Safehouse Jakarta

Went to Safehouse last week for lunch with the awesome new friends from Shopping Magz! It wasn't just a lunch lunch, because the purpose of the visit was actually to cover this new restaurant because... *drumrolls* I am teaming up with Shopping Magz as a contributor for their monthly e-magazine! Looking forward for more adventures and definitely... LOTS OF EATING!

Safehouse is a new restaurant as well as hang out venue in the city located in the heart of Kuningan area, well not exactly "heart" because it's actually located at the Mega Kuningan Circle, Bellagio Mansion to be exact just across Ritz-Carlton Hotel. The restaurant which was officially opened for public on November 2013, had a very urban, chic, in a way clean while still sounding youthful and fun. It was also pretty spacious with two floors, the second floor was the showroom for the owner's (Enrico Nicolin) shoe label, SomeAreThieves.

The naming was pretty funny because the shoe label was actually "SomeAreThieves" but it's located in the "Safe House"

The bar area. They have pretty good cocktail range as I looked at their menu, but didn't get the chance to personally try it.

The second floor is the showroom for SomeAreThieves by Enrico Nicolin.

This is for free!

The executive chef for Safehouse is the Italian Chef, Tomasso Gonfiantini and I gotta tell you man, this person, who clearly didn't look like a chef (honest POV and good thing because he has a youthful spirit and he's fashionable) was actually and honestly VERY talented and unforgivable friendly and nice. He used to work for Pepenero Bali for four years and now expanding his adventure with SafeHouse! I joined his activity in the kitchen from the preparation to the garnish, he's just very smart in explaning everything, thanks to him, I even knew few new cooking methods that I never knew before (keep reading and scroll), more on that in Shopping Magz.

Safehouse mostly served Italian food and some with a little twist of Asian from the ingredients and the flavors.

Seafood Conchiglie Pasta
Conchliglie is the kind of pasta with the snail's shell form, one of the main advantage of this kind of pasta is its ability to scoop the soup, if the pasta happens to have a soup base. From what I experienced at the kitchen watching Chef Tomasso cooking live, making pasta wasn't hard at all, maybe for some, but this one certainly off the list! There's something about watching Chef Tomasso cooking that encouraged and driven me to go to the supermarkets and buy everything to cook! I have always adored chef's ability in the kitchen, especially those who indeed made everything from scratch. It took around 15-20 minutes to cook this and spring onion garnish to ring the bell.

The pasta was cooked perfectly, perfect here refers to 'al dente' for me, the seasoning was great and the tomato cream soup cooperate really nicely with the pasta. Since this is a seafood pasta, I adore the generous amount of seafood given to a portion and how the seafood distributes not only the touch of flavor, but also the scent and the overall performance! This is an absolute must try. If perfect is a 10, this might be 8,5!

WHAT YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT COOKING PASTA! (by Chef Tomasso Gonfiantini)
- When you made a pasta with soup, DO NOT forget to include the water from the pasta cooking to the cooking pan because it's believed that the water could do a great job in blending the pasta with the seasoning and the oil.
- Depending on what pasta you're making but the recommended cooking time should be generally around 12-15 minutes to reach "al dente", 12-15 minutes starts when the heat of the water started reaching medium to high.
- When you're cooking the pasta, DO NOT forget to give salt to the water! So you're basically cooking pasta in a hot salty water.
- The recommended pan to cook pasta is the Saute pan. That one you see in the TV shows with long handle and round shape.
- If you're planning to use parsley for your pasta, Chef Tomasso recommends using Italian parsley as it has a great quality, but if you're still up for the local ones, that's fine.

Safehouse Hand Cut Burger
After learning some pasta cooking methods, I also managed to learn some new things about cooking burger (told ya keep reading!). Some facts actually surprised me. The Safehouse Hand Cut Burger was apparently not the hardest to cook, you just need to pay more attention in making sure that you don't overcook the patty or selse it's going to hard and dry. The sauce you're looking at right now is chili mayo sauce, which by the way tasted beautifully, but the chef just needed to put that somewhere else because this is making the food looking less photogenic LOL. In a nutshell, this burger was beautiful! The buns were soft, the meat was cooked beautifully and very lightly seasoned. It's just common-not-so-common, thanks to the chili mayo I guess.

