Your Comfort Food Reimagined at 1945 Fairmont

Fine dining at 1945 Fairmont turns out to be a pleasant surprise. Invitation arrived from the group who has Sate Khas Senayan and Tesate under its management, so our guess is this should be another Indonesian restaurant with unusual concept.

Welcome to 1945

The first impression? A minimalist interior with stones built similar to temples mixed with wooden element, something very Indonesian. At the door, friendly waitress with Kebaya, complete with their traditional hair bun and hair pin. Its lounge has asymmetrical short wooden table, wax decor and a pot full of one of the things Indonesia is famous for: Chili. At the end of the long tunnel, there is a long table with candle and janur kuning (literally translated as yellow coconut leaves, this traditional decor is usually placed outside to indicate celebrations happening inside a building or area). Definitely a mix of minimalist, luxury and modern feel.

At the dining room, a video showing historical clips of Indonesia's struggle for independence. On the carpet, there are numbers 1945 sewn into it. Tables from marbles with candle stick on every corner remind us of torches with a hint of contemporary through the red petals spreads on the table.

The feast begins with a Rijsttafel, or a rice table style of serving. Four waitresses arrive with two appetizers each, introducing the story and the name behind each dish. Emping (melinjo crackers) served with peanut sauce, steamed peanut and Kembang Goyang (Indonesian traditional snack made of flour). A twist on plating gave a different look and feel to the already familiar dishes for Indonesians. Each dish is served on custom crafted ceramic sets inspired by the traditional but created for the contemporary.

Four waitresses arrive with two appetizers each.

Emping with peanut sauce, steamed peanut and kembang goyang

Don't worry be thirsty after everything on the Rijsttafel. - Fruity Lime Granita Mulberry, shaved ice traditional with homemade syrup, is a childhood favorite with a sophisticated makeover.

Let's Check Out The Menu!

Jajanan
Also known as snack. Never know that Gorengan can be this delightful. Placed on a leaf mat, high-rise rempeyek (flour crackers with either salted fish or ground nuts) stands side-by-side with three-colored yam which are rich, crispy and tasty. Definitely a favorite. Bakwan (prawn fritters) comes with cabe rawit (chili) and smooth but thick peanut sauce dip.

Sate
Also known as satay, at 1945, the selections are from the best possible meat and seafood: Wagyu Beef, Chicken Oyster, Lamb Tenderloin. One portion consists of 8 skewers served on a unique bowl with hot charcoal underneath. Yin-Yang stone tray that can be attached to red-colored rice plate. As expected of satay, there are peanut sauce, sweet soy sauce and pickles. Give the lamb a try because it's soft and doesn't smell funny (a big kudos for lamb). But as always, soy sauce is preferred with lamb.

Appetizers
Pecel Kembang Salad grabs girls attention (probably something boys have to order when they have date here) due to its vibrant color and well, there are flowers. We think we spotted three kinds of flowers there: Begonia, Kembang Teleng (Blue Butterfly Pea) and Marigolds. All are mixed with greens including kemangi and cucumber. Rempeyek seems like a trend here. Even how you should eat this is real cool. First you have to mix them up together with the peanut sauce that is buried inside, then you mix it again with black sesame around the plate. It taste really good and the edible flowers got us to wonder a lot about the different taste and characteristics. Perfect collaboration of the sauce, tingly taste, sweet and sour.

But that's not all for opening. Oxtail Consomme is next. Stacked beautifully, the dish has meat, baby carrots, radish, and potato bowl. Soup is placed separately in an old-fashioned jar. Meat is soft and the soup is super tasty, makes you want to slurp some more.

Choose your Rice
Indonesia is identical with rice, especially when you're in Jakarta. Right before the main courses are served, waitresses went around to take everyone rice order from world-famous white rice, festivity's yellow rice and the healthy black (red) rice. Sambal Matah is also served at this time.

Main Course
Rejuvenate your meal with Rendang Wagyu. Served on top of cassava leaves with extra, extra paste. Yeay! It doesn't scream Wagyu right away but when you give it a try, you know it's not the ordinary meat used at Padang restaurant down the street. Super soft, definitely a high-quality beef. And such a beef can match perfectly with Rendang paste is a proof that Indonesian food can go as fancy. Cassava leaves aren't bitter (what a relief) and it's something to much on while talking with everyone on the table. The homemade and classic taste makes this dish worth the try.

