Gong Cha Grand Opening!

Got invited to the grand opening of Gong Cha bubble drink! For those of you who haven't heard about this (frankly speaking) famous bubble drink brand from Taiwan, then say HALLO! Because they're opening their branch here in Indonesia, especially our beloved city Jakarta and to be more specific, it's in Central Park Mall.

The invitation is sent over email by their outlet manager, Eddy :)
Thank you for the invitation...

I'm going to review the drinks that I happened to experience there, FYI before I start, I want to give a little information that the reviews of the drink is based on my personal experience, not because I got invited then I give positive reviews, all of the reviews in this blog is based on honesty 8), anyway, back to the topic, each invitation equals to one drink, but I don't think it's fair enough to give you guys review based on one drinks, therefore, because I love you guys so much, I ordered another one based on my own order and gave my own objective review about the drinks.

Eddy asked me what drink I'd love to try but since I want to be surprised, I asked him to give me the most special drink, the signature drink from Gong Cha and he suggested the "Winter Melon Tea" completed with bubbles, Gong Cha signature milk foam and matcha powder.

I can't say anything except MESMERIZED! The creativity of turning winter melon into a very nice drink, I love the milk foam I think it's the cherry on top! you have and I mean, HAVE to try ordering milk foam as the topping, it's totally yummy, it's not your ordinary milk foam like ones you have from your cappucinno, this one is seasoned, I personally think it's sea-salted and the matcha powder gives you a little taste but mostly for the pleasure of the eye :).

The Winter Melon Tea is not part of the milk tea, but when you tasted it you can definitely hit a glimpse of milk in the drink where honestly gives another point to this drink. You get the milk, you get the sweetness and you get the original winter melon tea from Gong Cha! I LOVE THIS DRINK!

The second drink that I give a hit on is the caramel milk tea, I intentionally don't give my POV on the original milk tea because it's common and from most brands that I have tried before, it's close or even almost the same taste, so I decided to give a try, who knows the caramel they're using gives a different touch and indeed IT IS! When you tried this drink you'll forget that you have caramel, you'll get this crispy chocolate cookies taste. Gong Cha is officially my new love <3. This drink is absolutely recommended, but I'd like you to experience the winter melon tea because it's the signature drink and the most surprising one.

I'd like to have my drink to be less sweet and Gong Cha seems to have this great measurements of the sugar scale.

By the end of my visit, Eddy gave me a goodie bag and thank you for this, to be honest, I just love the Gong Cha logo, I think you have the class, you have the ethnic and the color... the branding is good somehow.

Gong Cha Bubble Drink
Central Park 1st floor

ANNOUNCEMENT:
- Dear my beloved readers, I am sorry that last Friday I didn't have any chance to post eatandtreats dessert of the week because I was out of town but you know what? I have prepared you some mouth watering posts! and of course this week you'll get the DOTW!
- I'm so happy that I'm posting you my first ever sponsored TRAVEL POST! I'm going to somewhere special next month and let it be a surprise!

follow this blog! and follow my twitter eaters! @STANISLAUSHANS

Sunny Side Up!

Sunny Side Up is a very unique restaurant with such an incredible idea of serving what I love and probably most of you love, EGGS! Picture above is something whose words I believe really is true.

I've been coming to this restaurant a couple times and each time I go here, I always order different menus to really browse their menus of what they can offer with their experiment with eggs, and this one that I'm serving you guys to read is my recent visit, which was around 3 days ago.

I always start with a soft-boiled egg (another term for half-boiled egg), picture below as you can see is my choice of appetizer, technically, they have another common menus as the appetizer, but this is my choice to open the journey of the culinary. Picture on the right is my friend's, she ordered the hard-boiled one because she couldn't eat the egg while the yolk is not perfectly cooked.

By the way, the eggs that they're using here are arabian eggs, or what they somehow called Golden Q Eggs, it's totally yummy, it's not smelly and definitely HALAL! The eggs have passed the tests and officially registered.

So, this is what I ordered :), I come with a friend and we ordered three dishes so we're so ready for the venture.

Deluxe Breakfast Set
here you got:
- toasted bread
- beef bacon
- baked beans
- 2 choices of any kind of eggs cooking you desired. Here is the famous sunny side up and scrambled.
- 2 sausages to make you smile

I personally adore this dish, well for the breakfast set, personally I think this is a big portion, I think you can even share this dish. The eggs are perfectly cooked, the seasoning is great and the sausages also good :).

