Cool treats at Popbar

You might have passed by this shop in Lotte shopping avenue and been attracted by the colourful display of ice pops. They look like a rainbow of deliciousness just waiting to be devoured shamelessly. I admit I have resisted the temptation on many occasions but today could resist no longer. The flavours available are a fascinating assortment of tastebud tantalisers like pistachio, green tea, gianduia, peanut butter and coffee. The bars themselves are made from either sorbet, gelato or yoghurt. They are low in calories and made with natural ingredients. How had I resisted for so long? I decided on the peanut butter bar and had it dipped in dark chocolate. I could have also had it dipped in nuts but I figured no need to go overboard on the nut factor. The bar was delicious. The chocolate hardened instantly and the bar itself did not melt while I was eating it. The peanut butter taste was perfect, rich and creamy and with the chocolate it reminded me of eating a reese's peanut butter cup. Yum! Looks like I'll be stopping by here more often!

Satin Class at Blitz Megaplex Cinema is not quite satiny enough for me

So basically I've pretty much fallen in love with the premier XXI cinema at Lotte Avenue to the point that it's become a weekly ritual to watch a movie there after work on a Friday. Not to be one to not give somewhere else a try though, this Friday I needed to buy some things at Grand Indonesia and figured it was a good time to check out their equivalent cinema - Satin Class. Prices were the same at 75k a ticket but that's where the similarities ended. We arrived at the entrance to the cinema and wanted to order our food to be delivered to our seats. The menu was basic, and when we ordered our popcorn and two ice teas our popcorn was brought to us while we were waiting and we were told that the drinks would be sent to the seats. Weird. I mean if you are going to deliver the drinks then bring the popcorn then too. I don't want my popcorn while I'm waiting as I'm more likely to eat it. The previous showing was still on so we waited in the 'lounge' (just a load of sofas and tables) until our turn. The showing was timed to start at 6.10pm but we only got to our seats at that time. The actual movie didn't start until almost 30 minutes later. The adverts/trailers/other useless stuff went on far too long. When we got to our seats, they looked big and comfy but the reclining mode was not adjustable. It was a case of either recline or don't. There was a fleece blanket rolled up on the seat. It smelled funky. Not nice and clean means I don't want it actually touching me anywhere. You don't know how long that blanket has been there and how many people have used it. Enough said. It really doesn't bear too much thinking about. My biggest surprise was that the satin class was situated on the top tier of a regular cinema. So down below you have your regular class patrons and you are on a raised tier. That didn't work for me. If I'm paying extra for fancy cinema treatment I want the cinema to be for me and other fancy cinema-goers...not dumped in altogether and separated by mere metres. The size of the large popcorn was not what I would interpret as large so we decided to order nachos (sorry, we don't have any sauce for the nachos) and when that didn't happen, another popcorn (sorry, you need to spend minimum 50,000 to pay by ATM) so we got french fries as well. I wasn't impressed by service or quality. Definitely not worth the money. Definitely not special treatment. I won't be coming back here to watch a movie again. So, yes, Lotte Avenue premier class, you'll be seeing a LOTTE more of me!

So to summarise here's a comparison of Satin Class (Blitzmegaplex) and Premier Class (XXI Cinema) at a quick glance :

Satin class

Limited lounge

Mediocre service

Limited menu and restrictions on payments and delivery of foods to seats

Seating on top tier of regular cinema 

Long wait for start of movie (up to 30 minutes)

One reclining position

Unclean blankets

Premier class

Excellent lounge with tables and chairs and full menu

Prompt and friendly service

Food delivered promptly to the seat with minimum intrusions

Movie starts on time as advertised

Premier class is a separate theatre with only premier seating available

Reclining angle of the seat can be controlled into the most comfortable position 

Freshly laundered blankets with clean smell and wrapped in plastic.

Cheap and cheerful at Fiesta Steak at Grand Indonesia

So sometimes it reaches a certain time of the month when money is running out and you're in that no man's land of being really far away from the last pay day and not yet close enough to the next one. It's those points in the month that I still like to be able to eat out if I feel like it but I like to have a string of options that offer decent food at a budget price. Fiesta Steak would be one of those places for me. Located at the food court on the 4th floor of Grand Indonesia, Fiesta Steak offers a range of steaks with both imported and local red meat as well as other options like chicken and salmon steak. I generally like to go with the Australian ribeye steak which is a steal at 70rb and comes with a good portion of French fries and some vegetables. The steak is a good size and comes with a black pepper sauce. The meat is lean and not fatty. It's tender and juicy which is the way I like my meat. When you consider how much steak costs in most other restaurants here in Jakarta, you can't really go wrong with what Fiesta has to offer. 