Soft Tongseng Lamb Chop, fried with vibrant spices. It's another typical Indonesian stew dish which is packed with local spices and sweet soy sauce that makes the brown color on the soup. Curry sauce is very tasty. Rujak Chicken is boneless young chicken served with baby spinach and rujak sauce. Rujak usually refers a dish of fruits and vegetables mixed with sweet and spicy sauce. Its sauce is made of tamarind, palm sugar and ground nuts.

Tongseng Lamb Chop with three-colored rice

Rujak Chicken

The next dish is Lobster Pesmol Thermidor, stuffed-baked with golden, coconut milk-based sauce which is often found in West Java area. This sauce is often used for fish and other seafood. But with lobster? Well, a big fan of lobster, Fiona can guarantee that this particular dish is "to die for". Easily pulled the meat out of the shell, fresh and pesmol sauce apparently fit in. As Indonesian, rice is a must have, as a side dish.

Still on the seafood side, Gindara 1945 is a dish served with sweet terasi (shrimp paste) sauce. Soft and doesn't smell fishy. It's one dish that you can go over and over again without feeling guilty. The usually strong overpowering terasi blends well with the gindara.

Fried Rice
Lobster Fried Rice is cooked with curry is similar to Briyani Rice. Lobster is placed next to the rice that's cooked dry, just like what the traditional fried rice looks like. Nasi Goreng Kampung, the ones that's usually cooked by your mom (or the gerobak faithfully passing by late at night to ruin your diet) also received a boost.

Dessert
With main courses like that, it's only fair to wonder what's the closing dishes look like. Nastar Cake arrived with a presentation as luxurious as expected. Fiona loves nastar, which is originally a pineapple-filled bite-size pastry, but when it comes out as cake, it loses the crispiness. How about extra crunch and a little more moist on the cake? Frozen Srikaya Souffle appears next. Imagine a large Srikaya-filled ongol-ongol topped with souffle and shredded coconut. Served with Pandan Sticky Rice on the side. Warm is definitely better. But, after an array of such a rich dishes, we expect more flavors on this one too. Srikaya and Pandan somehow taste too similar. 

Nastar Cake

Frozen Srikaya Souffle

Third time the charm. The last piece of dessert is arguably the best in town. Tape Cheesecake. Well, repeat after me, Tape Cheesecake. It's hard to imagine at first but once you give it a try, it's hard to stop. This cheesecake disappears at once. Fusing tape (fermented rice or cassava dessert) into the usually heavy cheesecake apparently balance the taste. Add on vanilla sauce and it soon becomes everyone's favorite dessert.

Tape Cheesecake

Final Thoughts?
Have to admit we're skeptical with the concept stated on the press release: Indonesian Fine Dining, elevating familiar dishes into exquisitely flavor and colorful creations. Indonesian food has always been comfort food and many admit its plating difficulty because, well, we used to eat them on the table regardless of how pretty their appearance can be. But our doubts, about whether Indonesian can enjoy this kind of fine dining concept with their comfort food, are instantly broken with 1945.

We'll bring our family here. It will be a new thing for them to experience. I think this concept will open everyone's eyes that Indonesian cuisine can get a revamp without compromising both the aesthetic aspects and authenticity.
Where is this?
Fairmont Hotel, 3rd Floor
Jl. Asia Afrika No.8 Jakarta - Indonesia
t: +62 21 2903 9179
f: +62 21 2903 9177
www.1945.co.id
Opening hours:
Lounge 11.00 AM - 12.00 AM
Lunch 11.00 AM - 03.30 PM
Dinner 06.30 PM - 11.00 PM

Dilmah Real High Tea Challenge Indonesia

We all have our moment, when a cup of tea means more than a warm drink in a rainy afternoon. Dilmah Indonesia took Real High Tea moments to the next level by bringing the concept to restaurants and cafes in Jakarta and Bandung. 

