PIK SEAFOOD, ELANG LAUT - PANTAI INDAH KAPUK

I AM PISSED!

Those times when I visited a certain restaurant, taste their food and felt like certain restaurants deserve more traffic, and that’s the case with this particular restaurant that I am reviewing: PIK Seafood at Elang Laut Pantai Indah Kapuk.

Seriously, this is one of the most underrated restaurants in Jakarta! Must admit I was just a little skeptical when I first entered the restaurant as it was empty and me and my brother were the only two guests. We wanted to fulfil our major craving for good crabs so here we were having our own crab party. I’ve personally heard a friend of mine praising the crabs here so I guess it should worth a damn try.

Getting here was rather easy, it’s actually located just across the street of the cute Itadakimasu, just notice a big “PIK Seafood” signage and logo (picture below) and you’re on the right spot. The interior and ambiance of the restaurant was very simple and yet pretty proper for a crab specialist restaurant. The only downside about the restaurant was the horribly designed menu, they should really changed the entire book menu as the fact is, the food looked waaaay better in real presentation than in pictures.

We had some of their best sellers, but first, no shock needed for the amount of food that you’ll be looking, if you haven’t seen me eaten before, nice to meet you.

If you love extra kick of spice to your food, then you just can’t skip their chili!!! They’re super hot but super good as well! Generally I love all of their chili, but my personal favorite would be their Sambal Cetar (sambal polos pedas). There are 4 chili options available here: Sambal Cetar, Sambal Pencit (mango chili), Sambal Terasi (chili with ebi paste), Sambal Si Doel (chili with shallot).

Tahu Goreng Cabe Garam – IDR 22,8k

ADDICTING! Soft and silky battered tofu, deep fried and dressed in salt & chili dressing.

Udang Goreng Bawang
The prawns were chunky and fresh, it’s a pretty simple dish with beautiful execution, the garlic dressing really enchance the flavor and the quality of this dish, plus it made the dish semed very fragrant!

Kerang Ijo Saus Tauco
Don’t you hate it when you have clams but most of the times the clams were anything but pile of bullshits: just shells with no or very little meat! Here in PIK Seafood they actually serve big and chunky clams and cooked ‘em with a very tasty tauco sauce!

Pocai Telur Tiga Rasa (Pocai with Three Eggs) – IDR 40k
To be completely honest, this was THE BEST pocai dish I’ve ever had in my life, it’s so good I don’t even know how to emphasize how much I love this in words, this was SUPER GOOD in every way possible! The portion was quite generous for sharing, the veges was perfectly cooked without interrupting the firmness of it, and the seasoning was beautiful, I just love how the soup had this savory flavor and salted-egg flavor to it, yes the salted egg really enhance the overall flavor. You can either have it fresh from the bowl or have it with rice, just as good, but when it comes to me, with rice of course! HAHA

For the fish courses here, you can customize the fish selection depending on your liking and standard, they offer various options from bandeng, gurame, papakulu/ayam-ayam, baronang, kuwe, ekor kuning, kakap merah, bawal putih, bawal hitam, kerapu. I was fond by how they have written the cooking method recommendations for each fish on the menu, I had the “Ikan Bakar Sambal Matah” so the perfect fish for this dish was the Ikan Ekor Kuning (yellowtail fish).

Cumi Goreng Tepung with Cabe Garam – IDR 48k
Crunchy battered squids with tasty cabe garam (salt and chili) seasoning!

Ikan Bakar Sambal Matah – IDR 98k
I probably BLOODY LOVE SAMBAL MATAH more than any chili in this entire universe, and you know when you love something so dearly, when it fails to reach your standard, you’ll be plain pissed, just pissed.

Luckily, PIK Seafood didn’t have any plan to outshame themselve on my palate as their sambal matah was beautiful! It had a good level of spicines (even though I expected it to be a little spicier, but all good), and the yellowtail fish was indeed the perfect type of fish for the dish! Smooth and lean fish meat and loaded.

Just like the fish dishes, to have their crab dishes, you can customize the type of crab you want, here they offer crab selections such as: kepiting Makassar/East Borneo (550 -950 grams, starting from IDR 48k/ons), kepiting Papua/Timika (550 -950 grams, starting from IDR 58k/ons), kepiting super jumbo – 1 KG, kepiting telur, kepiting soka and kepiting ranjungan with seasonal prices!

Once you’ve picked the desired crab of yours, you can choose how you want your crabs to be cooked! They offer cooking methods such as: tim telur, tim bawang putih, Singapore chili crab sauce, bakar manis, asap, saus padang, saus asam manis (sweet and sour), saus kari (curry sauce), lada hitam (blackpepper), or saus telur asin (for additional IDR 25k).

