Category: Global Cuisines

All About Food Blog loves trying different cuisines from all around the world. Sometimes food has the same name but completely different look and taste.

Max Brenner

Rating:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 8/10

Price Range: $5 – $15

Place: 7/10

Review:

It’s the dessert week and I am writing about One of the best dessert / chocolate place in Sydney! They also open quite late into the night. Max Brenner is THE number one destination for quality desserts, great place, and affordable price. Since it’s all about dessert, I’m going to give you my top 5 favourites from Max Brenner:

1. Belgian Waffle

The thing I love the most about this Waffle is its customisability (Yaay! That’s actually a word). Whether you choose the all-in Tutti-Frutti Waffle – that’s 1 or 2 Waffles with 3 bowls of Strawberries, banana, and Vanilla Ice Cream – or just a single Belgian Waffle covered in warm milk chocolate. This waffle is the answer to all of your pains and sorrows. Dramas aside, the waffle is actually really crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle, creating a perfect combination with the chocolate.

2. Chocolate Fondue for Two

The ultimate self-indulgence dessert- if you decided to eat it yourself. The fondue has everything that you could ask for: two pots of heated dark and milk chocolate served with bowls of fresh strawberries, bananas, marshmallows and banana bread on top of a wooden tray with two dip sticks. Make sure you bring an extra tummy to share this with you, otherwise you might as well skip your whole meal tomorrow.

3. Chocolate Dip

Okay, seriously the top three dishes can be ordered according to the degree of enjoyment you want with the chocolate. This one was all about light and refreshing dessert. 6 luscious strawberries arranged beautifully around a small pot of milk chocolate. These are not just ordinary strawberries! They were massive, juicy and taste very sweet.

4. Chocolate Cinnamon Babka

Originated from Poland or thereabouts, Babka is a very nice and soft spongy cake with cinnamon and chocolate fillings. The cake is also served with a small pot of milk chocolate. This cake is perfect as a lunchtime menu because of its muffin-size.

5. Choc-Banana Pizza

Last, but definitely not the least, is the no ordinary pizza. It’s a very unique pizza covered in milk chocolate then baked with all the yummi-ness on top of it.

There are countless of drinks that you can enjoy, from hot to cold, and I’ve tried some of them and they’re all equally nice. However, my all time favourites are still the very basic Milk Hot Chocolate and Café Latte. Served in a hug mug, the Chocolate gives us an extra kick to the already chocolate-y night. And if you need extra caffeine, then the Latte will do the job for you.

Did you know?

There was no Max Brenner in real life. The shop was opened by guys name Max and Brenner.

Max Brenner always open their shops in premium spots in Sydney, from the CBD to the posh Bondi Junction. I personally like to go to the Bondi Junction one for the whole going out experience, from dinner to movie to dessert; it’s all available in Bondi Junction.

If you need to find something after midnight, you might as well go to Pancakes on The Rocks because that place open 24/7.

Location:

All over Sydney – Fave place: Level 6 Westfield Bondi Junction

http://www.maxbrenner.com.au/

Jul 13, 2010
Takigawa Restaurant

Rating:

7 / 10

Taste: 7.5/10

Price Range: Rp. 90,000++ » $10

Place: 6.5/10

Review:

One of the surprise finding of my trip to Indonesia, Takigawa restaurant captured my attention with their nice display of the food, great taste, and nice ambience (they have free Wi-Fi connection too!).We typically oversaw this restaurant because of the bigger-name chain restaurants available at the mall.

On with the starters for the day… Shiitake Ball and Kawa Salad. An early surprise for me, this deep-fried shiitake mushrooms were filled with minced beef, then garnished with Katsuobushi, Japanese mayonnaise and sauce; An excellent combination of savoury starter. Kawa, deep-fried skin, salad added a nice addition of freshness to the starter.

We started the main course with a nice plate of Chahan, Seafood Fried Rice. A generous serving of seafood for its price, Chahan acted as the tummy-filling main course. My all-time favourite dish came next: Syake kabutoyaki, a.k.a. Salmon Head Teriyaki. Yes, you read it correctly… the best piece of salmon (yet, the cheapest!) grilled and salted to perfection with teriyaki glazing. Granted that this part of salmon took a bit of effort, but it’s only 1/5^th of the price of Salmon Belly and you got twice as much meat.