WHAT YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW ABOUT COOKING BURGER! (by Chef Tomasso Gonfiantini)
- It's recommended to use beef with great quality like Angus beef and it should be around 70% hand cut beef meat (slice top) and 30% with fat.
- Apparently it's a surprise that you DO NOT NEED to use anything for the patty to stick together! I used to think that chefs do or add something for the patty to stick along while it's being cooked.
- During the beef patty cooking, use your finger to make a hole in the middle! Can you guess what for? It's to indicate that the opposite side was being cooked perfectly, (and again how can you see that?) - because there will be blood later in the hole! That's when you put your doubt to rest!
- To make the burger buns soft and fluffy, put them in the oven for 20 seconds, not a rocket science.

The star of the day, Chef Tomasso Gonfiantini! Bet he's an eye-candy for you ladies out there, get away from your screen, you might be drooling, but seriously he's just very friendly, very polite and very nice to be working with!

Trivia: he's such a camera shy, he was so embarrassed when he knew he's being recorded.

My visit to Safehouse was SPLENDID! The staffs were really attentive and helpful during the day and they're just seriously very helpful, thank you guys so much!

Special thanks to Chef Tomasso Gonfiantini for the amazing food he cooked that day, for the knowledge given and also for simply being who he is! Thanks to the lovely team from Shopping Magz, first experience and terrific to work with :).

Safehouse // SomeAreThieves
Lobby Level, Bellagio Mansion
Lingkar Mega Kuningan, Across Ritz-Carlton Hotel
Jalan Mega Kuningan Timur 2 Kav. E4 No. 6
Kuningan, Jakarta Selatan 12930
021 - 3005 5010
Opening Hours:
Mon - Thu: 6 AM - 12 AM
Fri - Sat: 6 AM - 2 AM
Sun: 8 AM - 4 PM
WEBSITE | FACEBOOK

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email: eatandtreatsindo@gmail.com

White Truffle November at Rosso, Shangri-La Hotel Jakarta

For those who admire a premium dining experience, then you surely don't wanna miss this month's exquisite White Truffle promotion at Rosso. It was such a pleasure for me to be able to try out some of the splendid menu.

It's currently the truffle season, during this peak harvest season, I bet tons of restaurants in the world are releasing truffle inspired menu to their palates and Rosso is one of the happy confident ones to join the game! A little information for you guys about White Truffle, it's one of the hardest plants to maintain, for its growth and harvest season is depending on the weather, soil and certain environmental factors, and those leads to a "good" paycheck when it comes to its desire. Currently, one kilogram of this precious little devil costs IDR 63 milion or ($6300), I know right, insane, such short-term "investment" to the tummy!

Before we rave to the delicious food and the expensive topping, let's check out the appetizers! The thing that I miss so much about Rosso is their uber fresh tossed salad! Especially those mushroom and chicken toppings, uh, always ask for extra! By the way, if you want to enjoy this beautiful salad and all the other Heavenly (with capital H) buffet appetizer, you can upgrade your dine with the Antipasti buffet (one blogged about it on my last visit before this, here)

Honeydew Juice
IDR 65k

Pumpkin Soup with Olive Oil and Garlic Bread
The soup of the day was this pumpkin soup infused with a little glimpse of olive oil and garlic bread. The garlic bread is so crunchy but melts in your mouth.

STAR OF THE MONTH: WHITE TRUFFLE!

Just in case you wonder how White Truffle looks, here it is!

It might not be the most photogenic, not even close to the word attractive, but this one price-tag monster is such a rare ingredients you can find in this world. It's best served raw because cooking it would actually ruined its original beauty.

Crudo of Wagyu Beef Tenderloin with Truffle and Parmigiano 36 months
IDR 420k
Still on the Antipasti menu, this is seriously good. The thin sliced Wagyu Beef is super juicy and tender, eating this with the truffle and the dressing is seriously such a burst of flavor!

Homemade Egg Tagliolini, Butter Cream Truffle Sauce and Porcini Mushroom
IDR 420k
The truffles actually added a little texture play to this course and eventually making it a more interesting dish. For someone who's not too fond of all the cheesy and buttery stuff, this one is decent! The butter sauce was not overpowering my appetite.

Jerusalem Artichoke Ravioli with Mascarpone Cream and White Truffle
IDR 540k
The food looks so photogenic, they were effortless beauty to take photos of. This dish was also a decent one, love the filling, they were lightly seasoned and the pasta's appropriately cooked. I found white truffles to be working really well with pasta because their texture is slightly contrasting one another.

