Switzerland

Switzerland was one of my favorite places that I visited during my Europe tour. It's just...... serene. We stayed in Luzern, and went to see Mount Titlis. This was what we ate up there. In Luzern, I just ate salads and sandwiches from a supermarket, because I love those things so much and they don't really exist back home. But in the midst of taking pictures of my surroundings and juggling shopping bags, I didn't take any photographs of the lovely salads I ate. Shucks.

I know I'm supposed to eat wursts in Germany, but on tours like this we ate at a Chinese place instead while we stayed in Frankfurt. This Titlis wurst is good though, juicy.

Titlis was cold. Well, duh. This hot chocolate with whipped cream was like a dream. Swiss chocolate, what what

Another Swiss gem: Movenpick ice cream. I stuffed them down my throat every chance I could.

And I swore to myself I'll come back someday.

Europe: Italy

Oh Italy, the land of mouthwatering cuisine. The land of pasta, my favorite carbs. It truly was a dream come true to visit Italy and taste their food firsthand. The sunshine, friendly people, gelato, picturesque streets. And of course, divine pasta. I was with a tour group so I wasn't able to stray and eat whatever I wanted, but I was pretty satisfied. One big regret: I didn't try real, authentic, Italian tiramisu. Huge sad face.

Amazing caprese sandwich. Just toasted bread, tomatoes, and basil. Got them at Autogrill, a food shop at a gas station. Man, even the convenience store sandwiches are awesome. (Capreses are very expensive in Jakarta. Probably because of the mozzarella.

The first day, we ate at this touristy Italian restaurant near the Colosseum. To my surprise, they serve great food. We start off with a simple salad, one of my favorite kinds. Just fresh, crunchy lettuce with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

After the salad, we had a beautiful four cheese pizza. The crust was thin and crispy, and not too fulfilling (in a good way because we still had pasta coming)

I think God personally sent this to our table because it was divine. The pasta was perfectly al dente with a beautiful sauce. I can't stop raving about this.

I love this pot of chili oil that adds a nice heat.

For dessert, we had this slice of ice cream/gelato/heavenly deliciousness. It was like rum raisin but I wasn't sure, but hey as long as it tasted as good as it did.

Lovely nutella gelato in a scorching hot day at that fountain. I just can't remember the name!

The next day we went to Florence and the tour guide let us eat wherever we want. We chose this small restaurant by H&M, and ordered a mushroom risotto. It was delicious. 

The other day we went to Pisa, and stop by this restaurant. I forgot what this pasta is called, but it was unique! Small pieces of pasta with a very light tomato sauce. Loooved it.

Since Italian is one of my favorite cuisine, I couldn't get enough of authentic Italian food. Too bad I had to go and leave all this deliciousness behind. But if I didn't leave, I would've gained more weight than I should. ;--)

Ciao!

Miitem, Plaza Indonesia

Squid ink pasta. Looks revolting (for some people). Tastes revolutionary. And what better place to eat it than a place whose name is mi item??? It's a shame that even though this place has existed for years, today was the first time I've eaten there. They serve noodles, sandwiches, salads, pizzas, even steaks. They even have this build-your-own-sandwich choice. I was craving for a good sandwich but since it was my first time, I decided to get their namesake dish. We got the aglio olio, noodles with prawn and chili, and crackers with dip.

I didn't expect their definition of crackers would be dark cheese-sticks type of crackers! Haha anyway, the tiny portion of guacamole that come as their dip is so so so good. Freshly chopped and it really reminded me of Texas, of great Mexican establishments like El Fenix. If they sell these guacs by the jar, I would buy dozens. Oh and we also ordered a mixed green salad, which was basically just mixed lettuce with balsamic vinaigrette, with a slice of garlic foccacia bread and generous slices of one of my favorite cheeses which I did not know the name of.

Miitem was having this mipink (pink noodles) promotion, where we would get 25% off the dish if we order the noodles pink instead of black. So my mom did. The aglio olio is one of their most popular dishes and I could definitely see why. It was well balanced, not too oily, or too spicy. It was so good, with chunks of tuna I think and garlic, yum!

This is my miitem with prawn and chili. It looked so good and tasty, and it was good, but needs a tad more salt for my taste. And some more chili oil. I recommend the aglio olio over this, but this was good too, I think it's just a matter of taste.

Totally forgot about the prices, but we ordered a salad, an appetizer, two main courses, an iced tea and a caffe latte (which was really good and light) and paid almost 200k. Not bad!

p.s forgive the bad pics, I haven't been lugging around my camera lately so these were taken with my humble phone camera

Pancious' New Menu: The Layered Crepes Cake!

Alright, I may or may not have talked about my love affair with layered crepes cake. One day I tasted the perfect dessert that was First Love cake, a Hokkaido Thousand Layers cake. So light, sweet but not sickeningly so, and soft. And now Pancious is taking this layered marvel to a whole new level!

