MAD Modern Asian Diner Jakarta

Told you right! It's like each and every week, new restaurants are opening and the Jakarta's F&B venture is getting more and more colorful, but colorful doesn't always mean 'festive', sometimes the dark colors just wrongly applied. Anyway went to MAD Jakarta's press launching yesterday and couldn't wait to blog this because I want to introduce you guys to this new F&B joint in Lotte Shopping Avenue.

MAD which stands for "Modern Asian Diner" was born out of the mad but in a way genius idea from its founders: Dick Lee and Andrew Chow who thought that food is now a part of lifestyle, beside its main role as necessity. MAD restaurant is a part of the famous Singapore F&B group, Tung Lok which also handled some other well-known restaurants like Taipan (WTC Mangga Dua), Ming Dine and Chill (Epicentrum Walk) and the newly launched "My Humble House". Dick Lee is probably quite famous back in his hometown Singapore (yes MAD is originally from Singapore) because he's one of the judges in a talent show there. This particular restaurant is offering you selections of multi-dimentional dining experience (as what they claimed), but from what I saw from the menu it's mostly the fusion from Western and Asian cuisine, but don't worry guys, even though this was a press-launching, fortunately I still got the chance to try out some of the menus *nomnom* and that's why I'm blogging this! But before that, as usual: PHOTO-PROLOGUES!

ENTRANCE! The logo's inspired out of Dick Lee's face, I thought it represents a girl's face, but it was actually Dick Lee's face dressed in a Chinese-design crown, but anyway LOVE the logo!

Fresh flowers everywhere since they just officially opened for public around a week ago.

The interior of the restaurant was certainly like no other that I've seen before, it's very spacious with youthful, modern design touch but also unique and quirky, you'll see hip graphics everywhere, lamps rolling around the ceiling (see below), I wasn't feeling like I was in a restaurant, more like a loft with dining tables, but there's a quality that I like about it: they're very confident with their design. I bet this place looks more glamorous during the night. Just beside the dining tables, there's an open kitchen for everyone's eyes and to ensure yourself that nobody's spitting on your food.

Live music with percussion items made out of used tins and kitchen utensils. Nice.

Each guest was given this refreshing drink called "Strawberry Shortcake", LOVE this it indeed got that strawberry cake flavor infused to this drink, in a way like drinking a strawberry cake! It had a proper sweetness and sourness and presentation wise, as you can see, beautiful!!!

The service was really impeccable, the servers were really attentive, funny thing was that each row's supposed to be for five participants, I sat on the second row and there were only three people including me but they still serve the food for five people, get what I am saying? EXTRAS!

Mr. Yohan Handoyo, a wine expert and one of the owners of MAD Jakarta.

We got the chance to try out 4 food samplers: three appetizers and one main-course. Even though they were samplers, but I adore how they presented the food on the plate, simple but pretty. The first course was the appetizer samplers that consists of: Truffle Dumpling, Cream Crab Croquette and Spring Roll. The Truffle Dumpling hands down one of the best dumplings I've had in life, the skin was moist and on a perfect thickness, the filling was generous (more vegetable cuts) and the whole thing just burst in your mouth! A little glimpse of Truffle oil to make it better, the aroma of the Truffle oil just rose up the appetite!

Cream Crab Croquette
This was another fascinating delicacy, it was nicely cooked, deep fried with crispy coating, but not leaving the whole thing to be oily, loving the mustard dressing as it helped the play of flavor. Frankly speaking, I wasn't really capturing the crab flavor.

Spring Roll
This MAD spring roll was another thing to drive me mad in a pleasant way, technically it was simple but the flavor result was rich with the touch of freshness from the fresh ingredients. The spring roll skin was thin and moist, it was garnished with cucumber and light nut sauce. Well executed.

The appetizers were pretty impressive and the next to be served was the main course, they served us this Josper Grilled Wagyu Claypot Rice (IDR 198k), the rice was still hard (which is good) and me loving the dry parts sticking on the claypot's surface even more (bet everyone does). The wagyu beef was perfectly cooked, extremely tender and juicy and the egg was still runny and fresh, I love the runny egg texture, but one thing's missing from this dish, it's just that it's lack of that seasoning kick and the flavor was just not brave bold and brave enough for me, and it's relatively pricy for almost IDR 200k (before tax).