Our last main course of the day was Cheezy Seafood Pan. Bear a striking resemblance to Sushi Tengoku’s baked scallop, this dish was an absolute killer. Layers of grilled scallop, salmon, tuna and crab stick baked in a melted cheese and mayonnaise with tobiko. It’s just wonderful to taste, but unfortunately the portion is quite small (you might need to order two plates).

For refreshment we chose the all-too-standard Hot Ocha (Japanese Green Tea), but it was a free flow! So, you can have the tasty Green Tea as much as you like. We also ordered Green Tea Smoothies. Again, the taste of it was as expected of any other Japanese Green Tea. Chocolate Melt seemed to be the big kick to end the night, however the Chocolate Souffle was sort of a letdown in what could have been a perfect dinner experience.

Overall, it’s still a worthwhile visit to the restaurant and we’re still eyeing for the Green Tea Creme Bruleé, they were sold out when we were there. Additionally, there are like 100+ choices that you might want to explore in this restaurant.

Did you know?

As mentioned on my other review, Surabaya Town Square (Sutos) is the newest shopping mall in Surabaya. If you want to go there, don’t go on weekends since there will be crazy amount of people trying to get into the mall. Traffic management has become the main cause of chaos surrounding the venue. Lack of parking space and poor parking space design has led to congestion in every entrance and exit of the mall.

Sutos is the place to be when it comes to asking your date out. It has everything you want to do, from the only 3D cinema in town, to the best Karaoke lounge. It has nice restaurants and also a pool bar.

Location:

Surabaya Town Square Plaza Level Unit P 31-32 Jl. Aditiawarman No. 55 Surabaya

http://www.takigawaresto.com/en/home.html

Jun 26, 2010
Bebek Bengil, Dirty Duck Diner

Rating:

7.5 / 10

Taste: 7/10

Price Range: Rp. 80,000++ » $9

Place: 8/10

Review:

Recommended to me as one of the best restaurants in the region, Bebek Bengil did not disappoint us for one bit. There was a complementary Valet service in front of the restaurant. It was a little dark when we walked into the restaurant and the attendant asked whether we wanted to sit on the table or lesehan (kinda like Japanese tatami seats).

On our way to the table we walked in the middle of paddy (rice)’s field. We were seated on a small hut that has two sets of table. It was quite an open space but yet feel very private because in between huts lies paddy fields. The menu book looked like a novel since it had a lot of pages with blank spaces put in generously. It was a quite unique menu with specials written inside a box.

This time we skipped on appetiser; jumped into main course and ordered the named restaurant, Bebek Bengil. It’s half a duck cooked to golden brown and really crispy and served with a bowl of rice. We were given two bowls of condiments and one bowl of vegetables. The condiments are a bowl of chopped chilli and onion and massive amount of chilli hot but with medium hotness. The duck’s crispness is the restaurant’s trademark, combined with their sauces.

For the other main course, we ordered Fresh Grilled Seafood. Presentation wise, it looked a lot more appealing than the duck. There were 4 slice s of snappers, 3 prawns, and 6 grilled calamari in the meat department and 2 slices of red, yellow, and green paprika, eggplant. There were also condiments for this dish: garlic oil and chopped chilli onion. It would easily be shared between two people!

I might say it was a mistake to order the drink: Yellow Giant Duck, because it was really giant *sigh*. However the combination between the mango and pineapple (possibly with a little bit of orange juice) was nice.

As if those dishes were not enough, we also ordered Italian tiramisu for dessert. It was quite nice – I would rate it quite better if I did not have my favourite tiramisu on my mind (Badde Manor’s of Sydney). The tiramisu was creamy and I think it would have been much better if it were softer. We were lucky enough to taste their best dessert in the restaurant: The Black Russian. The cake was quite soft and yummy with great tasting cream on top.

Did you know?

Bali… I’m sure everyone would know everything there are about Bali. I’m just gonna tell you about a little piece of Bali called Ubud, this is where bebek bengil is located. Unlike Kuta or Nusa Dua, Ubud is the place to rest your mind, body and soul (and that’s why there are hundreds of spa houses). The place is very relaxing and great for quality holiday away from crowds. We stayed in a resort called Beji Ubud Resort. It was such a fantastic new resort.