I've always loved Pancious. Their pancakes/waffles' toppings are awesome. And for them to be plopped on top of this cake, words can't describe.

Since I love their cheese line, so I ordered Strawberry Cheese. I went with my mom and sister but we only ordered a slice because I thought too much of a good thing is never good. I was absolutely right, because the dessert was divine and rich. And that richness will probably come in the way of its deliciousness if I eat too much. The vanilla ice cream, cheese sauce, and strawberries did wonders to the light cake.

It's a match made in dessert heaven. But remember, don't eat yourself sick!

Price: around 30-40k

Favorite Snack: HOT CHEETOS!

So, when I lived in the USA, I became especially fond to a certain snack, hot Cheetos. I remembered my first encounter to it was from the school's vending machine, it was the baked kind. I thought, well, it''s Cheetos, what could go wrong? As y'all know, in Indonesia, we don't have hot Cheetos. We have, cheese and roasted corn and other mild flavors. I was excited to try this American snack. I was pleasantly surprised! It was acidic yet spicy, so, sooooo goooood. And addictive. I was pretty heartbroken when I realized I could not find any here, and I've looked in lots of imported goods grocery stores. Until that day I was casually walking around in Kemchicks, and I found this piece of heaven!!!! It's tins and tins of Flamin' Hot Cheetos! I was so happy I basically squealed. It was pretty expensive though, Rp 48.700 if I'm not mistaken. My mom was being nice that day and I got to get a tin!! Tastes just like old times. Needless to say, finished the whole thing before three days even pass!

ITB Fair's Festival Kuliner Ganesha!

So my friends at ITB are doing this huge event, the ITB Fair. And one of the things that they're doing is this culinary festival, which sounds great. This is what they say about this festival on their website:

Festival Kuliner Ganesha ITB Fair 2012 adalah area makan (foodcourt) yang akan diadakan pada tanggal 4 Februari 2012 dan 5 Februari 2012 pukul 10.00 sampai dengan 17.00, bertempat di lapangan parkir Labtek 5 dan Labtek 8 InstitutTeknologi Bandung.
Festival Kuliner Ganesha ITB Fair 2012 akan mengangkat "Nostalgia Kuliner Indonesia" sebagai tema. Pensuasanaan dari Festival Kuliner Ganesha ITB Fair 2012 megadopsi dari Indonesia pada tempo dulu dengan menghidangkan makanan khas dari berbagai daerah di Indonesia

Sounds fun, huh? I'm gonna go check it out on Sunday, hopefully. I know my ITB friends execute things well, so come one come all! ;-)

What I ate today.

Well hello there! Med school has been taking over my life lately, but now I've made a promise to myself to blog more.
Just made another blog that'll be more general in theme, more about my opinions about things. If this strikes your fancy: http://parallel-sea.blogspot.com [the url comes from my favorite band's lyrics]

So, since it's my 3 weeks off school, I tend to go out to eat. I know, bad habit dies hard. It's doing terrible things to my finances hahaha but what can I do, I get bored and I get hungry.
Today was especially expensive, since I had both my lunch and dinner at Pacific Place. My dad is away on business, but if he's home I'll probably get grounded or something.

Lunch: Fish & Co's baked red fish with tomato coulis

I have this love affair with Fish& Co. It's so delicious and light and their fish flaky and always perfectly cooked, but they're expensive. About 80k a dish, it's not something I'll pay for everyday. When my parents are with me I don't really care, but today I was eating solo.

I usually get their coriander dish, but they have a plethora of new menu and I wanted to get something I've never had. Pn the menu they have this amazing sounding dish, baked halibut with mediterranean salsa. Dude, that's like my dream dish. But of course, they're out of halibut. So I ordered this instead!

The fish is perfectly cooked, and that coulis is grrrreat. Fresh, spicy, with a touch of coriander. Love the fact that the side is a coleslaw, which tastes delicious. I regret getting the mash because to be honest it didn't really go with the rest of the dish, fries or their rice is probably a better choice for carbs. But I don't care, it's soooo geeewwwdd. I love you, Fish & Co. Thanks for providing me with delicious guiltless food.

Dinner: Kemchick's Kitchen's Beef Brockwurst

I shop at Kemchick's a lot, since they have such fresh produce and very convenient. I've always known there's some kind of kitchen inside but have never got the chance to try it. So just some hours ago, after gym, I decided to stop by and eat. They have a pretty diverse menu, from hainan chicken rice to burgers. I ordered the beef brockwurst, and they turned out to be huge. I cut into them and juice spilled all around the cut, yum yum yum I knew it was gonna be juicy. It tasted great, juicy, salty, spicy, everything that sausages should be. The mayo was good too, but too little mustard for me, should've asked for some more. The veggies were just basic mixed frozen veggies and the fries were nothing special, but they were good company for the wurst. The plate costed me 32.500, which wasn't bad at all. Definitely gonna come back to try all their other dishes!