A&W's Choco Fondant Dessert

A few while ago, I got a special delivery from one of Jakarta's famous fast food restaurant ever existed. No, it's not rumah makan padang - although I have to say that a rumah makan padang deserves a two thumbs up for their super quick and delicious meal - it's from A&W, woohoo!

The packet was wrapped in plastic covers and it got a cute ribbon on top. Inside was ten of A&W's soon-to-be released menu (which you all can now find and enjoy at the restaurant because they have published the dessert already) of chocolate dessert. There were two kinds, one was the Choco Fondant: créme de Tiramisu and the other was the Choco Fondant: créme de Matcha.

The instruction was to heat the chocolate dessert in an oven toaster before indulging, so I did the exact thing to both dessert. After a few minutes, I was welcomed with a delicious and mouth watering smell of dark chocolate, yum.

I took a spoonful of the Choco Fondant: créme de Tiramisu and the gooey chocolate tiramisu inside the chocolate fondant didn't ooze out the way a chocolate lava cake would. The cake itself was very floury and somewhat flavorless with a hint of bitterness, but it went quite nice with the sweet chocolate tiramisu mixture. The white chocolate chip on top of the cake didn't say much as they were merely just a decoration.

Next, I tried the créme de Matcha, which was not my favorite compared to the other dessert for its' weird matcha taste. Unlike the gooey chocolate tiramisu mixture, the matcha inside the cake wasn't in a form of liquid but more of a crumbly almond cream like substance. It didn't taste like matcha to say the least. It got the sweet and bitterness of a matcha, but you can definitely tell that it's not a good one. On the one hand, the cake had the same texture as its' sibling and the almond on top didn't do quite much as well.

If I had to choose between these two, I would definitely go for the créme de Tiramisu. But, if I had to choose what dessert I would have from A&W, I would go for the waffles. Period. 

Taruna in Frame

As pilot cadets who enroll in Sekolah Tinggi Penerbangan Indonesia, we rarely get long weekends due to our tight schedule in the institution. Last Thursday was Chinese New Year, and we were lucky enough to be able to have a day off from the day before. We thought campus would immediately start on Friday, but then we received a news about how our headmistress was kind enough to extend our days off until Sunday. I was overwhelmed by the fact that we actually get a five days off from the institution. A chance like this is as rare as finding Waldo in Katy Perry's Candyfornia! 

To make a good use of our long weekend, the gang and I decided to do a rendezvous at Pantai Indah Kapuk to have culinary adventure. Ambar, my dorm mate at Sekolah Tinggi Penerbangan Indonesia, slept over at my house on Thursday night. We ganged up with Gavin and Aryo in the morning and headed to PIK approximately at 10. Gita, who is also my dorm mate, caught up with us just before shalat Jumat with her boyfriend/myclassmate, Ramdhan. 

Our first stop was Hakata Ikkousha.

It was an hour before mid noon when we arrived at the ramen house. The restaurant was still unoccupied by hungry citizen, getting us a table was as easy as going in an amusement at Disneyland with a fast track ticket.

#handsinframe

Condiments

Gavin's cold ocha

Aryo's milk drink with tapioca bubbles

Crepe tester from Fold Crepe Annie - love the Oreo Crepe so much!

Happy Hour was at 11AM - 2PM. For every purchase of ramen, we get a discount for chicken karage, fried gyoza, or grilled gyoza by only paying Rp9.800,00 for each portion. Being a sane person, that I am, I quickly ordered myself a bowl of Ramen Babi Spesial and a plate of grilled pork gyoza. If it wasn't for the Happy Hour, I would get charge more or less Rp30.000,00 for a plate of gyoza. Crazy, right? 

Loving the lovely and appealing presentation of my noodke. My Special Pork Ramen was served with a dash of sesame seed, soft boiled egg, chopped leek, and sliced pork. Two thumbs up for the runny egg yolk! 

Compared to Ramen 38 - Sanpachi, my ramen broth was rich in flavor, yet slightly salty to my taste, and less thick. The noodle was cooked well done, making it tender and less chewy. If only the waitresses were concern enough to ask how we wanted our noodle, like they do at Ramen 38, I would definitely have my noodle curled up in a medium well goodness. I'm not satisfied with the super thin pork slices. Even though it tasted deliciously fatty and savory, they could definitely thicken the cut. It's a good thing the dish was big in size and they soft boiled their egg, or else I would rate the ramen house a 6 out of 10 instead of a 7.4. 

Ramen Babi Spesial - 55K

Grilled Pork Gyoza

I ordered a plate of Grilled Pork Gyoza as a side dish, while Aryo had the deep-fried ones and Gavin had Chicken Karage. We shared our side dishes and even tasted each other's ramen broth - in which I conclude that Gavin's Chicken Curry Ramen's broth was very typical with Indomie's Mie Kari Ayam, while Ambar's ramen broth is the spicier and chicken version of my Special Pork Ramen, and Aryo's Pork Shoyu Ramen was savory with a hint of sourness here and there. 