Seafood Omelette

Out of the three dishes we ordered, this one is probably one that we're very passionate about, because we always loved the classic omelette and somehow wondering what if it's mixed with seafood.

Overall I pretty much feel ok the presentation, for the taste? emm, I would love to give compliments for the experiment for I think this time, the ingredients that they're presentating was probably not the best, I can definitely feel a huge hit of anchovy fish, little ones, and too bad it's a little smelly and salty, but thank God for the gorgeous mashed potato and seared veges, because the saltiness and all the negatives can be reduce everytime I eat the omelette with the mashed potato, it's sort of the balancer.

Egg and Sausage
Well, this one is basically not much different comparing to the first dish, but here you got two sausages and scrambled egg, I think this one is written on the menu, so when you're ordering this, you'll get the scrambled eggs. I love the french fries because it add the texture and making the dish more variant and experimental. Lovely one :).

If you love eggs like I do, this restaurant is worth the visit and try.

Sunny Side Up
Downtown Walk Summarecon Mall Serpong II,
Ground Fl.
Jl. Boulevard Gading Serpong

Ruko Alexandrite Blok ALX 3 No 7 Gading Serpong

I was writing this post in Starbucks right now and it's been raining a little, sort of drizzling, and I have always loved moments like this, how you sit inside a coffee shop in slightly cool temperature, they start playing lounge musics or I somehow prefer my headsets on and suddenly playing artists, like: Feist's musics, you can look outside and see how the road looks when it's raining, you can sometimes smell the rain by the wind, everything feels so calm, quiet and mellow. Not sad, just adorable :)

So, here's a picture for you, my company today, a hot Green Tea Latte!

ANNOUNCEMENTS!
- Lately I always come with such announcements, this Tuesday and Thursday, I'll be having another food testing, I'll give you a hint, it's one very famous Indonesian food and it tastes like AWESOME!
- if you have anything to ask, or you want to be a sponsor for the posts of the blog, please send me your email to eatandtreatsindo@gmail.com

THANK YOU LOYAL READERS!

DESSERT OF THE WEEK: FORET NOIRE BY BAKERZIN!

I promised you guys that every Friday starting from this week, is the EATandTREATS: DESSERT OF THE WEEK day! so you'll have my chosen 'Dessert of The Week", it's going to be everything desserts, I'm so excited for this one because I love desserts and who doesn't?

The lucky number one! the first to be the DOTW
is...
FORET NOIRE from Bakerzin!
I LOVE THIS DESSERT!

Congratulation 'Foret Noire' from Bakerzin for becoming the first ever EATandTREATS: Dessert of The Week! I truly love this dessert based on the eating experience and I want to mention about a few points that I can speak out here. I have always loved balance in food, food and life, well you gotta have the balance in the taste, the texture and the presentation, especially since I am a graphic design student, I deal with design principles *coolface*.
I love the fact that this dish looks so sweet and pretty but it fortunately tastes not that sweet, the sweetness is okay and if you see the white cream in the picture, it's basically a whipped cream.

Don't you personally think this cake looks so pretty? I love the simple and efficient presentation, if you happen to know the common Foret Noire cakes, well this is almost the same, and maybe most of you think this looks like a common 'blackforrest cake', but it tastes a bit different, and only it's Bakerzin's style so they make it to look more unique and more of that signature style.

This is when the cake was being cut and I've always loved sharing the pictures of how a food looks when it's cut (no matter how they look), so I can totally give an even fairer judgements, just from this picture, I can even re-imagine how soft the chocolate cake was, it was indeed very delicious.

For the beverage, I order this Cafe Brulee. I really recommend this one for an amazing coffee tasting, if you never tried this one, basically when you hear something that rhymes with 'brulee', the presentation is almost always like this, the toppest surface which is the sugar is burnt, and it's totally bringing out the point because the crisp is the essential unique thing about this drink. I love the coffee, it tastes sort of light for me, I can feel a hit of caramel sauce used and a little cocoa powder mixed but overall the coffee and milk is still the main ingredients.
This beverage is very pretty looking.

Again, picture of when the burnt sugar is being broken, you can look at the foam, it looks awesome :).

