The New Face of Asia Restaurant, Ritz-Carlton Mega Kuningan Jakarta

Hi Eaters.

It's a new fresh look of Asia Restaurant at Ritz-Carlton Mega Kuningan Jakarta. If you've never seen its previous look, well lucky you, just check it out here.

It's always great to come back to a restaurant that has impeccable service and also good food. This is my second time to come to Asia Restaurant and certainly a rapid change had occured. Curious enough? Keep on scrolling!

The new Asia Restaurant looks more spacious. Indeed before they put some food stations in some areas of the restaurant, now the food stations are more concentrated to the sides so it gives more room thus making this venue looked more vast.

I don't quite know if the number of the food stations are also deducted due to this change, but certainly the amount range of food available were still quite plentiful and still had a lot variants to choose from Asian, Western, until Indonesian food too.

The interior had a touch of contemporary eclectic and it made this restaurant looked so elegant yet modern and sophisticated at the same time. There are also seating area with circular sofas for more convenience. There is also live music performances in every Sunday Brunch.

The new open kitchen concept was certainly pleasing to the eyes since you can see the cooks prepare the food. A nice attraction, especially if you love to see how a dish is being handled.

Prices starts from:

* Breakfast – IDR 238K ++/pax

* Lunch – IDR 318K ++/pax

* Dinner (weekdays) – IDR 348K ++/pax 

* Dinner (weekend) – IDR 428K ++/pax

* Sunday Brunch – IDR 428K ++/pax

I came here for the Sunday Brunch and the place wasn't much packed with guests so it's more convenient for me to take photos.

Now let's take a look on the food I tried during that Sunday Brunch.

First thing I take on a hotel buffet has got to be the seafood or sashimis. Why? Because I consider raw ingredients and seafood should always be number one to taste their optimum freshness. No doubt the freshness from the sashimis and the seafood were on top notch. The choices of sushis were not much but they were also quite tasty indeed.

My second target was the pork station. I was so happy to see they serve pork belly. Yippie!! I absolutely loved that crunchy pork belly skin. That is just to die for! An awesome delight to hear that crackling sound of every pork belly skin as I ate it. The meat was juicy and tasty, but for my personal preference, it's a bit too oily.

The choices of other meat such as the roast beef, the turkey, and the lamb were no disappointment as well. They were cooked beautifully, each appeared as taste bud temptations, and certainly seasoned to perfection.

A must try is the Hainanese rice. It's so rich in flavor, the chicken stock is so dominant thus making the rice so fragrant and delicious. The chicken is so tender and also delicious too! This is definitely a menu you surely don't want to miss out.

The selection of desserts were plentiful, and you can see them first sight as you enter the restaurant due to being place just near the entrance.

A wide selection of cakes, pastries, chocolate, until ice creams are available. It's just heaven if you're a sweet-tooth. They would recommend you to try their Cendol Cake, so if you want to know how a traditional flavor  infused in the cake, definitely you should try the Cendol Cake.

Overall conclusion, it was a pleasant re-visit to the newly-face-lifted Asia Restaurant. All the food were indeed satisfying. This is the kind of thing that would wanna make me have more and more visit to this elegant restaurant. 

Keep on chewing!

Jazzy Dee

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Asia Restaurant at The Ritz Carlton Jakarta
The Ritz Carlton Mega Kuningan
Ph: (021) 25518888
Kawasan Mega Kuningan 
Jl. Dr Ide Anak Agung Gde Agung No. 1
Kuningan, Jakarta
website: www.ritzcarlton.com

Opening hours:
Breakfast 06.00 - 10.00

Lunch 12.00 - 14.30

Dinner 18.00 - 22.00
Sunday Brunch 12.00 - 15.00 featuring live music

U-Thai Cafe & Resto, The Foundry 8, SCBD

Hi Eaters.