Ubud is famous for its numerous art galleries, traditional dance shows, and monkey forest.

Location:

Jalan Hanoman, Padang Tegal, UBUD, Bali, Indonesia

http://www.bebekbengil.co.id/

May 15, 2010
American Grill

Rating:

7 / 10

Taste: 7/10

Price Range: Rp. 120,000++ » $15

Place: 8/10

Review:

After so long tinkering on what would have been my first review on Restaurants in Surabaya, the choice fell to American Grill. There are some candidates to the review that I decided to shelve until sometimes in the future. I personally think that American Grill was a nationalised version of US’s steak giant Sizzler since I don’t have any evidence on the correlation between the two. However, the restaurant’s logo and concept are strikingly similar to Sizzler.

Why American Grill? Simply because I love everything BBQ or steak. There was a steak place that we love to eat, called Pro Steak. We reckon that was the best steak place in Surabaya. Unfortunately, the place was closed down. This restaurant turned out to be one of the contenders to win our hearts in the meat department.

In American Grill, you get to eat as much as you can for its salad bar, ice cream, and other light meals on the bar for every main course you order. My choice of main course fell to the three racks of American BBQ Beef Ribs.Three gigantic beef ribs (according to Indonesian standards) were stacked on a hot plate on top of a bigger serving plate – yep, that’s a lot of plate on the table. It’s accompanied by your choice of fries and an odd complement of two slices of watermelon. I don’t understand why watermelon since it’s free to pick from the fruit bar anyway.The ribs themselves were fabulous. They were grilled up to the non-burnt limit. They could be cut off the bone really smoothly. The BBQ sauce was a little bit of a let down since they tasted like those supermarket brands.

They have quite a bit of variation with the ribs that include Steak and ribs or Boneless Ribs and Sirloin Steak. The steak was pretty bland and was not fresh. You would have to take the optional condiments for the steak to taste better.

On with the salad bar! Since I had a ‘green veggies only’ restriction, I could only show you the pic of green beans, broccoli and potato skins in white sauce. They had a full range of salad bar with four different sauces. They also served three kinds of soups.

On the fruit and desert department, they had sweet basil seed jelly, various fruits and puddings that I couldn’t take and/or finish. The night was ended with a cup of Lychee Yoghurt in Raspberry sauce. The yoghurt had a good balance of sweet and sour. Optionally, you could also have a chocolate ice cream with different kinds of lollies, peanuts and chocolates.

Did you know?

IMHO, Most of the tastiest food in Surabaya came from a small restaurant that provides a single menu. For example, Bebek (Duck) Palupi of Rungkut, Lamb Satay in Pucang or Soto (some kind of soup) Ambengan. Thus it creates a different atmosphere to a big chain restaurant. It is also pretty difficult to describe the singular food experience to be written in my blog.

My aim is to get the next two weeks of review on restaurants in Surabaya, or possibly one in Bali. We’ll see how it goes…

Location:

Tunjungan Plaza 3 Lower Ground Floor, Basuki Rahmat 8 – 12, Surabaya, Indonesia

Apr 19, 2010
Brussels Spring

Rating:

7 / 10

Taste: 7/10

Price Range: Rp. 40,000++ » $5

Place: 7.5/10

Brussels Spring Review:

From practically unheard-of to an instant favourite of mine, Brussels Spring restaurant amazed me with their cartoon-characters-filled walls, very cozy atmosphere, and fantastic meal. Cartoon characters are individually inserted into a clear cube. Several cubes were attached to a white frame. The seats were so fantastic that we wouldn’t want to leave the restaurant. However, since there weren’t that many seats available in the restaurant, I would guess this restaurant would be crazy packed on weekends.

A lot of the restaurants that paid too much attention on their interior design failed miserably on the food department. How about this one? I can confidently say no! They looked quite a bit too much doing the menu with the placement of history of waffles on the first few pages. They also had quite a few selections of Indonesian-fusion food.

I might have overlooked the appetizer menu, because my mind has been set to the Mussels menu. I ordered the Brussels Mussels in Oregano-Butter sauce. The mussels came in a pot just like how the Belgian would have served them. Unfortunately, there were only 6 of them (I wouldn’t be so surprised given the price we paid for them). The mussels were so nice and butter-y and you were also given a side of fries with the Belgian-Mayo sauce. The sauce was excellent with the thick golden brown fries.