Let me just put it this way: THEIR CRABS WERE FREAKING AMAZING!!! Generally everything that I had was either good or damn satisfying. The crabs were not one of those skinny bitches with nothing, they’re freaking chunky and loaded! The curry sauce (Indian curry sauce) was very rich, fragrant and had this beautiful balance of salty-spicy and savory!

Kepiting Saus Kari (Crab With Curry Sauce)

Kepiting Saus Telur Asin (Crab with Salted Egg Yolk Sauce)

My personal favorite has got to be their awesome salted egg crab! This is PUUUURFECT and lost for words to describe this, but here you’re looking at chunky crab dressed in very beautiful salted egg sauce. I literally can have this all for myself!

Kepiting Saus Lada Hitam (Crab with Blackpepper Sauce)
The Blackpepper was my brother’s favorite, or generally, most people’s favorite! This good old classic was executed beautifully by them wih the beautiful sweet and spicy flavor, again, a perfect tag team with the rice! OMG seriously rice and crabs are always DA BEST!

Festive presentation came from their special baked crab where they actually serve the crab wrapped in an alumunium coating, on a pan and on fire! Master of seasoning – the sweet-savory herb seasoning was so rich it literally coated the crab with a layer of goodness. The sweet seasoning had this shredded coconut like texture.

If you’re reading this post right now, please please pay a visit to this restaurant, they seriously deserve more love than they’re currently having.

And just like that, my late lunch got me feeling confident enough to claim that PIK Seafood is one of eatandtreats’ best findings of 2015! A restaurant really worth visiting and digging in! GOOD LUCK PIK Seafood, I really do hope you stay long in the biz!

I kinda wanna be mean but I just can't be that mean, but I think we all know what's going on in the biz here. Most of the new places (but I am not referring to every single one and I am not naming names) do have pretty place and nice ambiance, but when it comes to food, it's just.. yeah right, not so much impressive, and sometimes I feel bad towards those hidden gems that doesn't get that much of exposure and little do people know that they actually serve AMAZING food, but the thing is, everyone's struggling so I think it's not fair for me to judge. I do hope this boost 'em a bit.

Thank you for reading!

PIK Seafood

Ruko Elang Laut, Blok C No. 40-41

Jl. Pantai Indah Selatan 1 No. 7

Pantai Indah Kapuk, Jakarta Utara 14470

Opening Hours: 11 AM - 10 PM

Average spending for two: IDR 300k

Dresscode: casual

WiFi: yes!

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Map for PIK Seafood

LEWIS AND CARROLL TEA JAKARTA

Lewis and Carroll is officially one of the most talked about new spot this month! I’ve seen so many posts about this newly opened tea house spread all over the social media and that means I need to keep my feet on the ground!

I appreciate that there’s finally another place which choose to concentrates on the tea as the fact is, Jakarta is packed with the rapid growth of coffee houses, in a way it brings such refreshment to the scene, both caffeine, but each one is very different J

Lewis and Carroll is located at Bumi Four at Jalan Bumi, South Jakarta. I DID NOT expect the place to actually be this spacious, I really thought that it’s just going to be a pretty little place with homey ambiance, but what I experienced was the exact opposite, well still very homey tho with beauitful, simple and minimalist design! If you’re a daylight seeker for the sake of your Instagram shits, trust me you’re gonna love this place as it’s “surrounded” with good daylight during the day!

As some people would say: this place is made for Instagram, especially for those who are food, OOTD and architecture enthusiasts! Oh well, that’s everything already.

Here they offered you guys 12 selections of teas: Black, Black Blend, White, White Blend, Herbal, Green, Green Blend, Oolong, Oolong Blend, Spice, Fruits, or Flower. I wanted to try their hot and cold beverages and since I am into fruit/flower teas and black teas, I opted for the “Essence of Eden” for the cold beverage and “Autumn Bloom” for the hot one. The Signature teas are priced at IDR 35k, Heritage IDR 50k and Collection for IDR 70k/pot.

They occupy the magestic Alpha Dominche to brew their teas here, rumor has it that each of this machine will cost you a bit of your fortune ($15 freaking thousand freaking dollar), but you know when they say that you get what you paid for, then that’s the case of Alpha Dominche here, the owner, Anton kindly offered me to see how L&C brew their teas here.

The machine’s connected to this iPad panel thingy and considering each tea genetically brought different character, the tea barista would have to select the pre-selected preset. The preset consist of basic temperature, brewing time and process information, and that to bring the best outcome character of each tea.

The tubes here then will start heating, spraying water and gas, bubbling, it literally felt like you’re in this futuristic tea lab, and for a moment I finally noticed something smart enough to keep me alive. Here, Anton’s brewing the “Essence of Eden” tea from the cold tea selections which I sampled, and it was divine!