We're invited to attend the high-tea pairing (and dinner) at Dilmah Office in Panglima Polim last week.

Dilmah Real High Tea Challenge began in 2007 to restore the connection between tea and gastronomy. Quoting Dilhan C. Fernando, "Tea isn't just for your health or friendship, but it can also offer luxury, spoiling you with the beautiful combination with gastronomical art. This is also what Real High Tea Challenge Cafes and Restaurants trying to highlight."

Dilmah originated in Sri Lanka, a country with unique geography that enables them to grow the best tea in the world. The Watte series, consisting of four different black teas from four different regions in Ceylon. The teas are: Ran Watte (6000ft), Uda Watte (4000-5000ft), Meda Watte (2000-3000ft) and Yata Watte (1000ft). The higher the region, the lighter the color of the tea.

Returning the art of High Tea

In Indonesia, Dilmah Real High Tea Challenge Cafes and Restaurants is aimed to appreciate tea, moving the hype of nightlife to afternoon tea. Afternoon is slow business for most food business, but this challenge invited cafes and restaurants in Jakarta and Bandung to create special menu to be served as tea pairings. A great idea for the hospitality industry.

The challenge starts August 31 in Jakarta and September 7 in Bandung. Judges will visit the restaurants and cafe to judge the Hot Tea Pairing Dish, Mocktail or Cocktail Pairing Dish and Tea Inspired Cuisine.

The welcome drink is a tea mocktail

So, we were the first to try several pairings created by the Dilmah team. The savory mini burger paired with Brilliant Breakfast Tea. Cheesecake to go with Green Tea with Jasmine Flower. The last one is Chocolate Cake/Tiramisu with Moroccan Mint Green Tea. 

Mini burger paired with Brilliant Breakfast Tea

Cheesecake to go with Green Tea with Jasmine Flower

Chocolate Cake/Tiramisu with Moroccan Mint Green Tea

How do you make a perfect cup of tea? Boiled water to 100C and pour them right on your tea. Steep for 3-5 minutes and stir once. Add 1-2 minutes if you like them stronger. Make sure you keep the rest of your tea bags/leaves in an airtight container. Different kind of tea has different way of brewing as well as different water temperature.. The awesome thing about Dilmah is that you know how long you should steep your tea. It’s written in the handle. The Blueberry Vanila, for example, should be steeped between 3-5 minutes.

Drinking tea is often seen as something formal and serious (yes, even in Alice in the Wonderland it looks formal), but Eliawati Erly, Vice President David Roy Indonesia, encourages us that drinking tea should be fun! Make some ice tea, pair with your favorite food and get endless possibili-tea. 

So, come visit your favorite restaurant and vote for them by sharing your afternoon meal at social media. Go visit dilmah.co.id/realhighteacafe for details. We can't wait to tour around and try the pairings. We'll see you there soon.

Nusantara Food Festival at Grand Zuri BSD City

Saturday is time for culinary journey at Grand Zuri Hotel, BSD City. Serving food from Sabang to Merauke, the four-star hotel is educating its guests about the amazing (and of course delicious) Indonesian dishes with Nusantara Food Festival this August. What's not to love about them?

Hello, this is Ruth reporting from Cerenti Restaurant visit with fellow bloggers from Indonesia Food Bloggers (IDFB).

 

After a warm welcomed by Chef Robby, who started right away with the appetizers, we encounter Tahu Gimbal Semarang right next to lalapan. Gimbal is a shimp fried with flour. The dish is served with peanut sauce. You can find a lot of Gimbal sold alone by street vendors in Semarang or as the best friend of Tahu Pong. Okay, let's move on to another island.

Tahu Gimbal with Peanut Sauce

Rendang. Chef Robby invited a local Padangnese to cook the Rendang over trials and errors. The one served that night was one of the best Rendang I've ever tasted. Meat is soft, the color is right and the caramelized seasoning isn't too watery either. Provoking me to get up and add a scoop of white rice to finish the Rendang.

