beer and steak

Another date night. Motzen ale and steak just located 5 minutes away from Hendra's place and I've been passing this steak and beer restaurant for hundreds of time. Finally we decided to give it a try. It was really nice, the steaks were juicy and tender, perfect medium rare. However, like every steak house in town, we were never get the taste of the perfect sauce. ( I think I'll try to make one that is not curry). 

Another advice, come early during weekend, after 8 this place's gonna be cramped.

last days of summer

Summer almost ends, and those last days have the most beautiful afternoons throughout the year. I spent one of them for nice afternoon tea and coffee with my cake buddy, Amet. This was our last weekend before holiday ended. We had plenty of choices for cafe but I settled my heart on Toko Coklat. They have a nice small garden area in front of the store and many shady trees surround its shop. This is one of my favorite spot because it's not too busy (believe me, that point is important when you choose cafe in holiday season) but located in a busy area. 

Amet went to Cianjur for his break and brought me this! My favorite snack, mochi with peanut filling, coated with sesame!  

I couldn't keep my hand off from the box!!

Instant (not!) Noodles

Some say that all delicious things are always bad for you. In the case of Indomie instant noodles, I have to agree. This quick meal contains monosodium glutamate that makes the flavor so tasty and irresistible. The fact that it's so cheap add to its popularity among college students and bachelors. And me. 

Indomie popularity is well-known, check this guy who has been testing all kind of instant noodles around the world: ramen eater .

Last Sunday, I was tempted to make a bowl of this devilish meal. But then I thought, 'what would Jamie say?' and decided (after moments of doubt) that I will ditch the msg (okay, I used only half of the package) and use my own flavoring. Well, I might as well just scratch the 'instant' in 'instant noodles' but it was really worth it! 

Now I can't wait to make other variations using another veggies and meat. 

Double Chocolate Muffins

Finally, after many failed muffins I force-fed my work mates and Hendra, I made the one people praised. One of my friend actually thought that this was sellable. I thought she was exaggerating, but I really appreciated the comments, I almost cried. There's a lady in my office who actually asked for the recipe!! Me. Being asked for a recipe! 

But I think this muffins didn't reach the muffins standard I've been striving for. Some of the best muffins I've tried are banana and blueberry muffins from BreadTalk and mostly anything Mmmarvelous Mmmuffins has (Sadly, they closed the shop years ago)

So, yes, the Muffins Diary is still going ! :)

The perfect Saturday night-in. My best friend, Endira, came over and I cooked for her.

She had four sticks.

Then blamed me for her sleepiness.

a date night

As far as I remember, we've never had a proper night-out. I work on weekend and usually on Sundays we're just too lazy to be part of people making their way on the city's traffic jam and opted for DVDs instead.

One day, he said he wanted to go out and have dinner. More, he wants to make it our routines.

I cringed when he told me that, but I also love sitting with him doing nothing but talk so I said, it sounds like a good plan.

This was one of our dinner, I looked beaten and weary from a day in the office and I must say..I didn't smell nice while he - still having his days off - smells perfectly..appropriate. We went to Azura again. He said he liked this restaurant, but the only glitch was its interior colors. I said that was one of the things I liked about this restaurant. 

oh well. 

But hey, the important things are we get to enjoy good food and have nice conversations. 

Our favorite! Fruit juice with chunks of mango and berries. 

I love bread pudding! Bread pudding goes really well with ice cream, here is coffee ice cream to neutralize the sweetness of the pudding. 

Guilty. I put this photo in black and white to hide my messy hair and oily face. 

oh and by the way, it wasn't exactly a date night, since my sister tagged along. 

The Muffins Diary

White, Blue and Fishes.

Last week, me and my sister finally decided to come out and see people after a long week stayed inside and cooked or baked or, in her case, glued to a DS playing the everlasting rpg Harvest Moon.

We took Lulu for a nice afternoon at PVJ and had dori fish for our late lunch at Azzura, my favorite restaurant. Food aside, I really love the theme ot the restaurant and the colors it uses. White and Blue. Hm, is it time to hit the beach? (Our chose of dish, the fish, made it perfect!)

Azzura Restaurant
Paris Van Java Mall
Sukajadi, Bandung
(next to Pancious, which by the way, didn't allow pet - even at the outdoor area!)

Burger Queen

One of my favorite fast food is burger, but little did I know that making one is actually pretty fast too. One new thing I learned from adapting this recipe from Jamie's book, is that you need breadcrumb to make burger. The ground beef was the leftover from the Bolognese sauce I had made earlier.

This was actually my second attempt and the first one had been a success too! Well, I actually made a mistake in the second attempt, because I liked how mustard taste, I added too much of it to the beef. It was okay, but I was thinking to add some soy sauce to tame the saltiness. (I'll try it tomorrow)

This dish is actually great and I'm kinda understand why it has fast food as its label. You can make the burger, then store it in the fridge, just fry it when you want to eat it. Put between good buns ( I bought mine at Roti Gempol, but you need to order it one day in advance to get your buns), add some chili sauce, mayo, mustard (again!), pickles, lettuce, cheese, whatever. 

