Jani Journey Journal

Located at the Senopati area, Flip burger should be easily noticeable from the bright red branding and huge logo. The interior has this simple and warm ambiance but gave a fun and young feeling vibe. With red and yellow color all over the restaurant, I was kinda thinking about the other famous burger joint. I came around lunch time and it was packed with people! It was already about a couple months after the grand opening and they even already have another branch. I was really surprised seeing they still got a long queue.

From what I read, chef Afit-the chef/owner of Flip Burger, wanted to make a high quality burger with an affordable price for everyone. They are using homemade patty, freshly baked buns, caramelized onions and no vegetables. No vegetables? It said that most Indonesian people hate vegetables on their burger, thus they decided to make an honest burger. A burger without any greens inside. Oh and yes, he is the same chef Afit who run the successful Holycow and Loobie Lobster.

I ordered the FLIP A Set Menu (IDR 57.000). It consist of a beef burger, fries and refillable drinks (soft drink/lemon tea). The burger use a nice light golden brown color bun. The burger consist of beef patty, caramelized onion, and some creamy sauce that looks like a mixed of bbq sauce (I think the barbeque sauce came from the caramelized onions) and mayonnaise. The beef patty was tender, juicy, and grilled to perfection. I love how the outside parts of the patty was drier than the inside. So it gave you a tiny crispy bits in each bites. However, I personally think it need a bit more salt and pepper to match my liking.

I also ordered Chicken Skin (IDR 16.000) and Bacon and Cheese Tots Fries (IDR 20.000) as a side dish to share. The chicken skin was a simple deep fried chicken skin with golden color and very crispy texture. To be honest, I didn’t find anything special about the chicken skin. However I love the idea of adding some crunchy and crispy food as a complementary to the burger and somehow addictive!

As for the tots beef, it was a pompom fries topped with cheese sauce and crispy beef bits. I’m in love with this one! The outer part was very crispy while the inside was fluffy and soft. I can’t really tell about the cheese sauce, since I don’t like cheese. But the crispy beef bits is awesome. I even thought to get another tots beef (without the cheese sauce of course).

My experience at Flip Burger was nice. Even though the place was too small and really packed with people, I would come back to Flip Burger and have some more flipping good burger in the future.

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Flip Burger

Jl. Senopati No 27

Senopati, Jakarta Selatan

DKI Jakarta, Indonesia

(+6221) 572 9939

Opening hours: 11 AM – 10 PM

Food: 4,5/5

Ambiance: 3/5

Price: 4/5

Service: 3/5

I always said that fashion is my secret passion and how I always wish that one day I could have my own clothing line.

Today, my dream came true.

A few months ago, my friend (instagram: @advanesha) and I meet up. We were talking and browsing through some online shop across instagram and I was complaining about how small the available sizing are. I was wishing there is an online shop that sells great, cute and beautiful clothes with a wide range of sizing. For your information, I wasn’t big enough to be considered plus size and wasn’t small enough to be in the normal size. Just somewhere in the middle.

Then randomly we both just like ‘ooh! I want to make this clothes on my size’, ‘Maybe if we add some bow or pleats or bla bla bla’, ‘I think it looks good on other color’ and so on. The next thing I know, we both designing some clothes and said ‘we should open our own clothing line’. Then voila! That is how this is all happen.

As we looked everywhere to find the perfect name for our line, I bumped into ‘Lole’ words. Lole is a Hawaiian words which means clothes. I kinda like the name and so does my friend. Furthermore, we decided to put Hawaiian theme in our clothing line.

Why choosing Hawaiian theme? Every time I think about Hawaii, I always feel happy. It is already set up in my mind, that Hawaii is a beautiful place with a gorgeous landscape, cheerful people, graceful tradition and yet somehow mysterious in every parts. I never been to Hawaii before, but at least that is what I came in my mind every time I hear Hawaii. And somehow the word Hawaii make me feel really happy. We wish the same thing goes with our clothing line. We want our clothing line to be gorgeous, cheerful, graceful yet mysterious. So yeah, that is why we decided to use Hawaii as our main theme.

We launched the first set of collection earlier today. No, we don’t have any specific collection name. I feel like I have to share it with you guys, since this blog has been a big part of my life and you guys have been an amazing reader through all those years. Again, thank you for the support and everything else!

Go to our instagram page @hello.lole to see the full collection details. Kindly email us at hello.lole.id@gmail.com or contact us through our official LINE account @vau4759l for any inquiries. Thank you guys! Every comments and suggestions are welcome!

Mahalo!

There is something special about Korean food. From my experience, Korean food has a clean and fresh aftertaste in the palate. The seasoning they are using is not as much and strong as Indonesian food, but somehow it still taste amazing. Even though it wasn’t as addictive as Indonesian food, Korean food has successfully make me wanting more.

