join that cooking demo but too bad, it's held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Thus, since I'm a fan of Chef in Black, I asked Sid to get an autograph for me.

Sid and also Ken from Food Point of Interest made an effort to get an autograph for me! Today, Ken sent me the scanned autograph and he told me that mine was the first one being signed. Yay!

I'm so happy right now, although I couldn't meet Emmanuel Stoorbant in person but I got a personal autograph from him.

Thank you so much, Sid and Ken! :D

Close-up

Review Links:
A Day With Celebrity Chef Emmanuel Stoorbant by Big Boys Oven

Chef In Black, Celebrity Chef Emmanuel Stroobant Launches Exciting New Menu at 7ATENINE by Food For Interest

Rujak Juhi (Cuttlefish Salad)

After a little break from my street food posts, now I'm back again with the Rujak (Indonesian fruit salad) post :)

Rujak Juhi is another kind of rujak but although the name is rujak, it doesn't contain of any fruits except if cucumber is consider as a fruit.

Juhi means salted cuttlefish in Indonesian language.

The ingredients:

From left to right: Lettuce, cucumber, fried boiled potatoes, cabbages,noodles, fried tofu,


From left to right: peanut sauce (made from ground fried peanut, garlic, hot chili, shallot, sugar, salt, vinegar, water, sweet soybean sauce), fried shreddered cuttlefish, and kaffir lime.

You can ask Rujak Juhi for a "take-out".

Sweet soysauce and kaffir lime juice.

Final touch, kerupuk (shrimp crakers/chips) on the top plus hot red chili sauce on the side. Yummy! :)

A plate of Rujak Juhi costs Rp. 9.000
Currency:
1 USD = Rp. 10.800
1 MYR = Rp. 3.000

Kopitiam Oey

About 3 weeks ago, there's a new small kopitiam called "Kopitiam Oey" opened on Jalan Sabang/ Hj. Agus Salim. (Info: Kopitiam is actually more a common word in Singapore or Malaysia for a place/shop to have breakfast and coffee). The owner of this Kopitiam is Bondan Winarno, a famous Indonesian TV presenter for his culinary show.

Being tempted by the outlook of the restaurant and the owner's name plus the 50% off for the drinks during the soft-opening, my colleague and I gave a try for the food during a lunch time about 2 weeks ago.
When we got in to the restaurant, we felt an interesting atmosphere...

Then we looked at the menu. For lunch, there're only 3 kinds of food being served (should be awared because this is a place for b'fast or coffee):
1. Gado - Gado Bonbin (blanched mix veggies in peanut sauce)
2. Lontong Cap Goh Meh (rice cake in chicken curry)
3. Sate Ayam Ponorogo (chicken satay)


Both of us, chose the Sate Ayam Ponorogo because we had a look on the other tables that the Lontong Cap Gomeh portion was so little and the Gado - Gado didn't look really appealing so it left to the Sate Ayam that still looked quite appetizing. Then, we ordered the Mint Tea for our drinks.
I was already so excited when the Sate came on to the table but... what a big disappointment at the first bite, the sauce tasted just like plain sweet peanut butter mixed with water and the chicken got a sour taste and a few of them had a weird smell - uh oh.. rotten chicken??? My colleague even couldn't finish 1/2 of the plate. So, we left the restaurant still feeling hungry.

I guess it's not really a big surprise when I read in an online local newspapers on the following week; a man complaint about the chicken porridge that he bought there for a take-out. My colleague told me that we supposedly also should make a complaint in that online local newspapers, but... naaah... I think I better just make a complaint here in my blog :P

Disclaimer:
The review and opinion expressed here are purely according to my personal tastebuds. There's a possibility that the taste might change to the food later on that can affect the review and opinion here.

Pasta De Waraku - Jakarta

I'd been passing several times in front of this Japanese restaurant called Pasta De Waraku to see the interesting display of the food. So, when my friend suggested to have lunch at this restaurant, I directly agreed :)

Inside the restaurant. It really has a casual and relaxing ambience. Look at those tomatoes lights! So cute :)


The food here is infusion between authentic Japanese flavor into pasta and pizza. My friend an I ordered the set menu which included the soup, pasta and a glass of green tea.

Guess what? We received a complimentary dish for appetizer. Not sure what's the reason but the waiter was smiling to me most of the time when I was busy with my camera :P

Satsuma Age Comp (Fried fish cake)
The soup.
Kimchee Pepperon Rp. 58.000

Wafu Vongole Rp. 58.000

A meal without dessert is not a complete meal, right? ;)

Maccha Cake (Green tea ice cake) Rp. 33.000
Maccha Monaka (Green tea ice cream with Japanese waffer) Rp. 20.000
Prices are subjected to 10% tax and 5% service charge.

Currency rate:

1 USD = Rp. 11.350

1 MYR = Rp. 3.130

Location:

Grand Indonesia Mall Level 3A

Jl. MH. Thamrin No. 1, Jakarta Pusat

Seriously, I love the taste of the food here! Thumbs up!!! :)

Courtyard Restaurant - Jakarta

My mom and I just came back from a birthday dinner of my mom’s close friend. The birthday dinner was held at a Chinese restaurant named Courtyard at Plaza Indonesia on the 3rd floor.

This restaurant has a very nice ambience and the food tasted really good. Too bad, I didn’t get a chance to see the menu because the food was already ordered, so I've no idea of the names and prices of the food from this restaurant. Well, I think I will come back again someday to try the other food.

Selby's Fondant Cupcakes

I'm not sure what's got into me but lately, I just wanted to be creative and play with sugar fondant again.

So, this morning, I baked cupcakes again using the same recipe as the previous one. Not bad, huh? ;)

If last time, I made sugar fondant more into dolls,

then, today is more related to Easter theme.

Little flowers

A pink bunny with blue flowers.
A happy ladybug.

Carrots in purple basket.

Tadaaaa... A box of fondant cupcakes.
Do you think I can start to receive orders now? ;D

Rujak Tumbuk/ Bèbèk (Pound/Crushed Fruit Salad)

"Tumbuk" means pound or crush, so since the ingredients (fruits and dressing) is being pound together in a wooden mortar, thus we called it as "Rujak Tumbuk".

Some people also called it as Rujak Bèbèk since this rujak is originally a Betawi food (Betawi is addressed for the descendants people who live in Batavia - the old colonial name for Jakarta). In Betawi language, "Bèbèk" means also pound/crush. It's pronounce differently than the word "Bebek" which means duck in Indonesian national language.



The fruits: raw sweet potato, pineapple, lobi-lobi, banana stone, jicama, papaya, ambarella, and young mango.

The ingredients to make the sauce:

And not forgetting the brown coconut sugar (gula jawa).

Pound the fruits together with the ingredients of the sauce.

It's done :)

A good idea to make a long spoon with a wooden stick ;)

Rp. 4.000 per cup
(currency 1 USD = Rp. 11.600)

Out of the topic - Someone plagiarized my posts!!! :(

Yesterday, while browsing on the internet, I found out an Indonesian girl who owns a food blog, has been taking my posts and published them in her blog. She just copy paste directly my posts - text and photos (of course, she cropped the photos first to delete my blog address).


Well, this is not the first time when I found out people are using my photos in their blogs but for this case, just copy paste directly my whole text plus photos and without a permission from me and pretends the posts are hers, gosh... how could she!!! I already left a complain comment in her blog but there's no reaction so far from her.

Actually, I have no problem if people want to use my photos (I even feel flattered) but then, I expect that at least, they'll put a credit to my blog and not use my text as if they are the ones who wrote the post.

Grrrrrr..... I'm soooooooo upset!!! :(