The gyoza shared the same size with my thumb and the filling was not that generous. My grilled gyoza tasted excellently savory, even when it was rather oily for a dumpling skin with very few minced-pork filling, and the edges were deliciously chewy and crunchy. Aryo's gyoza was crispier than mine and shared the same taste. I'm not fond of Gavin's Chicken Karage because they were super oily and they were over coated with batter. The chicken itself was spicy and sweet at the same time, which tasted a bit off for me.

Aryo's Pork Shoyu Ramen - 58K

Aryo prefers to have Fried Pork Gyoza to accompany his ramen with

Ambar's Ramen Ayam Tamtam - 58K

Gavin's Chicken Curry Ramen - 58K

A plate of Chicken Karage that belonged to Gavin

Boy, were we stuffed! The portion of the dishes at Hakata Ikkousha was big enough to make cadets like us feel full. We had to wait for around an hour to let the food go down to our digestion system before we could make it to our next stop, Shirokuma.


Yup, Shirokuma. I clearly stated on my previous post about Shirokuma that the dessert place was simply overrated. So, what made me go back to the soft cream palace and decided to give it another chance? Simply, the adorable limited edition dessert: Delicutesh Cream!

My Delicutesh Cream, woohoo!

Delicutesh Cream consists of panda-shaped mixed soft cream on a cone. The dessert is only available during the month of love and it has a limited serving per day. I fell in love with the adorable looking panda ice cream, so I decided to give it a go. 

As I told you before, despite the creamy texture of the soft cream, I am not satisfied with the matcha soft cream. The green tea flavor was not strong enough to be called "green tea" and it was dominated by the bitterness instead of the sweetness. I had a hard time devouring the awful bitterness of the green tea, but I made it eventually. In the end, I can still conclude that Shirokuma is simply overrated, and that the Delicutesh Cream would definitely gain love from its' lovely appearance but not from its' sweet deliciousness. 

The adorable Female Panda Cone

Gavin ordered a glass of Green Tea Latte that tasted none like latte but more like water with green tea powder. It was clearly a BIG NO for me. On the other hand, Aryo seemed to enjoyed his Twist Soft Cream. The soft cream melted very quickly, making him had to lick the vanilla and green tea soft cream that dripped all over his hand. 

Green Tea Latte - 25K

Twist Soft Cream - 15K

Sharing your ice cream is good, people!

Not satisfied with my ice cream, we decided to visit another ice cream cafe, the Northpole Cafe. I've been curious with this particular dessert house, simply because of its' various choices of ice cream flavor. I surfed the web about its' whereabout and explored Instagram just to find beautiful pictures of its' ice cream that made me go fidgety. Luckily, Northpole is only three restaurants away from Shirokuma, so we only had to walk a bit instead of driving ourselves. 

The new dessert join specializes in ice cream. They have four choices of ice cream cone, with 16 different flavors of ice cream that costed you Rp25.000,00 each. Three of the flavors are exclusive flavors that will costed you another Rp10.000,00, which are Baileys, Diablo Beer, and Choco Ferrero. 

Same like Baskin Robbins, they have this policy that allows the consumer to taste the ice cream before they can decided which flavor to get. Curious about the beer flavored ice cream, I asked the ice cream lady for a tiny spoon of it. The moment the ice cream made contact with my taste buds, it became clear to me why they sell it for Rp35.000,00. The beer flavor is strong in this one, very bitter like how a beer should taste, yet there was a hint of vanilla sweetness here and there. I'm not a big fan of beer, so tasting is enough for me. But for those who fancy the bubbly and fizzy sensation of Diablo beer, you should definitely get the ice cream!

I went for the Salted Caramel ice cream with Oreo cone. Even when the cone was super small, on the edge of it was a generous amount of melted marshmallow and Oreo crumbs that tasted superb! I didn't know Oreo and marshmallow worked well with each other, especially with a scoop of the salty and sweet Salted Caramel ice cream. 

Salted Caramel Ice Cream with Oreo cone - 40K

Gavin's share of ice cream with plain cone - 25K

We tasted each other's ice cream and they all tasted sooooo good! Ambar's Choco Lemon Ice Cream was very chocolaty with a strong lemon flavor, yet Gita's Choco Ferrero was way more chocolaty than Ambar's - even when it was hard for me to distinguish the Ferrero chocolate inside. Aryo decided to get creative with his dessert combination, so he went for the Hazelnut Ice Cream with Fruity Loops cone. 

I know, the dessert at this cafe can be pretty pricey, but I don't see why you can't enjoy good quality ice cream once in a while.

Ambar's Choco Lemon Ice Cream - 25K

Again, sharing is good!

Aryo's Hazelnut Ice Cream with Fruity Loops cone - 40K

Gita's Choco Ferrero with Milo cone - 50K

After we screamed for ice cream, we move on to our last pit stop, which was LOCALE24 Diner & Bar. We only had drinks at this restaurant/bar, while we wait for a couple of friends to join in the fun. I had a glass of Pina Colada that was overflowing with coconut. It was rather challenging for me to finish my drink because I didn't enjoy it at all. Same thing with Gavin and his Mojito that definitely used green food coloring and syrup in the making. Unfortunately, the battery in my Mom's Leica died just as I was about to take picture of the drinks, so, no pictures in this one. 