I also managed to taste 2 of the other main dishes, Spaghetti a la Brussels Spring and Entrecote Minute Steak. The spaghetti was not too exciting, but the Steak was fabulous. I was instantly interested with the way they decorated the dish. Covered in yummy brown sauce and a sprinkler of oregano leaves, the steak was accompanied by two deep-fried beef stood atop cheesy mashed potato and a vertical onion ring.

For deserts we ordered Waffle with single ice cream and Fondue. Again, there were two side of the story here. Whilst the waffle look very ordinary, the fondue was quite interesting. Sitting atop candle-lighted cup, the dark chocolate was pretty thick and rich in flavour. Rows of strawberries, bananas, and brownies were aligned and prepared to be eaten.

Last but not least is the drink of the day, Hot Naughty Coco. The name might be a little bit too kinky but it wasn’t without a reason. The drink was served in a unique cup with the café’s logo on the handle. The chocolate would’ve been a lot nicer if it were hotter. The blend of chocolate and hazelnut was already perfect.

Did you know?

The number of people in Bandung has increased to (almost) double during weekends after the opening of the Purbaleunyi Highway. That highway cut the time of travel from Jakarta to Bandung by half.

Location:

Jalan Sumatera 30, Bandung, Indonesia

Apr 14, 2010
The Duck King

Rating:

7.5 / 10 Taste: 7.5/10

Price Range: Rp. 100,000++ » $15

Place: 8/10

Terms:

Terong Isi Hotpot: Eggplants Hotpot with Chicken meat filling and minced chicken.

Review:

We’re on for a special treat this week. Probably Bandung’s most exclusive (and definitely tastiest!!) place, The Duck King serves nothing but the best. Surprisingly enough, this restaurant is part of an Indonesian (possibly worldwide) chain. They served 2 kinds of menu, the ones on the placemat for a quick and light bite, and the menu book for a complete fine dining experience.

As the name suggested, this restaurant’s specialty is the duck, especially Peking duck. Unfortunately, our group wasn’t big enough to order that one. So, we’re settled for their finest in-house menu: Bebek Panggang (Roast Duck). We had a combination of roast duck, jellyfish, and marinaded BBQ chicken. The duck came with a dipping sauce that enhanced its flavour. The meat was so easy to chew and the texture was so tantalizing.

Next one on the table was the Udang Goreng Mayonaise (Deep-fried prawn in mayonnaise sauce). The prawns were deep-fried in light wonton till they were golden brown with a light touch of mayonnaise sauce. It gave the perfect blend of crunch and sweet.

Belut Goreng Saos (Deep-fried eel in Special Sauce)’s presentation was quite appealing however the eel was my least favourite dish of the day. Although the eel was incredibly crunchy, the sauce was too thick and bitter to my liking.

Then came the Terong Isi Hotpot. Already one of my favourite vegetables, the chefs surprised us even more with the way they handled the eggplant. They still gave the eggplant texture but cooked them till they were extra soft with less eggplant scent. The choice of spices made the extra strong flavour on the meat.

Last but not least was the only vegetable for the night, Brokoli Tumis Bawang Putih (Stir-fried Broccoli in garlic slices). Contrary to the eggplant, this dish was simple and straightforward. However, the taste was far from ordinary. Broccoli was cooked so that it’s a little softer to chew.

For drink, I ordered a pot of Chinese Green Tea (I should have ordered Chrysanthemum!!!). It was the cheapest drink on the menu, but I think it was the finest. Unlike Sydney’s good ol’ Kingsford Chinese, the tealeaves made the tea so fresh and invigorating.

Did you know?

The restaurant’s dim sum menu was actually a lot more affordable to most people than its dinner menu. The taste was also as expected for dim sum. On the other hand, its dinner menu comprised of a whole range of Chinese foods, from its duck to the elusive abalone and shark’s fin.

The mall’s name: Paris van Java (The Paris of Java) was actually Bandung’s nickname given by the European for its resemblance to the city of Paris. Some (little) parts of the city still reflect the beauty of Bandung, especially at night.

Location:

Ground Floor Unit C-18, Paris Van Java, Bandung, Indonesia

http://www.theduckking.com/

Mar 31, 2010