Mr. Yohan Handoyo and Mr. Tommy Irawan

One awesome thing about MAD is that the kitchen's equipped with a motoric-automatic wok! Easy way to wok the food and save some rupiahs to pay the kitchen staff's salary (JUST KIDDING!).

We were also taken to a quick tour of the newly launched "My Humble House" which was located on the fifth floor of Lotte Shopping Mall (the fine-dining areas), it's a Chinese restaurant and the concept was clearly different from MAD, it's more proper for family dining. My Humble House Jakarta serves mostly Chinese inspired menus and this particular outlet in Jakarta is their fourth outlet after opening in Tokyo, Beijing, and Mumbay before.

The seating capacity of My Humble House is around 200 people including 8 VIP rooms for a more private dining session with your loved ones.

Looking forward to come and have a nice dimsum time with my family.

I am completely aware that this is not a complete review as I only tried some of their menus but from what I experienced, they have pretty decent food but it also came with a relativey hefty price-tag. MAD is planning to open other branches in Bali and Surabaya so crossed fingers for that! GOOD LUCK!

MAD - Modern Asian Diner

Lotte Shopping Avenue 4th fl. Unit 33 (Next to XXI Cinema)

Ciputra World 1

Jl. Prof. Dr. Satrio Kav. 3-5

Kuningan, Jakarta Selatan 12940

021 - 2988 9499

Opening Hours:

Weekdays: 11 AM - 10.30 PM

Weekends: 10 AM - 11 PM

WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM

My Humble House

Lotte Shopping Avenue 5th fl. Unit 1 (Next to XXI Cinema)

Ciputra World 1

Jl. Prof. Dr. Satrio Kav. 3-5

Kuningan, Jakarta Selatan 12940

021 - 2988 9595

Opening Hours:

Weekdays: 11 AM - 10.30 PM

Weekends: 10 AM - 11 PM

FACEBOOK || TWITTER || INSTAGRAM

email: eatandtreatsindo@gmail.com

W Retreat and Spa Seminyak Bali [Hotel Review]

This post is clearly one of the most requested posts of eatandtreats... EVER!

First, huge huge thanks to W Retreat and Spa Bali for sponsoring this trip and making this trip possible, I was super duper honored! Special thanks to Aini Zariyah for inviting me over to experience the vibrant and luxurious life in W Retreat and Spa Seminyak! It was one of the best trips ever starting from the beginning to the end, might be a short one, but much needed respite!

I brought Ian Eryanto Wongso from Lyon+Mia along to this trip and thanks for being such a great travel partner!!! Couldn't imagine crazier travel partner beside this. There were so many photos I took there I decided to split this post to some parts because I don't want to spoil you with all the awesomeness of W in just one post. Stay tuned!

Got flown by Garuda Indonesia, it was a nice flight but the food was MEH! Seating on the second floor and the flight was pretty empty that day, I got "beds" for myself!

After arriving at the Ngurah Rai airport, we were greeted by the representative of W and we were driven to the hotel with freaking BMW X5! Okay this is luxurious. Service has been *ahem* impeccable and impressive so far!

The car's packed with stuffs from W like candies, fresh apples, mineral waters and wet towels!  Another hospitality glory.

It took us around 30 minutes on the road before finally arriving in W in Seminyak, and we're greeted by the face of the handsome chef, Dallas Cuddy (which by the way one of the main reasons of paying a visit to W). Going to tell you more about this chef and his fabulous creations on another post but if you follow me on Instagram I have shared tons of spoilers!

Check-in was easy and smooth, the concierge staffs were really friendly and what I love about their hospitality is that they're doing it casually, I see people smiling everyone even tourists or those who were not staffs there, such a rare thing to see here in bloody Jakarta lately *sigh*. We're also given this "magic towel" that could grow just by pouring some infused water on it!

