Godiva High Tea at Keraton Lounge

When one hears about a high tea that comes with Godiva chocolate, one doesn't hesitate nor think twice. One instantly rearranges their life so as to get to the location where said high tea is being served and orders a set immediately. One waits with baited breath and prepares to be amazed, awed and dazzled by the plate of treats that is about to appear only to be...cruelly disappointed. Oh yes, sadly it is the horrible reality of this story. I found out about the Godiva High Tea at the Keraton Lounge on a list of recommended places to eat chocolate in Jakarta. I figured it must be good, better than good even. I must admit I was not disappointed by the surroundings which were beautiful and elegant. Instead I was devastated by what they served up and the price that was paid for it. Let me take you through my afternoon...

The Keraton Lounge itself is a lovely haven in the middle of the city and you are greeted by immaculately dressed staff who speak perfect English and are only too happy to fulfill any request. Once seated, I perused the menu and found the high tea section. There were four different Godiva sets but I settled on the Luxury Godiva Set and then also decided on the Indonesian High Tea set. This would give me the opportunity to sample both interpretations of High Tea. Each set came with two drinks included and I went with the Cafe Latte. 

I was very impressed when it arrived, served in a Bodlums glass with three distinct layers and a cinnamon stick. It was delicious. However it all started going downhill from here...

The Luxury Godiva High Tea set was placed on the table with its three tiers. At first glance it looked quite impressive however on closer inspection and as the food was tried, the reality was very different.

The scones on the top layer came in plain and chocolate flavour. Yes I'm Irish, yes we eat lots of scones, yes I grew up watching my grandma bake delicious scones so I had high expectations. These scones were old, at least they looked rubbery, felt rubbery and to me that means old. The chocolate one had this strange aftertaste that I just couldn't quite understand. These were definitely not baked fresh on the day. I have never been able to reduce a scone to crumble with just a few pinches, these were so dry that it took me a couple of seconds to do it. Appalling!

On the second tier there were some canapés. Again, they looked old, like they had been stored away somewhere and dug out again because someone happened to come in for high tea. I didn't even try all of them, the cabbage leaf canapé was seeping out the bottom, the prawn tasted very fishy, which made me feel like it wasn't fresh and the Brie cheese had a ridiculously strong smell from it. The caviar and egg, again, looked flattened and dull. 

On the bottom tier were the chocolates that came with two cups of hot (luke warm) chocolate. I tried two chocolates...the nutty one which was dry and crumbly on the inside and if that really was Godiva chocolate then how disappointing. Not rich, not creamy, not satisfying. It was dry, bland and tasted like cheap supermarket chocolate. The almond chocolate tasted similar. I bit into half of it and left the rest. I never say no to chocolate...that's how bad it was.

To accompany the scones there was a tray of preserves including apricot jam, strawberry jam, lemon curd and fresh cream. The apricot jam had been made with orange peel and was quite good. The lemon curd was more like lemon cream and had a good tangy kick to it, the strawberry jam was pretty regular and the fresh cream...well, it tasted like cheese!

Then my attention switched to the Indonesian high tea. I mean we are in Indonesia, surely this must be better. It was, slightly...

The top tier had some Indonesian biscuits including a pineapple tart. The biscuits were fine but I wanted a 'wow' factor result. They didn't make me want to gobble them all up.

The second tier had some Indonesian kueh or cakes. There was a kueh lapis or layer cake that tasted ok and a kueh dadar (green) or coconut stuffed pancake that was very sweet and the pink cake that was slippery and slimy. Again, just no one cake that made me luck my lips.

The bottom tier was full of gorengan or fried Indonesian snacks and included fried tofu, fried banana and fried croquette. All were mediocre. I have eaten better snacks like this from the side of the road. 