(L-R) Tahu Aci Tegal, Rendang, Ikan Woku and Terik Ayam

Terik Ayam is a Semarangan way to say Opor, chicken cooked with coconut milk and spices. Next to the chicken there's a fish dish from another island: Ikan Bakar Woku Manado. Chef Robby is using Gindara fillet which are cooked nicely with (again) spices and leaves. This dish is both fresh and spicy. If you like vegetables, give Genjer a try. Genjer (which according to wiki bears the Latin name of Limnocharis flava) is a tropical vegetable native to central and southern America but widely used in Southeast Asia.Despite being not a menu regular, stir-fried Genjer can often be found in Sundanese restaurants.

Moving on to the fried side, Tahu Aci Tegal is neatly stacked on the plate. Fried tofu filled with tapioca starch. A little chewy when bitten, this food has to be consumed fresh after fried.

When introducing Nasi Goreng Kampung, the chef quizzed us about the meaning behind the dish. "Nasi Goreng Kampung originated from the homemade fried rice. The first ones who made them are our mothers." It was spicy and caught us by surprised, but as Ruth once pointed out, spicy is the right flavor to cure your homesick, especially when you spend years studying abroad in a landlocked county. Mie Goreng Jogja is available for those wanting to avoid rice on dinnertime. 

"Our mission as chefs is to make people remember about our local culinary, about Indonesian food," said Chef Robby in the midst of explaining the different dishes.

But what's Indonesian food galore without Sambal? From what seems to be over the counter chili paste to the Colo colo spicy condiment brought from the Maluku region, Cerenti Restaurant has it all. Woku Fish can go with Dabu-dabu chili, while the rest can be paired with Sambal Terasi or Sambal Ijo.

Soto Betawi close the main food table. Served fresh when you order. But wait... before selecting your dessert, there's a secret counter for satay. BBQ is on the outside yard of the restaurant and that night, it was serving Satay Marrangi along with grilled chicken and fish fillet.

  

Dessert is sweet, from pudding to jajanan pasar. A beautifully decorated Colenak is on the spotlight. Colenak is a well-known Indonesian snack made of Tape (or Tapai), a fermented cassava with slightly alcoholic taste. Acquired taste for some, but hey, you're here to give those unique Indonesian taste a try. 

Colenak

Assorted Jajan Pasar

All of these are available for Rp150,000 (nett) on weekends in August 2015 at Cerenti Restaurant, Grand Zuri BSD City. Let's visit now while it's last.

Where is this?
Cerenti Restaurant - Grand Zuri BSD City
Jl Pahlawan Seribu Kavling Ocean Walk
Blok CBD Lot.6 BSD City. Serpong
Tangerang Selatan 15322, Banten- Indonesia
TEL: +62 21 2940 4955

Introducing Lifull, a Snack Dictionary

Shopping for food when your stomach is full isn't a solution. We ended up buying nothing and suffering from afternoon craving later on. Even worse, there's one snack that caught your attention but you can't remember the name. You just home you'll see it again the next time you shop. Been there?

Always have something on the desk

Well, meet Lifull and it helps with our regrets of not buying that chocolate cookie from the shelf. What's Lifull? It's essentially an online directory of everyone's favorite snack. From the over the counter crackers to the fancy treats.You can search by brand or by name. Or browse around to see what they have by looking at the category if you have nothing specific in mind. It gives out description of the snack down to the calorie counts and price prediction. No need to Google around anymore.

Even better you can get those snacks for free. All you have to do is check out their gift section and see which snack is available for "present campaign" and click apply products. Or if you like certain snacks, you can sign up and start to write your own review.

Drinks are good too

Stocking up for the greater good. There is always someone who has a drawer full of munchies in every office. They are often seen as a savior whenever afternoon snack craving attacks. And here's how we decide what to stock up?

• We love smaller pieces but still large enough to share. Like the Oishi Sponge which tends to be everyone's favorite. 
• Keep both sweet and salty. We personally don't rule out candy even though many experts would advise you to avoid stocking up on candy. Lifull has UHA Candy with 20 kcal.
• Drinks are great too. An alternative to the standard coffee and tea on your office pantry. 
• Popcorn flavored rice cakes are great too.
• Check out the healthy snack section at Lifull for interesting ideas of what to look for the next time you're at the supermarket. They have interesting snacks like Okra and Broccoli Chips (which makes Ruth goes "what? there are vegetables snacks?") to the simple oat cookies.