Aini offered us an afternoon tea session but we were pretty full for certain reasons (that I didn't know) so we skipped these devils and move on to having lunch at Starfish Bloo. Now I regret not having this chocolate cake that day, it was such a feast-porn!

We're placed in the awesome "Spectacular Front Facing" deluxe room on the fourth floor and the view from our room was freaking breathtaking!!! Even though Bali was not on its best Sunset days and was pretty hot during the day, but during sunset hours, the wind breeze blew gently and it was pretty cool.

The deluxe room consist of one king size W signature bed with those green ornaments stitched on the uber thick and comfy blanket, one large LED TV, one L-sized couch for anybody who wants to sleepover, indoor bath-room (certain must!), and some basic amenities. The thing about the bath-room was that it didn't have any door but it had this wood scroll-door to separate the bathroom with the bed area.

BEST THING ABOUT THE ROOM: The music man! They keep on repeating these musics from W Symmetry Music Collection. THE PERFECT LOUNGE ANTHEM! Aini kindly copied me all the songs but when I started playing it in my room, epic fail, my room wasn't completed with Bose sound system, plus it's not Bali with those impeccable beach view :(. Anyway you should get the CD or if you're planning to visit W, you should purchase the CD for you to take home.

It was a one super comfortable bed I could roll on it all day wrapped in the blanket! It was also pretty big, even for monsters like me and Ian, there's even space for another one who wants to jump in.

We were greeted with jelly beans with cock (animal) decoration.

Not only that, the kind staffs from W also prepared us with this "welcome cupcakes", they tasted pretty nice!

Yes! It's exactly where I want to be.

Some free goodies for us!

Talking about their bathroom, it was also an impressive one, it had two separate sinks and each was completed with Bliss Bath products, I tried their body butter and honestly it had a pretty decent moisturizing effect. Most of the times, I forgot to take my shampoo out of the luggage and I ended up using theirs, it was pretty good, none of that crap bad quality bath products, even their facial wash was pretty good. Shoot I am talking like a beauty blogger.

The bathroom was also equipped with big bath tub, rain-shower and motor rooftop! One click and suddenly you have an outdoor bathroom.

photo courtesy of lyon+mia

Fabulous Bliss bath products.

The view of our room in B&W to make it look more dramatic. W is such a resort with amazing trees grown all over the retreats: green and convenient.

After a quick change, me and Ian decided to have a little walk surfing the whole retreat! First stop, W's fabulous library, me love everything about the library! Not only it's well designed, it's also ergonomic: meaning it's designed for ease and compatibility. The ambiance was pretty nice and quiet for a relaxing reading pleasure or when you in need of a private place to do your works. They have SUPER FAST WI-FI connection spread all over the retreat and rooms!

The W library also provided the guests with the most updated magazine issues and books for your preference. 

Next we went to their famous Woobar! The first day was clearly all about relaxing, we had an amazing sunset cocktail time at Woobar which I am going to talk about more in a different post, but here are some teasers for you!

Another thing that I love about W is that this hotel is very detail-oriented but they're doing it with their own style which is sort-of youthful, fun and vibrant! It's like the ambiance is on and there's the soul to it.

Back in the room, again, the kind staffs from W provided us with another surprise! Chocolates from POD Bali, they have superb chocolates that tasted like those expensive imported chocolates! Best thing is the fact that it's 100% local chocolate, the owner's an foreigner who currently has a loving family here in Bali and has been living in Bali for so many years. Planning to visit POD one day.

Bloody Ian broke the chocolate before I could take pictures -.-"

Ian, Aini and Me at Woobar! I miss this moment </3.

That's the end of the first post! So many photos to share on the blog and stay tuned for more about my glorious days in W in the upcoming posts!

Thank you W Retreat and Spa Bali for this an unforgettable trip for being such an amazing host during my stay here. Will come back for sure!!!

W Retreat and Spa Seminyak Bali
Jl. Petitenget 
Seminyak, Bali 80361
+62 361 - 473 8106
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM

FACEBOOK || TWITTER || INSTAGRAM

email: eatandtreatsindo@gmail.com