Thai food is always my favorite. Well, honestly, I don't eat Thai food that often or as much as I have been recently, but the resembling taste and the richness of the herbs and spices with Indonesian food certainly have become that factor that puts this certain cuisine on my favorite list.
Another FoodyID invitation brought me to try this Thai restaurant called U-Thai Cafe & Resto, located at The Foundry 8, SCBD. This is a food district I never visited before. There's always a first time for everything, right?

The design of the restaurant is actually pretty eye-catching. An industrial-theme with unfinished brick wall, wooden chairs and tables at some parts of the restaurant, and black steel chairs and tables on the other parts. For youngsters, this is a place that I think will suit their interest, but I think for families it's a little bit over the edge, especially for children since it's quite dimmed inside and the choice of music was more youthful than soft easy listening.

I failed to try some dishes that day, so to be objective, I'm not gonna review the dishes I didn't try. Here are some dishes I tried that day.

Nea Pai

Beef meatballs, beef slices, rice vermicelli, and steamed bean sprouts in dark beef soup. A good consistency on the rice vermicelli, perfectly cooked and springy. The meatballs were nothing special, but the beef slices were quite tasty. The soup was okay, I am quite fond with garlicky soup like this one, but still I think the flavors should be more bold. This one felt like it almost reach its destination but deliberately took a turn before finishing the trip.

Khao Cook Gapi

Khao Cook Gapi is truly one of the hardest Thai cuisine to find. Unlike other Thai rice cuisine, such as Khao Man Gai etc, the Khao Cook Gapi isn't always available on restaurants since it is commonly sold as a take away consumption.
The rice is not any ordinary steamed rice. It is stir-fried with shrimp paste so it has that light aroma and taste of shrimp paste. This menu has a variety of toppings, such as shrimps, chicken, mango salad, scallions, chilli, cucumber, and omelette. This one was my favorite. The rice had a nice signature flavor of that shrimp paste, the way I like it. The chicken and the shrimp were also tasty. 

Kaeng Kiaw Wan Nea

Anything with curry is my favorite! Yeah I'm a curry lover. This green curry beef soup is no exception. I love how it uses shredded chilli to give a nice spicy flavor. The soup was great, it's not quite thick and the coconut milk was quite savory enough. The beef was excellent. I would rate this dish as one of the recommended.

Gai Hoer Bai Toey

Thai pandan wrapped chicken. Usually this is one of the-must-order dish for me in any Thai restaurant. Slightly this one was my least favorite dish. For my personal preference, the chicken was too dry. I would like it to be more tender and juicy.

Tom Yum Talay

Thai's most famous dish, Tom Yum is certainly must be the number one pick in any Thai restaurant. Looking at that red-ish soup I would expect it to be spicy, the way I like Tom Yum as original as the one I have tried in Bangkok. Certainly the heat hit the mark there, but it lacked in freshness since I felt the sourness of th soup was a bit under my expectation. That main character which is the signature flavor of Tom Yum just wasn't there. But the seafood inside the food was nice and fresh.

Pad Woon Sen

Fried vermicelli sauteed with chicken and vegetables. I find this one pretty good. Apparently they treated every vermicelli dish in the right way. Nicely cooked and nicely seasoned too.

Khaoniao Mammuang

It's everyone's favorite Thai dessert. The infamous Mango Sticky Rice. Really loving that fresh and sweet mango! The glutinous rice was okay, quite sticky too. Too bad there wasn't much coconut milk given. It would be great if there were more coconut milk generously given.

Lukchup

This is the dessert originally made for Thai kings. Well, unfortunately I missed to try this one. It was all out as I came back from taking photos of other dishes. Too bad. So I can't really give you any thoughts about this dish.

Overall conclusion, U-Thai maybe has its ups and downs but I feel that some flavors were certainly more likeable nevertheless. Would love to make another visit to try other signature Thai dishes they made, perhaps the Pad Thai.

Keep on chewing!

Jazzy Dee

TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | ASK.FM

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U-Thai Cafe & Resto

The Foundry No. 8, Lt. 2

Phone: 0877 76630888

Jl. Jenderal Sudirman, SCBD