Needless to say, I would NOT recommend this high tea to anyone, especially considering the Godiva set will cost you Rp. 250,000 - an extortionate amount of money for something lacking in taste, flavour and quality. No wonder I was the only one eating it. If I was responsible I would do a complete overhaul of the high tea and create fresh, delicious delights that would tantalise the taste buds and bring all those people with way too much money in their pockets living in the city running for high tea. At the moment, I would say don't bother doing it if this is the standard you will continue to offer because you are cheating people of an awful lot of money.

Word of advice...

Don't ever send your personal effects to Jakarta...unless you want to spend truckloads of money to get it back and waste your time hanging out in abandoned looking offices with gangsters and lowly types. It's a money-making racket here and a scheme to extract as much as possible from innocent types who only want their belongings. It has taken me two months to retrieve my 6 small boxes of personal effects and a truckload of money. By the time I finally get the things I will have paid more to get them from Jakarta port to my apartment then it cost me to ship them half way across the world. Genius!

Making friends with foodpanda...

Ok so living in Jakarta, there's one thing everyone here always talks about...the traffic or macet in Bahasa Indonesia. Your life is ruled here by the time it takes to get between two points. That time can change at will and is constantly at the mercy of how many cars, motorbikes, trucks, buses, bicycles, bajaj or carts there might be on the road. Some days you just don't want to face it all...most days really but I don't work from home so that's unavoidable. However, on a day when I don't have to go out and face the mayhem it's nice to know there are some options for making the important things in life like your lunch, come to you. I'm not talking about the usual fast food options of MacDonalds and Burger King, I'm talking about decent, delicious food choices. Enter my new best friend, foodpanda. Foodpanda is a food delivery service here in Indonesia that enables the lazy, don't want to face the traffic bums like me, to have a plethora of restaurants at their fingertips. It's easy, go to the foodpanda website, select the area you are living in (important for ensuring lunch doesn't become dinner!) and all the restaurants connected with the service pop up. The difficult part is deciding what cuisine you want. There's Thai, Mexican, Italian, Japanese and Indonesian. Decide what you want by clicking and adding to the cart, then register yourself and checkout. Huh? That's it? Yes it is. Shortly after (I think it was 3 minutes) I received an sms informing me my food would be delivered within the hour. Sit back, relax and wait for your delicious meal to arrive at your door. It actually took less than an hour to reach me and was all nicely packaged up. I ordered from King of Thai and my green curry was piping hot and deliciously spicy. The mango salad was crisp and fresh and the pad thai extremely satisfying. Prices vary of course, depending on what you order and most restaurants have a delivery fee but it's minimal at around Rp. 15,000. However, not having to face insane traffic, smog, pollution and whistleblowing parking attendants...PRICELESS! 

So if you feel like staying glued to the sofa, just let your fingers do some tapping and have foodpanda do the hard work for you. They offer their services in a number of countries including Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. Too convenient not to be tried!

Foodpanda

www.foodpanda.co.id/

There's a hole in my wallet from Casa, Kemang

Stopped in here recently to have a drink with a friend and believe me, yes that is the only thing you would want to consider having here...it is expensive! I mean Rp. 75,000 for nasi goreng! Seriously, that's a no from me. How do you have the nerve to charge a humble citizen who fancies a quick bite after browsing in their favourite bookshop that much money for a plate of fried rice? Unbelievable. Yes, Casa is the restaurant situated above Aksara bookshop in Kemang. Yes, it is nicely decorated and with a relaxed vibe. No, it is not value for money. I don't care how good your fried rice is. No, I would not go there to eat. So I had an iced cappuccino. At least it came in a large glass. At least it was drinkable. Honestly, some of these trumped up Kemang restaurants need to pull their fingers out and realise that just because they are in Kemang (the foreigner hang out zone in Jakarta) they cannot charge the world for something that is associated with being a local dish. Get over yourselves!

Yes I would pay that much money for a dish at Amigos, where it is speciality food or for pizza at Pizza Marzano but for fried rice, no no no! Oh well, you've lost a potential customer here. Unless of course your prices take a nose dive any time soon...