It was fun having culinary adventure with my fellow heavy eaters. True, we only visited four restaurants that day, but we also shopped for street snacks on our way to Pantai Indah Kapuk - such as the sensational Hot Jeletot, boiled quail eggs, and cheap cheese sticks. Not to mention, I bought a portion of Nasi Bungkus with grilled fish, tempe, and salted duck egg on my way home. Can you imagine how much weight I can gain in just one day? 

"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."

Hakata Ikkousha

Ruko Garden House, Blok B

Bukit Gold Mediterania

Jalan Raya Pantai Indah Kapuk

Pantai Indah Kapuk, Jakarta

Opening Hours:

Monday - Sunday: 11AM - 10PM

Contact:

+62 21 2903 3271

SHIROKUMA

Ruko Crown Golf, Blok A No. 23

Bukit Golf Mediterania, Jalan Pantai Indah Kapuk

Pantai Indah Kapuk, Jakarta

Opening Hours

Monday - Sunday: 12PM - 10PM

Contact

+62 21 2923 7523

Northpole Cafe

Ruko Crown Golf, Blok A No. 57

Bukit Gold Mediterania

Jalan Marina Indah Raya

Pantai Indah Kapuk, Jakarta

Opening Hours: 

Monday - Sunday: 12PM - 10PM

Contact:

+61 21 2921 0357

LOCALE24 Diner & Bar

Ruko Gardon House, Blok B10-11 

Bukit Golf Mediterania

Jalan Raya Pantai Indah Kapuk

Pantai Indah Kapuk, Jakarta

Opening Hours: 24 Hours

Contact:

+62 21 2903 3162

SHIROKUMA: Simply Overrated

After Sally and I had lunch at LOCALE24 Diner & Bar, we headed to Shirokuma to get ourselves some ice cream. A birdy told us that Shirokuma is famous for its' matcha dessert - green tea ice cream, green tea cake, green tea rice balls, you name it! - so we went to the dessert house to get a taste of its' overwhelming green-tea-based dessert.

Sally had a bowl of Matcha Anmitsu - a traditional dessert bowl with mochi, shiratama balls, chunky red beans, matcha jelly and served with a side of brown sugar syrup. She asked for an additional ice cream on top, which costed her an extra Rp12.000,00. 

There were three choice of ice cream: vanilla, matcha, and twist. Sally went for the Twist Soft Cream because it was a combination of matcha ice cream and original milk flavor Japanese Soft Cream.

Matcha Anmitsu

I ordered a lovely Matcha Cake Parfait for myself, which consisted of soft cream layered with matcha cake, cornflakes, mochi, shiratama balls, chunky red beans and matcha jelly. My dessert is pretty much the same with Sally's. We were only lacking one or two elements each. 

Overall, the presentation of the dessert is excellent. They were very adorable and very appealing to the eye, very kawaii if I may say. But, do they tasted as good as they look? 

The soft cream was creamy and milky. It wasn't too thick, nor easily melt. Unfortunately, the Twist Cream was dominated with the original milk flavor cream, making it hard to distinguish the matcha flavor of the soft cream. 

On the other hand, the matcha cake in my parfait had a strong green tea flavor, yet, the texture of the cake itself was horrible. The cake was very stiff, as if the baker put too much flour in the batter, and it crumbled easily. Yes, the matcha flavor is very strong in this cake, too strong it made the cake tasted bitter and simply unpleasant. As a sweet tooth, I was disappointed by how the cake is lacking of sweetness. 

Next, is the shiratama balls. Shiratama balls are made from glutinous rice flour. It is similar with mochi, as they both were made from the basic ingredients and share the same chewy texture. Shirokuma's shiratama balls were basically tasteless, even the matcha shiratama balls didn't have any green tea flavor at all. It was a bit of a challenge for me to finish my rice balls because they were very unpleasant to my taste buds. 

Didn't like the chunky red bean in my parfait because they made my dessert tasted weird. And they weren't even sweet, just plain nutty! But, I did enjoy eating the matcha jelly on the bottom of the glass - they were sweet, slightly bitter, chewy, and tasted like green tea. The cornflakes tasted like, well, cornflakes and it blended well with the ice cream.

Matcha Cake Parfait

Now that I have tasted a glimpse of Shirokuma, I can say that the dessert place is overrated. Sure, they may have cute and adorable desserts, but they don't taste as good as they look. They are only good for Instagram and it ends there. Not recommended for those who strive for delicious dessert. 

SHIROKUMA

Ruko Crown Golf, Blok A No. 23

Bukit Golf Mediterania, Jalan Pantai Indah Kapuk

Pantai Indah Kapuk, Jakarta

Opening Hours

Monday - Sunday: 12PM - 10PM

Contact
+62 21 2923 7523