There you have it, my first DESSERT OF THE WEEK! I hope you're happy with my chosen menu.

Bakerzin
Tribeca Park, Central Park Mall
Tanjung Palapa Rd. 11470
(021) 5698 5769


ANNOUNCEMENTS:
- Dear my lovely readers, I'd love you to participate in choosing The DOTW, I completely understand that I am not a psychic and I am totally aware that you guys are more awesome, if you have any recommendations for the most delicious desserts in town! Please please leave your comments, because I will absolutely read it and if there's any chance, I'd die to visit the recommended place :). I'll feature whoever wins my heart <3. JK.
- Got another email invitation from someone and I am invited to come on the soft opening of another boba drink brand, but I"m going to keep it surprise, because it'll definitely blogged few days after I attend the event. Stay tuned guys!

Don't forget to follow my blog and help me promote :).
My twitter: @STANISLAUSHANS

Bistro Baron Luncheon

I have always wanted to try eating at Bistro Baron. I thought it's an amazing place for you to dine, I absolutely love the design of the restaurant! From outside, you might think of it as a restaurant which pretty much looks like an alley, because it's relatively narrow, but when you step inside, it's a good warming place, majorly french like interior, and since I'm obsessed with France, especially Paris, it's a total plus point. I intend to have a seat near the window so I can feel like a tourist who happened to visit Paris and eating at their signature restaurant, kinda force it a bit but it's quite working LOL.

Picture above is the exact lunch that I had there, I had a portion of Fish and Chips as the main course and a glass of "Nutella Ice Chocolate with Shaved Chocolate" as my beverage. The baguette is a complimentary from the restaurant.

Baguette

I love this baguette! like I mean it, I love the crisp of the baguette and its texture, it's not very hard and it's not very soft either, you know sometimes you find baguette that is so hard and almost uneatable for us who are not used to it, but this one is a yum. Another plus point is obviously the butter, the butter is UH-MA-ZING! I'm going to open the card on the table, I'm not a very butter fan, but the butter just melts into the bread by the time I put in on the surface, I gave a try and it's infact awesome.

look as the butter melts...

Fish and Chips

I had a huge crush on the fish and chips, for the fact that they're experimenting the presentation. Innovation is always a nice thing to do. It's nice to try something different. The typical common fish is the classic fried fish, but this one is more like an interpretation of a more relaxed way of eating, almost a finger food like.

Technically, you mostly got the same fish and chips taste you can have in other restaurants, but what makes it different is maybe how the texture has the main role here in giving you the flavor, it's just with this kind of presentation, I think the bread flour is a little more dominant, so you have less taste of fish, more the bread flour. I zoomed in so that I can explain my point, I mean the layer that covers the fish is more dominant, especially with the amount of bread flour used, you got the crisp, but it tastes very breadlike, I wish the fish would have tasted more, but overall I think it's still a dish very worth to be tasted for.

Ice Chocolate with Nutella and Shaved Dark Chocolate
Call this MVP because it deserves so, I am in love with this beverage! I love how the presence of the chocolate and the nutella can manage to mix together. It's not an extremely sweet drink (good point), I truly love the idea of the presentation. Look at the picture below as I photographed it intentionally to show you the swirl. I once thought this drink has like two different layers, the lighter one and the darker one, but when I tasted it, my mind directly noticed that the swirl is created with Nutella.

Zoomed in to show you the shaved dark chocolate.

I'm sharing you guys photos of the interior. LOVE it!

It was a good lunch that I got, I spend a quite beautiful time here, for the lunch, my bill was IDR 121.000, I still say it's relatively affordable for a lunch with such qualifications. Recommended.

Bistro Baron
Plaza Indonesia Extention, Level 1, unit E 20-21, Central Jakarta

ANNOUNCEMENT!
- Starting this Friday and then every Friday, EATandTREATS will have a special post called "EATandTREATS DESSERTS OF THE WEEK.". Make sure you stay tuned to find the chosen loveliest desserts in town!
- Thank God after the SPONSORED POST from Starbucks, I got a few offers to have a food testing sessions, but I'm going to keep you guessing of what it is, one of it is suprisingly a brand new brand that's going to enter the market of culinary world of Indonesia, and I am honored to be the first to try and review. Kinda nervous for the both team. If you have any offers for me to do the food testing, kindly send your email to eatandtreatsindo@gmail.com
- For every post that doesn't have the 'SPONSORED' tag, it's not a paid review, I ordered the food and paid for them and I review it along with my experience there.

