January challenge? Bye-bye Monkey, Fire up those Chicken!

2017! Started in a good month - because this year, just right after we celebrated New Year, Chinese New Year just so happen waiting by the end of this month!

Leaving 2016 and entering 2017, in Chinese New Year also leaving the year of the Monkey and entering the year of the Chicken! Yes - all of you who is born on the year of the chicken, will step into the age that will leave no spare number if your age is modulo by twelve. That's a bad and unrelated math joke that probably gives no one a smile - but it is true.

Anyway - what sort of challenges we going to try by the end of this month? Something related with chicken perhaps? Too obvious? Yeah - why not try doing that, this month we will look for any menu that related with chicken! Looking for the menu on east, west, nusantara, and kampung - I am challenging myself to find the FITTEST CHICKEN MENU to enter the Chinese New Year. When I write Fittest, I mean the most appropriate chicken menu, not some buffed-up hormone-injected body-builds chicken.

Stay tuned for this blog as I try (and eat) and decide which menu should be considered for the main course in this early year of 2017. Enjoy!

Set Goal for 2017! Now with Challenges and Adventures!!!

Good Bye 2016, Hello 2017!

It's just been a week, but I already feel this year I could set for many goals! Here's for hoping. But in all seriousness, though this year I have decided NOT to buy the usual annual agenda - that doesn't stop me to set goal and listed things I wanted to do.

So - instead of making a repetitive boring blog about food and travel, I've decided to challenge myself this time. New idea, new format, but most important is it will be ADVENTUROUS. I am hoping to have more stories, more goals, more knowledge to share.

Hopefully all you readers will enjoy it. It will be the story of food, travel, and related. CHEERS 2017!

Trip to Stasiun Pasarturi - Surabaya

As I wrote this, it is 6.30 P.M. and I'm still riding on a train departing to the last station on this trip. Although the delayed trip, yet this train cruise still keep goes on in about 80-120 kilos per hour. From the Semarang station, it will be at least another 2-3 hours until arrival.

Not trying to advertise, but for those of you who needed online entertainment on board might want to consider using Smartfren Andromax. Now I have also Bolt from Firstmedia - but once we leave Bekasi the network coverage just gone. This one from Smartfren at least really titled its name with most network coverage in the country. At least 80-90% of this whole train trip, I can browse and stream movies quite well and without any downtime. Netflix runs fine during most of the trip.

I've taken some pictures and videos but it's on the gopro and to connect to this notebook is quite a hassle to do on train - not to mention unpacking the bag and everything. So as soon as I reached hotel - which is maybe another 2-3 hour trip using bus to another city - I will upload to the internet. :)

Long pause... and play

HI!

So the Chinese New Year is just ahead of us - and tomorrow I already starting my holiday early :) There are not much going on from the last time I wrote until now, but hopefully tomorrow it can start a new age for us - me and you as reader :)

I will be departing to Malang, East Java tomorrow and will stay there for about 4 days before I go to Surabaya to go back again to Jakarta. And I already committed not to taste any fast food, junk food, or any other culinary that is not specialised or at least a local cuisine there for all the day during the visit there. 

So - hopefully I will experience some great encounter of whatever it is I will face there - hope that the trip runs well and safe. And most of all, hope it will be a journey with lots of story to tell. Hope to reach you soon, see you - and happy holiday :)

Feeling like coffee and pork bun in Jakarta area? Why not try Kawangkoan at Kelapa Gading.

Located at Jl. Kopyor Raya, this place is not too far away from the main road in Kelapa Gading. About 200-300 meters from Jl. Boulevard Kelapa Gading, a small house that is used as small bistro is at play here. Closed only in Sunday - this place opens every weekday and Saturday from 9AM to 5 PM.

Their specialty is their coffee, which uses grind coffee bean form Celebes that added with condensed milk. They also serve Teh Tarik - a special kind of tea mixed with milk, and for children's choice there's Milo chocolate milk. Of course other than that they also serve mineral water, ice tea and everything else common. For the food - they specialized in their pork bun, filled inside it pork with sweet soy sauce and egg. It may not be much but with the price they serve here, it's a great place to visit for breakfast or brunch. Other breakfast menu including poach egg, Nasi Kuning (Yellow rice served with minced fish, egg, and other stuff).

Kawangkoan originally originated in Minahasa - North Celebes. Located in mountain area, visiting this restaurant and drinking their coffee or tea can comfort you during the cold mountain breeze. This place actually pretty famous in their original area at Celebes, especially as this place has been open from 1960's.