Seared Duck Breast Tartare, Foie Gras, Apple Terrine and White Truffle
IDR 620k
Among all, this is probably my most favorite. So far, the freaking BEST duck creation I've ever had. Gotta give it to Chef Oriana for this! She just knew how to dress up the palate not only for the eyes, but also the mouth and the belly. They're just very much welcome in my belly! For a 620k, this might be a hefty pricy course, but only if you want to try out such an orgasmic meal, this is just top notch!

Foie Gras was so beautifully cooked and the apple tartine's fresh!

For desserts, chocolate pralines and...

Semifreddo al Torroncino (Nougat Semifreddo Ice Cream).
IDR 62.5k
This is the second time for me having this and my love for it just hasn't melt! Surely the top 5 best ice cream desserts I've tried. It's like having the mixture of Nutella and Ferrero Rocher ice cream. BURST!

You can upgrade the fabulous meals with extra 3 grams of truffle for IDR 500k!

Thank you Rosso for such an amazing lunch! My tummy is seriously proud right now. It probably just consumed millions of IDR worth of truffles LOL!

If you want to indulge yourself with premium quality of white truffles, as well as Italian's finest cuisine, Rosso is currently having the White Truffle promotion this November (9-30 November 2013).

Have a pleasant one! Cheers!

Rosso Italian Restaurant || WEBSITE | TWITTER
Shangri-La Hotel Jakarta, Lobby Level
021 - 2939 9580

Operating Hours:
Restaurant
Lunch: 11.30 AM - 2.30 PM
Dinner: 6.30 PM - 10.30 PM
Lounge
Lunch: 11 AM - 2.30 PM
Dinner: 5.30 PM - 1 AM

DC: Smart Casual

FACEBOOK || TWITTER || INSTAGRAM

email: eatandtreatsindo@gmail.com

Cheese Festival at Rosso Shangri-La Hotel Jakarta

Rosso at Shangri-La Hotel Jakarta is no doubt one of the most well known upscale Italian dining in Jakarta. They're known for their premium authentic Italian cuisine made with love and this October, they're bringing "Cheese" as their theme of the month, trust me, so many cheese is never "cheesy".

Rosso's interior is clean and elegant with major usage of the color "red". The whole interior rings classy, elegance, but in the same time, private. There's something lovely about the ambiance of the room during the afternoon, definitely with the help of the ourdoor lighting that live up the "soul" of the venue as I would refer, this is when the color "red" helped the room to shine bright like a diamond! #notrihanna. For a more relaxed and casual day out, they also have a lounge area and minibar area.

ANTIPASTI BUFFET
Complimentary buffet for everyone dining here! There are tons of Italian inspired starters to choose from, my favorite one was definitely the salad, along with the smoked salmons and the hams. All the selections here are fresh, just dig in!

Complimentary bread

Behind the amazing food I'm about to share, there was definitely the magic hands behind them. Say hi to Chef Oriana Tirabassi. She's the first woman to ever achieved the title on Acrobatic Pizza Spinning in Pizza World Championship and guess what? She still hold the record for it and remains the only female chef having the honour to this day. She's very passionate about cooking as I can tell from the way she speaks and explaining the food. I love those Italian accents when it comes to explaining one thing or two about food, it makes me more dead hungry even before the courses starting to flow. It's an honour for me to meet her :).

She also declared as The Most Welcoming Chef by NOW! Jakarta (Best restaurants, Bars and Clubs awards).

Burrata Cheese Salad

As you guys probably know, I am not a huge fan of cheese, but let me tell you that this dish is stunning, especially for someone who's not too fond of cheese courses like me. The cheese is just fluffy like Buffalo Mozarella, got that hint of creamy texture like Mascarpone. The tomato garnish and the salad adds up the play of flavor to the mouth. One hell of a good dish!

Selection of Cheese, Grape, Dried Fruit, Nuts and Homemade Compotes
IDR 160k
The top one is the selection of Italian cheese while the bottom one is the France cheese.
Italian Cheeses from left to right:
- Parmigiano Reggano (36 month)
- Valtellina Casera Dop
- Mattusc Misto Carpa
- Latteria Delebio
- Scimut

France Cheeses from left to right:
- Livarot de la Perelle Calvados
- Le Bon Normand Pont Leveque
- Fermier au Lait Cru Le Granol Bornard Rebolochon
- Camembert Affine au Caulados
- Sainte Maure de Touraine Formage de Chevre au Laite Cru

Even though I am not a huge fan of cheese, I managed to taste the cheese so that I can give a brief overlook of the cheese and some were actually nice and some were actually really horror LOL. Overall, I think I am more of the Italian cheese person for their lighter and subtle taste which I consider friendlier. The texture of Italian cheeses are a little more packed for the cheese are cut from the cheese blocks. Meanwhile, the French cheeses have this creamier flavor and a lot more smelly, like OMG-it-stinks-so-bad kinda smell, especially for the "Camembert" and "Sainte Maure". I feel like I actually ate a goat that hasn't taken a bath in like a month and I have to brush my teeth after all LOL.