Our drawer at the office. Wanna share?

Here's what in our drawer. We took pictures knowing it would be gone the next time afternoon craving wave hit the office.

• Oishi Sponge Crunch Choco
• Oishi Sponge Crunch Strawberry
• Oishi Sponge Crunch Mochachino
• Chocomania Rich Choco
• UHA Strawberry Milk Candy 37GR
• UHA Coffee Milk Candy 37GR
• UHA Rich Milk Candy
• INACO Aloe Vera
• INACO Nata Drink
• MONY Cincau
• SIPAHH Strawberry Straw
• POKKA Strawberry Milk
• KIYORA Extra Green Tea
• KIYORA Original

Care to share what's in your drawer?

Meat Brunch Story at C's Grand Hyatt

Sometimes it's desperately hard to find tasty meat on brunch buffet. You'd find many other dishes from different ends of the world, but meat can be as rare as we love them to be. Fortunately, there's C's, where meat eaters (like Fiona) and seafood fan (like Ruth) can enjoy the best of both worlds.

One weekend, Fiona attended a brunch at C's. Here's her tale.

Get ready for a fine-dine all you can eat at C's

I'm familiar with C's already, their quality, their service and their ambiance as I've been here a couple times for dinners and special occasions. (Check out our previous C's review here). Now they're doing this brunch buffet thing and I'm wondering whether it would be the same (especially quality-wise) with their regular serving. C's is still the same dim-but-homey-restaurant I remember. It's quite dark for around lunchtime. I was welcomed by the restaurant's friendly waitress to meet Pak Muara Sipahutar, the hotel's Digital Marketing Manager. He showed me the line up for meat and seafood, waiting for customers to come. The meat and seafood are cut-to-order. I couldn't wait.

So here's what's on my itinerary:

• Tropical Lobsters, King Crab Legs and Oysters. Pick them up right away because I have no doubt that this is fresh. I don't have to worry about allergy (and yes, I was right).

  

• Meat. This is what I was here for so I ate them all. Wood Oven Roasted Canadian beef sirloin, Beef Tenderloin Carved To Order. All meat are served medium, but can be cooked to your preference. Selection of sauces are C's Housemade Steak Sauce, Mushroom, Red Wine, Bernaise, Hollandaise and Remoulade. They have chicken too.

Foie Gras. Freshly cooked in front of you upon order. Served with delicious bread. The first bite, with melted foie gras, makes you want to get second, third and go on. But the list (and the day) is still long. So I'm moving on.... or not, because I'm going back to meat, Rack Of Lamb this time. Honestly speaking, the meat doesn't need any sauce to taste good. But if you don't like your dish to be dry, feel free to add a little sauce on.

 

Finishing off with dessert, C's has an array of interesting selection. My favorite is Spicy Chocolate Cake, presenting you with sweet flavor in the beginning and spicy aftertaste. A combination that prevents me from stopping. Ice cream and Sorbet are great. Despite not being an ice cream person, the homemade sweets they have here convinced me to try. I event went on second round for the sorbet.

Homemade Ice cream at C's vs the refreshing sorbet

I was focusing on meat the whole time, I missed their Asian selection. So I'm determined to return for their Peking Duck and Dim Sum. Peking Duck Pancakes, Chili, Leek, Cucumber side by side with C's Assorted Housemade Dim Sum provides an alternative to those wanting to have something lighter than the meat. C's also has a Wok Fried side for its seafood (from Garoupa to Crab, Prawn and Lobster) and is complimented with Szechuan, Dry Chili, Chili-Crab or Black Pepper sauce. Definitely too many to mention.

Children under 12 are free when dining with adult, so I'm sure they'd be excited with the unlimited ice cream served at C's. Well, I did.

Where is this?

Grand Hyatt Hotel

M. H. Thamrin Kav. 28-30, Jakarta Pusat
(021) 29921383

Rosemary Chicken Wings with Pineapple and Lemon Sauce

A care package with Morisca Pineapple Jam arrived the other day at Fiona's house and suddenly, she was inspired to cook something with it. We're sharing the recipe here. Let's call it pineapple miracle.