To all of you who didn't know, I took most of the picture here with my phone. And you know what happen when people took photo with their phone? most of them upload it on Instagram - so yeah, I am also on instagram... in fact most picture here were my old pics from instagram. But it just recently, I am mixing my post here with old and new post or picture I have on my phone.

Anyway - you can follow me on instagram @iamtimostudio . Most picture I have will be put there :)

Momoya brand - Gohan Desuyo

Let me introduce you to one product that may or may not been familiar to you, and it has been catching my attention for some times that can be used for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or even snacks.

I found out about this product while I was browsing the Internet and looking at some videos, until at some point I started to browse into semi-weird side of the Internet. There's this comedy group from Japan consisting of five people who during the shows would just introduce what typically a normal food, but - for adventurous and curiosity purpose - would  add or mix another kind of ingredients that seems odd at some point that later would either prevail or fall in the tasting competition. In that show, experimentation of various ingredients and food have been created, such as corn bread tempura, mocchi cake, and at some point they experimented with Pizza.

Now Pizza of course not a traditional food in Japan. Some say it was actually originated as calzone in Italy, and when brought to U.S., someone split it open and sells it likes that and thus Pizza was invented. Some even say that Pizza actually originated back when Marco Polo introduces his nationality food to every civilization he encountered. I know perhaps you have a most accurate references of where Pizza originally begins - but I'm not going to focus on the history here, in fact I have been off track for while.

The point is, at that show - these groups experimented with Pizza by adding some stuff like mochi ice cream, noodles, blowfish, sukiyaki, and later using momoya brand gohan desuyo in the pizza. It was delicious as the show participant taste - and it even get a full 10 star remark. So I am a bit curious about what the product actually is.

This small glass bottle contains in it a mixture of seaweed and soy sauce, as well as other ingredients. It is a good flavour addition for food. One example I'm using is with the toast and butter, and spread it over the toast. It tastes alright I guess - and I would rather keeping this one in case I'm in sudden need of light meal.

In Japan there's this famous tamago gohan, which it is practically a freshly cooked rice and you pour raw egg and soy sauce into a bowl and mixed it. It is considered a tasty meal in Japan, but then some people find it a bit challenging to eat raw egg, especially in western civilization - some kind of salmonella poisoning or other (but I need to remind you about Rocky movie and that scene where Sylvester Stallone basically just cracking some eggs and put it in a glass and then drink it straight away).

So anyway - I tried it with the eggs and this product, only I also comes from the country where the egg might not be clean enough for me to eat it raw. But I also wants to know the experience tamago gohan like, so there are various ways to make this. One thing, I try half cook the egg, but better option is by actually poaching the egg.

For better result - I recommend this one actually:

Poach an egg - it doesn't have to be perfectly poached, just good enough for you to scoop it out of boiling water and put it on top of the rice. before that though, I put the rice first, some cooked tuna, put about 1 teaspoon of gohan desuyo, and then you can start putting the poached egg. Once it all completed - mixed it all in the bowl. Eat it while it's hot :)

Spinach Omelette - home made

Thinking on eating healthy for dinner? No? Me too actually - but since I have a bunch of spinach that will soon turning bad if not consumed, so I might as well use it for something right. So then I was thinking - hey, you know what, I still have some eggs and bacon, so I think I make spinach omelette instead.

The ingredients are:

• Large quantity of spinach, wash first with cooked running water and mince into small bits
• Eggs - 3 pieces of it, break into bowl and whisk
• 3 slices of beef or pork bacon, cut into small pieces
• garlic - 2 clove should be enough
• onion if necessary
• couple of pinch of salt... or make it 1/2 of teaspoon
• ground black pepper - also 1/2 of teaspoon
• You can add cheese if you want - but I don't use it
• 1/2 tbsp. of olive oil

Here's how you do it - stir the eggs with the spinach in the bowl. Stir it well - a secret of good and tasty omelette is from the tenderness of the eggs. By whisking or stirring it long should acquire more air into the mixture and making the eggs more tender when cooked. So before mixing the spinach, make sure you stir or whisk the eggs well. Add salt and pepper if necessary into the mixture. Now heat the oil on the pan, and start cooking the garlic and onion with medium to high heat. After the garlic and onion turn a bit brownish, put the heat to medium or low, and start cook those bacons. I try not to overcook it, so after about 2-3 minutes into cooking and stirring on the pan, I start put the egg and spinach mixture into the pan. You can also add cheese if you like - but I'm not using it on this recipe. This is the trick to cook the good omelette, since you want to flip it into two and more, you should play with the heat on the right timing. I start with medium heat and continue it until about 2-3 minutes when the edges started to look a bit yellow brown-ish. Then I turn the heat to low and continue cooking it for another minute, then I fold the both edge into near the center, and then later fold it again. Continue with low heat until you think it's thicken enough, then flipped the cooked egg to the other side for another minute. 