The idea of eating the cheeses is to have them with the grapes and the dried fruits and the compotes to reduce the intense smell. Chef Oriana herself told us that Jakartans were not really fond of the stinky cheese, and prefer the "sweeter" less fragrant cheese like Fontina, Mozarella and Cheddar.

Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Cheese, Pear, Walnuts, Black Pepper and Creamy Sauce

IDR 80k

Gorgonzola cheese is such a lover when it comes to creamy pasta, for a thicker yet chewier type of pasta like Gnocchi, the additions of pear and walnuts actually giving a good contrast and texture to the whole dish. This is such a creamy dish but there's something to it that didn't make feel bloated after all. If the cuts of the Gnocchi can be slightly smaller, this would be perfect.

Raviolli with Pumpkin, Goat Cheese and Amaretti Powder
IDR 70k
When it comes to Raviolli, one of the loveliest filling must be the pumpkin puree, especially when you know how to cook it properly like Chef Oriana. In a way, along with the cheese theme brought up this month, there's a hint of creamy cheese flavor from the pumpkin that works so well with the goat cheese and the lovely cooked skin. Amaretti which is actually Almond Meringue biscuit gave a little texture to the whole dish. Overall, this dish's pretty good.

Cheese Fondue with Selections of Steamed Vegetables and Cheese Bread

IDR 60k

I personally think that this dish should be in the appetizer menu instead of main course from the elements, portion and the presentation itself. Fond of the natural sweetness from the steamed veges, tho but other than that, it was just okay.

Beef Tenderloin with Fontina Cheese, Capers and Potato

IDR 410k

For just one bite, I knew I have to go home and update my list of the best steaks I've ever had in life! This one easily rocketed to the top of my list. The Tenderloin Filet Mignon was seasoned perfectly, the meat was beyond tender just like its name. Also loving the Mashed Potato, it was so smooth and creamy and ARGH I really don't know how to emphasize this marvelous dish! I am feeling freaking guilty right now I need a lawyer for this guilty pleasure! Must try, really really recommended.

Semifreddo al Torroncino (Nougat Semifreddo Ice Cream with Hazelnuts)
IDR 62.5k
Marvelous is such a proper word when it comes to this. Hazelnut always manage to win my heart when it comes to creations whether it's cakes, pastries, desserts or beverages. If you're familiar with the taste of Ferrero Rocher chocolate, then this one is so close to it. One thing that I adored about this is actually the ice cream filling inside the cake. Fragrant and wonderful. I wanna have another one just for myself.

THANK YOU ROSSO for inviting me over and try out this month's promotion! For a non-cheese lovers like me, I eventually feel pretty impressed with the overall creations, it's just when you know how to cook it, it can turn out becoming a stunning dish! These beautiful treats are definitely because of Chef Oriana's magic hands and I am so happy to declare that I am her new fan. She must have had tons of adorers, especially for her Tenderloin Filet Mignon. To die for!

And don't worry guys, what's the point of me making you jealous without you actually got the chance to try out these wonderful dishes! The "cheese" promotion menu is available until the end of October, so you still have around 2 weeks to fulfill your cheese cravings. Yum yum!

HAPPY NEWS FOR BCA CARD HOLDERS!

If you are a BCA Credit Card Holder, enjoy special complimentary EVERY WEDNESDAY, buy 3 get 4 buffet menu at Shangri-La's restaurants (SATOO, Rosso, Shang Palace and Lobby Lounge) until February 1st 2014.

CHEERS TO THE FREAKING CHEESE! Thanks again Rosso and Shangri-La Hotel Jakarta!

Rosso Italian Restaurant || WEBSITE | TWITTER
Shangri-La Hotel Jakarta, Lobby Level
021 - 2939 9580

Operating Hours:
Restaurant
Lunch: 11.30 AM - 2.30 PM
Dinner: 6.30 PM - 10.30 PM
Lounge
Lunch: 11 AM - 2.30 PM
Dinner: 5.30 PM - 1 AM

DC: Smart Casual

FACEBOOK || TWITTER || INSTAGRAM

email: eatandtreatsindo@gmail.com