But what can you make with pineapple jam?

The first thing that comes to mind is, of course, Nastar. It's that Indonesian sweet baked goods filled with pineapple jam, usually comes in beautiful packaging right on time for special celebration like Idul Fitri. But that would be too complicated and require a lot of time. So, shifting to the more practical and easier set of recipe, pineapple sauce is selected. It can go with your main course like fish or chicken and can be stored easily for future use. Whenever steamed fish or grilled chicken comes on the menu, the savory and sweet hint from the sauce can help compliment the flavor. We can even use it on salad... who knows?

Rosemary Chicken Wings with Pineapple and Lemon Sauce

Ingredients:
Chicken wings, 3 pairs, cleaned and washed
Garlic, minced
Lemon, squeezed for juice
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Rosemary
Pineapple Jam

Cooking direction:
Start with garlic, sauteed until yellowish in color. Then fry the wings. Pour the rest of the ingredients in, add water and cook in medium heat until the chicken is soft. Keep what's left of the broth and mix them in the blender to create the sauce. Decorate as you wish.

Decorating is fun!
Insert the sauce in piping bag and don't forget to filter the rough part out so it doesn't get stuck and block the sauce. Polka-dot seems like a good idea so this one is decorated with different sizes of dots. Apparently, creating the perfect ascending sizes of dots require patience and balanced pressure. Otherwise, you'll ruin the dots pattern. Or, you can "cheat" with small pippette to ensure the clean and sophisticated look. Looks better than just pouring the whole sauce on the chicken, right? Rosemary is added for rustiness look and feel to the dish.

Where to find Pineapple?
Originated from South American countries, Brazil and Paraguay to be exact, this tropical fruit is widely used for cooking in Asia. The Chinese use it for sweet and sour sauce, while Hawaiian Pizza is known for adding pineapple on top. Thai recipes also often include this yellow fruit with spiky skin in their ingredients list.

Grand Dinner at Grand Cafe

It's Friday night at the end of the month. Our office postponed a grand project so we thought we need a grand break to refresh. We gathered several of our best buddies and laughed the night out at Grand Cafe, Grand Hyatt Hotel, Jakarta.

What's popular on our table?
Sashimi (both salmon and butterfish are lovely) and oyster. The raw seafood seems to receive much love tonight. Then meat is always popular. The tenderloin with BBQ or mushroom sauce goes second. Go for BBQ if you can't decide over which flavor to pour.

Moving aside, cheese and bread attract Ruth right away. Brie and Comte paired with dinner roll instead of crackers. But don't cross over to dessert just yet. Trust us, we're still a long way from the final sweets. Instead, cross to the traditional Indonesian food or order a pasta. Shawarma is served generously too. If you fancy Chinese, Grand Cafe has wide selection ranging from duck and noodles to dim sum. We were slightly distracted by the spices decoration next to the assorted Chinese table, so we took a peek while our noodle got prepared. 

The chef arrived with a complimentary Angus steak for our group. Medium cooked, served with sauce that tasted sweet. The night can't get any better. It was juicy, tender, and cooked to perfection. You'd know they don't compromise the beef quality because it's something you'd fall in love with at the first sight. Fiona even doesn't need to mix the sauce in. 

Finally time for desserts. Hurray! While aiming for the sweet potato kolak, none of us ended up with a bowl of that dessert because we're distracted with the neatly arranged brownies, tiramisu, blackforest, pound cake, cheesecake, Strawberry shortcake and assorted traditional Indonesian cakes. Ice cream makes the perfect end of our filled-with-laughter night. Coffee ice cream rank first (According to Ruth), even though chocolate, jackfruit and pandan are calling out our curiosity.

We parted goodbye with happy tummy and a recollection of the best dinner ever. It was definitely grand.

Where is this?
Grand Cafe
Grand Hyatt Jakarta
Jl. M. H. Thamrin Kav. 28-30, Plaza Indonesia, Jakarta Pusat 10350
(021) 29921234