I use this recipe and it makes a good portion for two - or one if you're hungry enough. :)

Home made Spaghetti carbonara for four

My daughters love spaghetti carbonara - so I decided why not make one for ourselves? I mean how hard could it be?

So there is a various way to make it apparently, there's one using cooking cream, and others can make the cream only with eggs. Since I've already bought myself a cooking cream, I make one using it instead of eggs.

The ingredients we use are:

• 1/3 of spaghetti pasta store brand - I count it by making a circle of my thumb and index finger, and use that much of pasta spaghetti to boil - you can boil it with water only, or water with salt, or water with olive oil - depends on how you like.
• 200ml of cooking cream
• 5 slices of beef bacon (or pork bacon), cut into small
• 10 pieces of mushroom (I use the regular what the store have, but if you can find better one in market or somewhere, I think it would be good combination), cut into slices
• garlic (use much as you need)
• onion (also same with garlic) - this will bring a bit of sweetness flavour, so the amount to use depends on how do you prefer it will be.
• 1 table spoon of olive oil
• 1 tea spoon of slat
• grounded black pepper (use as necessary - or avoid if you don't want any spiciness)
• parmesan cheese (shredded)
• butter (I use anchor block - which is about 2 tea spoon)
• shredded parsley leaves (use as necessary)

Now, if you haven't boil the spaghetti - it might be better to boil it first and remove from water. Because once the cooking of the carbonara start, you can't stop since it require continuous stirring once the cooking cream is in. 

First off you start by heating the pan with olive oil, just for a few seconds and turn into medium heat and start cooking garlic, onions, and mushrooms first. Add salt and butter, you can add nutmeg and/or grounded black pepper too here if you want. Turn the heat to low and start putting those beef bacon (or pork bacon if you want). Since it is thinly stripes, you don't want to overcook it, so best to stir it up continuously with the mushroom. Then you can pour the cooking cream into the pan, and also add cheese here as you like (I use 1 tablespoon of parmesan shredded cheese is more than enough for me, but add likely you want to). Stir it continuously for about 5-8 minutes - a play on the heat control takes part here. Once you see it a bit thicken by the cream (not too thick, but thick enough for you to stir), turn off the heat, and put the spaghetti into the pan filled with cooking cream.

Continue to stir it up with the sauce, and the result can be seen like above. I use this recipe and it can serve for about 3-4 person. Put it in the serving plate, add the parmesan cheese again if you like, sprinkled with parsley leaves - and voila, you have yourself spaghetti carbonara :)  Hope you find this information useful. Of course if you have any input, please comment and I'll try to make it with your suggestion.

Truffle Beef Lasagna - best one I've eaten

So I may have tasted the best lasagna until now.

I'm not lactose intolerant, but I don't really like dairy product in most food. Especially cheese - sometimes the strong smell or the after taste makes me a bit nausea.

This one is truly an exceptional. The grilled beef are tender and juicy, the layer of cheese tomato and pasta is in perfect combination that every bite you can actually taste the balance of the ingredients. 

Located in the 46th floor of The Plaza building in Bundaran HI - Thamrin, Jakarta is an Altitude group area, and one of the restaurant there is called Gaia. A restaurant that specialise in Italian food (as they say in their website) offers one great menu deal during weekend for brunch called Brunch menu. My family and I visited this place last weekend, and although it actually already past lunch time, we can still order this brunch menu.

For this they will serve you various kind of appetizers, main courses, and deserts in portion as much as the attendee. Now here I will mainly focus only on some menu, especially the beef lasagna.

If you order the one not on the brunch menu, this is the full portion will look like. After what I have described on the opening paragraph above, the main cuisine is then covered with truffle cream sauce. The beef lasagna is grilled until crisp on the outside, and with the sauce they added, making this dish heavenly.

I really recommend this one if you go there. Yes, order spaghetti, order some prawn - but at least, you have got to try truffle beef lasagna :)