Blue Bottle Coffee Aoyama

On my previous day off I finally got a chance to visit the famous second Blue Bottle shop located in a very stylish district which is in Aoyama, Tokyo.

For those who didn't know at all about this famous coffee chain store story, to make long story short, Blue Bottle Coffee is known as a coffee shop with vintage brewing machines and artisanal coffee as their major selling points. 

Their first store is in California and since then they developed so fast mainly famous in LA, NYC, and these several days, 2 shops opened in Tokyo.

As the drip-style coffee is very famous in Tokyo from the start, the Blue Bottle Coffee's launching here are soon catching people's heart.

As the cafe is located on the second floor, without the big sign of the famous Blue Bottle logo in the front, it's kinda easy to miss.

Entering the main door, the delish smell of coffee AND the crowds are a little bit of a surprise for me.

However one look I just fell in love by how they make everything simple and clean; from the stylish cafe design, fast service flow, and not to mention their coffee menu is very easy to understand too.

Took the store's layout photos from my seat on the back while enjoying the coffee.

I've tried their Iced Americano and indeed it was good. However unfortunately It was not their best selling one, I suppose. Their best selling one should be the drip coffee and kind of regretted not ordering that one instead.

Finish with my coffee (and about 1 hour plus long talk with my friend), we decided to go and before that of course we didn't forget to take a slight look on their accessories spot near the main door.

They sell their fresh coffee bean plus all the accesories from mugs to bags. All of course with the famous Blue Bottle logo imprinted there.

Kinda wanting the coffee mug there!

Overall it was such a great visit for me. The crowd (that kinda bothers me, not to mention it was Tuesday) was another thing but their coffee brewery, staff service and cafe's nuance it was all perfect. 

It will soon entering autumn and while the temperature keep dropping these days I've thought of making another visit here and tried their drip hot coffee for sure! I hope my next visit will be better and much better!! 

Giyanti Coffee and Kopium Review (Jakarta part 2)

Hi again here! Continuing from the last post, I assume this post will not gonna be as long as the previous post that I made as most of the food that I had in Jakarta, I've mostly already shared it there. 

Although this is part of the meals that I had in Jakarta during my holiday, I thought this post will gonna be mainly focused on coffee reviews, so there's the post title!

So, back to topic!

This time, I wanna share with you these 2 coffee places that I went to.

During my stay in Japan for almost two year, stylish indie-style coffee shop seems like becoming a thing in Jakarta. Everywhere in even in every hidden spot in Jakarta, if we see it enough (and search for reviews, of course..) we will found several hidden gems here and there. So me and friends finally decided to try several places during my stay.

The first one that I wanna share is this coffee shop named Kopium.

Placed hidden between old house complexes but you will definitely see it from the crowd (or, should I say, cars) right from this coffee shop front gate.

They have this kind of retro styled mini cafee with stylish mini paintings and posters here and there. It's like going back to Marilyn Monroe era kind of feeling.

And this is the interior inside. Pardon the mahjong auntie on the front.

Me and my friends here ordered several menus, such as:

Matcha Latte, friendly for non coffee drinkers.

and the next one was Piccolo on the left, and I forgot the one on the right. My friend said it's all bitter. I'm not an avid drinker of coffee so I can't explain too much about the taste, I'm sorry. But here's the appearence as a compensation! 

Me myself ordered Brulee; they roast caramel on top of the coffee foam so the final combination taste is bitter yet quite sweet. Perfect for those who can't stand the too-bitterness of coffee.

and Cheese Stick as snacks!

So far, so good. We enjoy all the talk, coffee and the food here. 

Finish with the first place, not wanting to waste more time, we directly flew to another happening coffee shop named Giyanti Coffee.

By rule, I cannot take photos inside. but, I've taken all the photos when finally I realize that I cannot take photos in it. Too bad but this girl ain't gonna delete her archive so yah, here is the interior inside!

It's definitely bigger than Kopium, and we got the second level balcony table.

Here's the view from the second floor balcony. It's quite crowded to be honest for a coffee shop that's quite hidden from the main street. 

Our order was this:

 

Cold and Hot Ice Moccha on the top and bottom, plus 2 Piccolo (again!) on the middle. 

I thought the moccha here will be the sweet one like they sell in supermarket or Starbucks. but its so different. It's the real bitter moccha!! Its damn purely nice, in my opinion.

and then my friend said the Piccolo here taste better than the one in Kopium too. I don't really understand the different though.. but I thought it is worth to try.

This place, top rated. 

We also ordered the brownie and the chicken pie as snacks.

Nice combination for moccha and coffee. Both tast awesome. Yums. Definitely will go here again If I have time in the future.

My short journey to these two coffee shops is definitely worth it. I don't know when will this coffee booming will end soon but I'm quite glad here in Indonesia they use this chance to explore more about their own coffee style and develop it more in depth to produce this unique taste. Not like in Japan though.. they mostly rely only on Starbucks. Also knowing that Indonesia is one of the top coffee producer, I hope this culture will stay on developing. Proud to be Indonesian!

But still, I can't be a super coffee drinker; my stomach can't take it. (too bad!)

Well, and thats the end of my (coffee appearance) review.