A couple of weeks ago, I had a meeting in Gandaria City and decided to eat first before the meeting. I passed this restaurant named Kyochon with a modern and minimalist ambiance inside. Star struck by the ambiance, I decided to have lunch there.

I ordered a plate of Galbi Chicken Steak with Kimchi Fried Rice for my lunch that day. From what I read on the menu book, it was a Korean style fried rice with kimchi and some grilled galbi chicken. They also include a fried egg and a handful of fresh salad. For those who doesn’t familiar with the term of Galbi, it is a Korean spicy stir fried chicken. Generally made by stir frying marinated chicken in gochujang (Korean chili paste) in a hot plate. They usually add cabbage, sweet potato, scallions and other stuff along.

I thought the kimchi flavor on this fried rice was just using some sort of seasoning. Turns out they also stir the kimchi in. So you’ll find a piece of radish, cabbage and cucumber inside. The taste of the fried rice was quite nice. It was a bit spicy and has a hint of sourness. However, I feel like it still need a little bit of salt and pepper to make the fried rice even better. And also I kinda hate how the rice was too soft. It makes you feel full after just a couple of spoon.

As for the galbi chicken, it tender and very juicy! The chicken cut was a bit thick, I was worried it didn’t cooked through but it was. The skin was sticky and rich in flavor. I think they spread the marinating sauce on top of the chicken while grilling it. There is a tiny charred mark on the chicken skin. It taste bitter, but I don’t mind! I really like the galbi chicken, I even eat the whole galbi and left out the fried rice.

Overall my lunch that day was considered great. Not to mention the staffs were very friendly and helpful to me. They know the recommended menu and keep checking back if I need anything else. Even though the meals wasn’t something over the top, I really considering to come back here since they have plenty of food choices that seems really good. So anyone care to join me for the next round?

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Kyochon

Gandaria City Mall

Jl. Sultan Iskandar Muda

Gandaria, Jakarta Selatan

DKI Jakarta, Indonesia

(+6221) 2923 6448

Opening hours: 10 AM – 10 PM

Food: 3/5

Ambiance: 4/5

Price: 4/5

Service: 3/5

If you follow me on twitter, you probably know that I won two return ticket from Tiket.com to any city in Indonesia with Citilink back on June 2015. Yes, it’s almost two years ago but I was not really in the mood for writing my travel journey back then (excuses, excuses! Shame on you, Jani). So on 3^rd to 6^th of July 2015, I went to Makassar with my cousin. We visited and saw many interesting place there and I will try my best to share it all with you guys. As for now, I present you the beautiful Fort Rotterdam.

We came here by an angkot (it is called pete-pete in Makassar). We get in to the blue pete-pete in front of Pantai Losari area and took off right in front of the Fort Rotterdam entrance. I think it cost us about IDR 5.000 for a single ride to Fort Rotterdam. Well, I just gave the driver that amount of money and leave though. LOL!

Fort Rotterdam is a 17^th century fort that lies in the heart of Makassar. It used to be a fort to protect the city of Makassar from colonist. However the Fort Rotterdam is given to the Dutch colony due to the loss of Gowa Kingdom in 1667. And yes, I know this because I love my country history (JK. I read this on Wikipedia

It is a rectangular shape fort and six bulwarks (only five still visible to this day). There are Bastion Bonie to the west, Bastion Boeton to the northwest, Bastion Batjang to the southwest, Bastion Mandassar to the northeast and, Bastion Amboina to the southeast. This rectangular and six bulwarks shape make the fort look like a sea turtle from above, hence the Benteng Penyu (sea turtle fort) nickname.

The entrance ticket was a pay-as-you-wish thing. So you can pay as much as you feel, but mostly around IDR 5.000 or IDR 10.000 per person is enough. There is also history museum inside the Fort Rotterdam area. It cost you around IDR 10.000 if I’m not mistaken.

It was a huge place! Not to mention that almost every building looks pretty similar. My cousin and I been wandering around for about 30 minutes or so before we decided to get a tour guide to explain everything in here. I don’t really remember whether they set a specific price for the tour guide service, but I remember I gave him IDR 50.000 for a 2 hours tour around the Fort Rotterdam. Feel free to tip him as well.

I don’t really recall what he was talking about since it happened two years ago. It was mostly about the fight of the Makassar people and the history about the Gowa kingdom, if I’m not mistaken. If you are someone who keen on history, I would really recommend you to come to Fort Rotterdam when you happen to be in Makassar. Well if not, just come and take a lot of pictures since the place is very beautiful to take pictures.

