Is there anything better than the view of a crystal clear blue pool to accompany your lunch time? Imagine you’ve been stuck in the office since morning doing some mundane tasks; the sun is hiding behind the clouds and that is making you feel somewhat sleepy. Yep. You’re most definitely in a desperate need of a good lunch and a relaxing view. Or a visit to Massilia Café, where you’ll get both of them. 

Om nom nom.

While no one can really confirm where the term originally comes from—Cookie Monster? Random people expressing the deliciousness of their food?—it is now known as the universally accepted expression of enjoying a good meal. So, when a restaurant is named similarly to that term, you know it has to give you a good dining experience. Meet Nomz Kitchen and Pastry, a less-than-one-year-old establishment at Grand Indonesia, Jakarta.

Located at the heart of Jakarta's Chinatown is Yi Xiang, one of the few restaurants that truly have original roots from China. The cook’s family came all the way from Shenzhen, China. Even ordering is more efficient when done in Chinese language; they can only speak Bahasa Indonesia minimally. You can order through the waiter, but because of the language boundary, the waiter sometimes can’t perfectly communicate your order to the cook as well.

Yi Xiang’s speciality is pio/pioh, a dish made of the meat and shell of turtles. In Indonesia, it is said that the dish is made using green turtles, not the endangered soft-shelled turtles used in China. The turtle body parts will be poached in some Chinese herbs, goji berries, ginger, and God-knows what else. If you’re interested in trying pio, Yi Xiang suggests diners to reserve a day in advance, so they have plenty of time to prepare the soup to develop a more complex flavour.

It is always a great day when you are able to find a good café with a nice view, decent coffee, and awesome cakes while chatting with your girlfriends that you haven’t seen for a long time. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Exquise Patisserie, Menteng, Jakarta. 

It’s always fun to try the hippest and newest restaurant in town, but sometimes it’s good to take a step back and rediscover old favourites. While Ocha & Bella is most certainly not old in human years, you have to admit that amidst the rapidly growing culinary business in Jakarta, it can be considered older. Here’s our dining experience at Ocha & Bella a couple of weeks ago, four years after its inception.

Italian cuisine is, more often than not, everyone’s favourite. Considering that, it’s not a big surprise that there are a lot of Italian restaurants across Jakarta, and Porta Venezia at Hotel Aryaduta Semanggi is one of them. One of my friends told me this restaurant served good quality pastas and pizzas, so I decided to pay a visit.

Oh, Grand Indonesia. Sometimes I can’t keep up with all the new restaurants and cafés that pop out at this giant of a mall in Central Jakarta! While Slice of Heaven is ‘relatively old’ compared to other even newer establishments, I only had a chance to try it recently. Slice of Heaven is a pretty difficult name to live up to, so I had to remind myself to keep my expectations in check. This is how it turned out! :D

The food scene in Jakarta these days reminds me of something Heidi Klum always says on every episode of the ’Project Runway’: one day you’re in, the next day you’re out. It seems that only a while ago one of my favourite restaurants in Grand Indonesia, Waraku, went out of business. And now, no more than a couple of months later, another Japanese restaurant - Itacho Sushi - has taken its location! Itacho Sushi is a chain sushi restaurant who has gained success in some Asian countries.