Ribeye steak

Meat Me at Kota Kasablanca

Nope that's not a typo and nope I'm not asking you to find your way to KoKas to have a little rendezvous with me. Instead I'm here to tell you about a fine little eatery in Kota Kasablanca called Meat Me. The speciality is, you guessed it, meat. The menu features a good selection of steaks, burgers, meaty pizzas and some dishes for good measure. For some strange reason, hubby and I found ourselves craving sausages. After living in Dublin for a year, where the sausages are deliciously divine and available in every good supermarket you do find in Jakarta that you have to work quite hard to find what I would actually call a sausage. I mean there are plenty of poor attempts available in supermarkets here but I would call them frankfurters rather than actual sausages. I mean when you eat a sausage you can see and taste the texture of the meat used in the sausage whereas frankfurters are basically processed meat. Ultimately you can never be entirely sure where that processed meat came from.

While in Kota Kasablanca, Meat Me caught our attention, as well as being an eatery it is also actually a butchers so you can buy all those delicious meats you might have tasted in the restaurant and bring them home. The meat looks fresh and is well stored and presented.

For our lunch today, our main reason for deciding to eat at Meat Me was because they offered a Sausage Platter. What better way to fulfill all those sausage cravings with a platter that included three large sausages (2 lamb and 1 beef)? For our other choice we went with BBQ Beef Ribs. 

The ribs arrived first and were so soft and tender that the meat just pulled away from the two large bones with the gentlest of tugs. The seasoning was just right, not too sweet as can often be the case, but more tangy. They were accompanied by french fries and a nice side salad. My only complaint, I wanted more!

The sausage platter arrived shortly after and looked fabulous when it was placed on the table. The three large sausages were beautifully grilled and lay on a bed of roasted garlic potatoes and vegetables. There was also a side salad. My favourite were the lamb sausages which just tasted so tender and full of flavour. The roasted garlic potatoes were also very good.

Although the prices are not cheap, Ribs 135rb and Sausage Platter 115rb, they were worth every rupiah. The meal was perfect and extremely satisfying and let's face it when you are eating good quality meat you are going to have to pay more. I would definitely recommend this restaurant to anyone craving a serious portion of meat and I would like to say I will go back and try a burger or a steak but alas, I think that sausage platter has my name permanently all over it! 

Restaurant interior

BBQ Beef Ribs

Sausage platter

La Hoya Restaurant at Gandaria City

I'm a sucker for tex-mex food and yes we should call it tex-mex because what we are served in restaurants that call themselves 'Mexican' is actually not authentic Mexican food at all. "Tex-Mex" is used to describe a localized version of Mexican cuisine. It is common for all of these foods to be referred to as "Mexican food" in Texas, other parts of the United States, and some other countries. In other ways, it is Southern cooking using the commodities from Mexican culture. 

La Hoya a relatively new restaurant opened in Gandaria City is definitely a tex-mex eatery. The menu offers the usual choices that you get in most tex-mex joint plus a few interesting fusion concepts including a tex-mex take on pasta. However, generally I stick to what I like. Nachos to start with because they are just the perfect starter food that you can nibble at and have fun scooping all the devilishly delicious bits up into your mouth. Then for main course it's chicken tacos(crispy) for me and beef tacos(soft) for my husband. The nachos were good. They came with a chilli con carne on top and the meat was full of flavour and a nice addition to regular nachos. On the side of the nachos were some salsa and extra cheese sauce. You can never have too much cheese sauce on those nachos! Then came my chicken tacos. These were quite interesting. Firstly there was shredded pineapple on the top which I ended up scooping off because it wasn't really sweet or soft but a little sour and it didn't enhance any of the taco flavour at all. There were plenty of veggies and a good portion of shredded chicken inside. The flavouring of the chicken was not quite to my liking. It was not spicy or rich but was more bland. I was a little disappointed. I like my tex-mex bursting with flavour and this just didn't compare to what I am used to. There were some small side dishes of salsa, sour cream and guacamole but no other accompaniments like Mexican rice or refried beans.

The restaurant interior is quite posh and if you didn't see the sign you might be mistaken into thinking it was more of a fine dining place. Again, I'm a bit of a sucker for the whole package and when I hit my tex-mex restaurant I want to feel like I've stumbled onto the set of a movie. Corny, I know but hey, to each their own right? I like all the trinkets and decor to tie in with the tex-mex concept of the restaurant. It creates a whole dining experience for me. Otherwise I end up feeling a little deprived. So, I'm on the fence as to whether I'll be back here again. Maybe if they hang up a few sombreros?

Restaurant interior 

Nachos tejanos

Beef soft tacos

Chicken crispy tacos