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Fort Rotterdam

Jl. Ujung Pandang

Bulo Gading, Makassar

South Sulawesi, Indonesia

Opening hours: 8 AM – 6 PM

I have a few close friends that I met at the university. It was mid-2009, we were in the same class, sitting in the same row. The next thing I know we become best friends ever since. No, we are not that kind of best friends who love each other, support each other or whatever best friends do to each other. We hate each other and we talk about each other. But by the end of the day we do anything for each other. A few weeks ago, we decided to catch up with each other lives by having lunch together at the Social House at Grand Indonesia.

After an hour of arguing and waiting everyone to come, we ordered a Chicken Barbeque Pizza and Chicken Wings for sharing. The pizza was quite small but cut into 8 slices. It was d*mn good, I even ate 3 slices! It was the thin and crispy kind of pizza, which is my favorite kind! I love how generous the topping was. The barbeque sauce was given in the perfect portion, so it doesn’t overpowered everything. Other than the chicken, the pizza also topped with portabello mushroom. However the mushroom was a little bit dry out, I can’t really tell if it was a mushroom if I did a blind test.

As for the Chicken Wings, it has the sweet and spicy taste to it. I love how tender the chicken meat and how well marinated it was. I can taste the sauce inside the meat, not just on the outer part of it. On the side note, chicken wings is NOT A GOOD CHOICE to eat at a fancy restaurant. You cannot slice it with your knife, but it is not polite to eat with your hand when everyone else isn’t. So yeah, I hate the fact that I cannot eat the last piece of meat that sticking to the bone :(

I ordered an oven roasted barramundi. It was served with blue mussels, semi dried tomatoes, garlic potatoes with white wine and butter sauce. Yes, I felt fancy AF. While the potatoes was just fine, the barramundi and the blue mussels was lack of taste. It need just a tiny bit more of salt. However the white wine butter sauce brings the whole meal together and really makes everything taste different. Kudos to the chef who made such a wonderful sauce that bring a new meaning to the meals.

We also shared a good slice of chocolate cake for desserts. I forgot what the name was but it was quite good. The chocolate cake was moist, a little bit dense and full of chocolate flavor. The icing on top was a bit too sweet for me, but my friends seems like it. It also has chocolate and nutela drizzle under the cake piece, making all of us want to lick it away.

Despite all the smoke smell (I think we were seated very close to the smoking area), I love this place. Great food, great ambiance and not packed with people at the lunch time. Will I come again? Totally, especially for those yummy pizza and wings!

***

Social House

Grand Indonesia

Jl. M. H. Thamrin

Thamrin, Jakarta Pusat

DKI Jakarta, Indonesia

(+6221) 2358 1818

Opening hours: 10 AM – 11 PM

Food: 3,5/5

Ambiance: 3/5

Price: 3/5

Service: 4/5

Do you have any certain food that has a special place in your heart? The one that you always longing every time you feel down, sick or just a sudden crave out of nowhere? The one that you will always love no matter how it taste? Well let me introduce you to mine.

I have this thing with Hainan Chicken Rice. No matter how full I am, no matter how bad it taste, I will always eat it. I don’t know how this all started, but I sort of grew some love for Hainan Chicken Rice. This love for Hainan Chicken Rice has set me on a quest to find the best Hainan Chicken Rice in the world. Well if not the world, in Jakarta would be enough, at least for now. And probably I have found it.

The Hainan Chicken Rice came in a beautiful set which contains rice, chicken, soup, sautéed veggies and some condiments (grated ginger, soy sauce and sambal). Everything was placed beautifully and very appetizing. I still can remember how the delicious smell of the Hainan Chicken Rice make me want to just eat it away.

From what I read, cooking a perfect Hainan chicken is a bit tricky. You have to boiled/steamed it in a very long time with the right heat/pressure so the chicken meat won’t dry out. Not to mention the avoiding the chicken skin to shrink. A big salute to Chatter Box for delivering the best Hainan chicken I ever taste. The chicken was very juicy, tender and tasty. Not to mention the perfect beautiful layer of the chicken skin on top of it.

The rice was perfect also. The rice breaking up (I don’t know how to describe rice lol) in a good way. It was tasty and fragrant. Sadly the soup wasn’t as good as the last time I came here. It was a bit oily for my liking, but still taste quite good.

I also ordered Es Merah Delima for desserts to complete my meal that day. The delima used in this dessert is not from pomegranate. I think it was made from bengkuang (jicama) covered in tapioca. I quite like this dessert, but it needs a little bit more sugar or maybe they could cut the ice.

My dining experience in Chatter Box was considerably great. Even though the waiter was quite slow that day (to be fair, I came at lunch time and the restaurant was pretty packed) Chatter Box will always be my one of favorite place to eat.

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Chatter Box

Plaza Senayan

Jl. Asia Afrika no 8

Senayan, Jakarta

DKI Jakarta, Indonesia

(+6221) 579 00 057

Opening hours: 10 AM – 10 PM

Food: 4,5/5

Ambiance: 4/5

Price: 4/5

Service: 3/5