I'm sorry I didnt have enough clever words to pick and describe, but I hope my post will be useful even just a little bit. 

See you on next post!

Welcoming Back Jakarta!

It's another 2 months plus passed without me realizing I haven't had any time at all to update my blog!

It's kinda confusing what to write for around 2 months update (and for every post I make; it's somewhat always the same feelings all over again tho). So, to make complicated things easier, I will start from the reason why I haven't managed to upload so many updates all this time.

For this two months actually have been very busy with all the preparation that I have to do regarding my holiday back home to Indonesia for only 10 days. yeah. 10 FRICKIN DAYS and it passed so fast. The preparation was so longgg ugh. 

But I kinda glad it passed so fast as the one thing that did all the time there was eat. EAT and EAT and EAT. Until the state that I've just finished my lunch and then my mom said, "ok. what's for dinner?". 

PUKE ALL OVER LOL

However thank to my mom's enthusiasm this time I managed to get almost all the food that I really craving for (which is mostly Indonesian food of course!) compared to my holiday last year which only for 7 days. Its not enough.

And I will share it a little bit!! It's like, "fotd" as in "food of the day". hahaha.

Some of the best that I had this time was:

Several menus from Remboelan Resto that I visited in Senayan City.

Grilled Gourami with Peanut Sauce, or "kemiri" in Bahasa Indonesia. Dunno what's that called in English. Despite the color of the sauce, the taste is not as thick as I expected it will be! Dang good!

The usual Lontong Cap Go Meh; not as kickass as the gourami but because I craved for it's coconut milk soup...

and their famous Nasi Bakar or Grilled Rice. They mix boneless fishes with several seasoning that makes this super flavory yet FRICKIN bombastic spicy for my own tongue sake.

Blame the no-chilli tongue for more than 2 years I'm in Japan... I'm getting weaker for all chilli-thingy for sure.

It's daaaaammnn nice but too bad I cannot finish this as it is too spicy for me at that state which I'm scared I'll hurt my throat.

And the sweet closing is granted for their Remboelan's Es Campur (mix ice). What's Indonesian dessert without coconut milk!

HEAVEN. ON EARTH.

move on to the next visited restaurant was the famous Java Kitchen!

Ordered their Nasi Langgi.. I have no idea how to translate this. Langgi Rice?? Sounds so stupid hahahaha better spelled them with their original name..

It's like mixed rice with several toppings which rich on flavoring and seasoning such as omelette, dried shrimp, sauteed potato and chicken etc. My all time favorite!

and SATAAAYYY.

Look at the meat, peanut sauce and the red onion. How fantastic are they. YUMS.

Why the Japanese don't make their satay like this ah BIG FRUSTRATION.

And last but not least,

ordered their Nasi Gudeg.

I don't know how to describe this either. It's damn good. That's it. Sorry, for non Indonesian reader :(

Java Kitchen will always be my favorite place to go if I long for Javanese food.. their quality and taste never change upon times. YES they better keep their taste as good as it is!!

And the final (for this post) restaurant that I had was named Lembur Kuring.

Finally had a flying gourami (deep fried gourami) that i've been wanted all this time!! Taste incredibly crunchy and nice.. ate all it's fin part too as it was THAT crispy. Munch crunch.

Had this vegetable stuffed toufu too..

and their signature shrimp dish. Deep Fried Shrimp with Special Lembur Kuring Sauce which is a mixture of onion, green chilli, and cornflakes (what!).

The spiciness kicked me on the throat though. It's NOT that spicy but it's just that I'm not used to this kind of spiciness anymore so I didn't binge this much. But it was hell nice, can eat the whole pasrt of the shrimp as it was super crispy.

Based only on this post, It seems that my Indonesian food journey is this short, but its not!! Its actually, much much longer than this post. hahahah.

On the other day, I also had some martabak telur and martabak manis..

 

and just now I've just realized I forget to take photos of the sweet martabak one.. It was all swiped clean as soon as we open the box. And now, no photos :(

Oh well.

And on the other day craved and ate this Makassar's signature ice too..called Es Palu Butung.

It's like soft cake-rolled banana with coconut milk soft pudding and sauced with condensed vanilla milk. OH GOD. I wouldn't mind eating this everyday. It's damn niiiiiiceeeee.

And now i've just realized one thing.

Why Indonesian food is not as famous as other country's food.

My theory was concluded from writing this blog in around 30 minutes; 

It's very hard for us Indonesian to describe what's the real taste of Indonesian food as it was too complex to be explained.

Compared to Thai foods, fpr example. All spicy, sour, coconut milk. That's it.

Indonesia? Spicy sour sweet, some bitter yet nice, some smell so strong yet it sweet. and dozens of textures to complete all of that. How can you describe that? Words are not enough. Have to taste it ourselves.

Then how can we force all foreigner to try Indonesian food if we can't describe it very well?? BIG PROBLEM.

Oh well, It's only my theory though. I'm hoping that all the people in this world can taste how AMAZING Indonesian food was. (And that's the reason I kept bringing Indomie to all my Japanese friends here!)

Aaaaaaaandddd.... I think that's the closing for this post. Will post again about several foods that I had during my holiday on the next post as I suppose it will be too long for them to be tightened to only one post.

Thanks for reading!