FOLLOW MY TWITTER: @STANISLAUSHANS

Starbucks Menu Testing (SPONSORED)

SPONSORED POST

I am so happy that within one week of the release, the statistic is very good, but this is just the beginning and I still have a long way to go and a lot of works to do to make this blog your addiction LOL.

This is my very first sponsored post, and I am so happy that Starbucks SMS become the first sponsor for this entry of the blog. Initially, they want me to try two of their brand new menus: "Starbucks Sea Salt Caramel Mocha Frappuccino" and "Purple Yam Cake".

Purple Yam Cake
I was very surprised with the result just the moment I cut the cake and taste the lowest structure of the cake. There are layers of the yam cake, and the very bottom, there's a layer of nut + grated coconut. The texture of the cake itself is a soft and moist sponge cake, and to distance every sponge cake layer is whipped cream.

Incase you're wondering what is the toppest surface of the cake, it's actually a garnish of what the barista said 'yam powder', it doess't have any taste, I think it's just as the sweet garnish to add the point of the texture and the presentation. And if you see that tiny layer of what you might think as purple-colored-white-chocolate, well it's close, but again it's a yam layer, I couldn't feel any chocolate.

Back to my surprise, the moment the first cut of the cake was tasted, I totally LOVE it, why? because it tastes very indonesian, the nut and the grated coconut is also mixed with brown sugar, so when you taste it, you know it tastes so Indonesian thanks to the brown sugar, I like the fact that the cake is not very sweet, so the taste is very balanced, you get the sweetness somehow from the cake, the whipped cream and the nut, grated coconut and also the brown sugar.

So to make it even more convincing to myself, during the tasting, there's actually my friend who was sitting not far from me, I asked her to have a bite and her reaction was like: "this cake tastes Indonesian", she even said it (the lowest surface) tasted like kelepon cake syrup.

I love the presentation, and I don't mean to be subjective, but I am a fan or purple, it's a match tho :).

 

Sea Salt Caramel Mocha Frappuccino
This is the newest variant of Starbucks Frappuccino family and what makes this drink very special? it's the fact that sea salt is now used not only as a garnish, but also to make sure the flavor is unique.

...and how's the sea salt turns out? salt used in a drink? maybe most of you are wondering about this, but yes, I LOVE THE SEA SALT! It's not the common salt like ones used in the kitchen into your food, this salt is unique, it gives you 50% saltiness, 50% sweetness and the blending of the taste somehow works with the drink.

I'd like to give my POV of this beverage right when the whipped cream and the drink were not stirred. I thought it was a great combination for the whipped cream to be with the sea salt, I kinda crave for it again right by the moment I am writing this post now :9.

There's a zoomed image so you can see how the sea salt looks like, it looks like common sugar: transparent, glass like texture we're using at home, only the structure is various.

I started to drink my first sip and I was trying it without any stirring done to find the original taste of the drink, okay, it's a little too sweet and I definitely can smell and taste a huge ammount of hazelnut syrup used in this drink, then I decided to mix everything and I end up having a quite stable drink, but it's more likely a caramel hazelnut mocha drink, because even after mixing everything, the hazelnut still is the main flavour of the drink.

I asked the barista whether they put the sea salt in the drink and they say 'none', only as the garnish on the whipped cream. I honestly kinda expected that the sea salt would be used in the drink, it will be a fun experiment, but somehow maybe Starbucks made this decision more likely after experiments, and maybe it's the best, rite :).

I recommend you the cake and the drink, guys :). WORTH TRYING.

Thank you so much Starbucks Indonesia for the chance. I've always been a fan of yours for years and I think it will stay forever. Thank you Starbucks SMS as the venue of the testing.

If you guys want to invite EATandTREATS for the food testing, the invitation is always open and that would be an honor for me, but noted that the obligatory of posting the food review is back to my decision, but don't hesitate to send the invitation via email to eatandtreatsindo@gmail.com 

my twitter account is: @STANISLAUSHANS
and my facebook link is available at the right bar, click on the FB image and you'll be directed.