And midnight craving problem is solved! Fast!

ingredients and how to cook the burger : ground beef, mustard, parsley (finely chopped), pepper, salt, breadcrumbs, egg (beaten). Mix up all ingredients with your hands // shape into roundish shape // drizzle with olive oil // store in the fridge if you don't want to eat them straight away, and actually it'll help the meat to firm up // heat your pan on high heat for 4 mins, turn down into medium heat // put burgers on pan, press them down with burner, make sure they are in full contact with the pan // cook them until your liking on both sides (mine usually 3 - 4 mins).

Adapted from Jamie's Food Revolution : A Cracking Burger ( p. 146)
Ps : on the book, instead of breadcrumbs, Jamie used smashed saltine crackers.

Bitter & Sweet

Abadi Bakery Chocolate Meringues

Hot Plain Sosro Tea

in the company of a best friend.

Perfect afternoon.

Ping Me!

When I googled some recipes for dessert,  I always wanted to try something with berries. And it's not exactly dessert, but muffins are my favorite cake. So when Sasa, my cooking companion / sister, suggested to make something out of blackberry we bought, I thought : I want muffins! 

You know that those links that you can click on the left side of this post have some amazing recipes for muffins, but nothing is quite..basic and I needed something that just for the beginners, kinda muffin for idiots. I found some good sites that have tutorial in baking muffin : Culinary Arts in About.Com  (the basic plain muffin) and also the blueberry muffin (from the same site). I also found video for how to make muffin from Videojug then after you carefully read and watch those site, open this for side tips in making the perfect muffins from Simplebites.net. 

I'm so proud of myself!! This was my first encounter with baking powder and I kinda nailed it. By nail it I mean I successfully made my muffins fluffy!

Oops moment :

1. I was being impatient and poured the cold milk into the warm liquid butter. It caused the mixture to glob, I put the mixture back to microwave and everything was okay then.

2. I took the batter from the oven too soon. Well, I did inserted a toothpick to the center of it and it came out clean, but maybe I should wait 10 more minutes before turned the oven off.

3. My sister accidentally pour sugar when it supposed to be salt. LOL. But it's only a pinch, so it was okay.

I will try to make another, for sure! We had a really good time in the kitchen. :)

What can I do with Ground Beef

After I had Jamie's book : Jamie's Food Revolution, I couldn't help it but wanted to try everything on it. Problem was, I had limited budget so I needed to choose carefully what I wanted to try. Instinctively I wanted to try all those dishes with meat (I just love meat so damn much), but a chunk of tenderloin costs about 40.000 - 50.000 Rupiah and it just serves one. So I decided to try something with ground beef. I bought half a kilo of ground beef for 50.000 rupiah and decided to use half of it to make Bolognese sauce. 

Bolognese Sauce, adapted from Jamie's Food Revolution cookbook.

Homely Ground Beef : Bolognese Sauce ( p. 165)

Result : I felt proud I actually made this famous sauce from scratch, not the ready-to-eat in the supermarket! But, I added too much tomato puree so the beef's flavor didn't really come out. Probably because I was too cheap, I supposed to use 1/2 kg of ground beef, but instead I only used 1/4 kg. 

It was still okay though, not like a big disaster. From the leftover I made Lasagne and oh it was amazing. But I was unsure was the amazing feeling came because I was proud I can actually cooked lasagne or was it because it was actually good. Hendra said that it still tasted too tomato-ey, but my Dad, bless him, said it was great. I think half of the great comment came because he was bewildered to see me in the kitchen. 

Anyway, I've tried to find the link to the Bolognese sauce recipe in Jamie's site but I couldn't find it, I found another in Simply Recipes, just click it. I haven't tried that one but when I read through it, the basics are almost the same, only it used more complicated ingredients. I really wanted to try it too. 

By the way, if you just happen to learn to cook like me and if you want to spend your money on a really good cookbook that teaches lots of basics, try Jamie's. I love it. It has detailed step-by-step instructions with picture during the cooking process, so you have ideas what the food's gonna look like during the cooking. Plus some of the recipes have the how-to video on his website. 

Something new I learned : 

1. don't be cheap with beef
2. 1/4 kg of ground beef only needs 1/2 can of tomato puree
3. Basil is kemangi in Bahasa Indonesia
4. The stalks are the important part in herbs. 
5. When pasta is cooked, drizzle some oil olive to avoid it to get sticky.

Inside the nest of Hummingbirds

This past ten years, Bandung has been changing fast, especially in culinary area. In every corner of the street new cafes or restaurants or bars pop up. Lots of them are good, most of them are pretty good, but only a few are actually great. The thing with culinary business in Bandung, it seems views and ambient are more important than the food itself, owners spend lots of money to decorate their restaurants with fancy menus and extravagant interiors. 

But I have some that I consider great, and Hummingbird is one of them. Opened almost two years ago, this restaurant has what it takes. Great menu with various choices, amazing interiors, open for breakfast, and most importantly : they serve good food that suit their image really well. I think there will be more posts about Hummingbird, so I won't write much. Here are some of my favorite on their menu :

Soon they will open their new branch at Kuningan, Jakarta. If you have never been here before, my advice are: go there during weekdays and avoid lunch time. On the 1st and 15th every month they usually open later in the day than usual, meaning no breakfast served on those dates. Because I often have breakfast there with my friends and two times I arrived only to find out that they were close, I kinda unintentionally memorizing their schedule.

Hummingbird Cafe

Jalan Progo 14 

22-4212582

Bandung