I learned that they wanted to keep the quality of their products to the upmost, and that’s why they DO NOT do refills here, and besides, from the brewing process, all of the leftover tea leaves are thrown away and you only get that  first fresh extract.

Snow Owl – IDR 55k
My friend’s order, did not try it, but the tea pot that you're looking at right now is available for sale, that if you want to spend IDR 1,4 mil each.

The Essence of Eden (IDR 55k) tea was beautiful, it’s mostly apple teas and the tea was just rich, fruity and very fragrant, something that I would need on hot days. The Autumn Bloom (IDR 55k) was also rich with subtle aftertaste that didn’t leave that sour aftertaste in your mouth, just so clean and flowery.

Autumn Bloom (IDR 55k)

Truffle Fries – IDR 40k
My friend ordered the Truffled Mashed Potato (IDR 35k) but I forgot to snap a pic of it. However, I didn’t like it as it was lacking of the aroma and flavor of truffle oil. Texture wise, it was a little too thick and gooey for me too. In contrary to the mashed potato, the truffle fries was amazing! It was very aromatic, crunchy with moist inside, a good example of how a truffle fries should be executed.

Aglio Olio – IDR 70k
Their Aglio Olio was overall good with al-dentepasta, only a little salty for my liking, but the condiments were generous. I quite enjoyed this.

L&C Fried Rice (with salmon) – IDR 60k

I knew exactly that I was not going to skeptical and knew that this was going to be an amazing dish once it served on the table, for some reasons it had that perfect smokey aroma and beautiful golden brown color, and boy it freaking was. The portion and the salmon was given quite generously for a single serving, beautifully seasoned as well with overall flavor headed to the sweeter side, but still pretty much OK for a salty-savory guy like me.

Carbonara - IDR 80k
It’s pretty weird that somehow when I had a bite, their Carbonara had this “opor ayam” flavor to it. I know it sounds so wrong but I asked my friend to have a bite and she also said the same thing so yeah.

Matcha Pannacotta – IDR 55k

Honestly way smaller that I thought it would be from those IG pictures that I saw (screw you Instagram), but texture and flavor wise, one of the yummiest Matcha Pannacotta I’ve had! The texture was perfect: soft, jiggly, creamy and melt in your mouth. The only downside was my pannacotta came in crack and slightly slanted, at that moment I was chatting with a friend of mine who apparently is a friend of the owner and I thought she told the owner and he came with a new one.

Nutella French Toast – IDR 55k

The Nutella French Toast was altogether beautiful: beautifully cooked with beautiful amount of Nutella and banana. I LOVE the fact that they pair this dish with the Chai ice cream from Eskimomo (Gosh I love their ice creams), it kinda gave that kick of refreshment to my palate.

Don’t you guys ever wish that you could cum and produce Nutella loads? Must be DA YUM!

Anton told me that L&C is very open in collaborating with local artists and brands, so if you think you have a brand/company that you are confident enough with, and considered yourself qualified enough, you can propose something interesting that you have in mind.

Place wise, L&C is one of the best looking cafes this year. I really wanted to put them in my “best restaurant/cafe” list, but I need to be more convinced, I will definitely come and sample more of their food and what they have in store.

The lunch for two cost around IDR 800k for two, including some of the gift teas that I purchased. Anton tried to waive off my bill, I secretly agreed, but I secretly paid everything.

I have this belief that this place will do good. You kinda know it once you entered their space, it’s thoughtful with that sense of art and aesthetic. Good luck!

Thank you for reading!

Lewis and Carroll

Jalan Bumi No. 4

Kebayoran Baru, Jakarta Selatan 12120

021 - 2702 660

Opening Hours: 8 AM - 10 PM

Average spending for two: IDR 300k

Dresscode: casual
WiFi: yes!
INSTAGRAM

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email: eatandtreatsindo@gmail.com

Map for Lewis and Carroll

15 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT DUBAI

My visit to Dubai left impressions that were totally unforgettable, well, a classic for a first timer! It’s undoubtedly one of the cleanest and tidiest cities I’ve ever seen as well as the hottest (literally). Four days is a short time for travelling in my standard, but my latest trip to the most populous city in the UAE was eye-opening and surprising in a way. If you haven’t been to Dubai before, I hope this feature can be this little guide of knowledge before you actually going, but for those who have been, let’s take this as something to bring back the memories:

Here are the (not so) 15 things to know about Dubai.

1. DUBAI IS NEVER NOT HOT
I honestly didn’t expect that Dubai would be THAT hot and humid, and do note that on my visit it wasn’t even the peak summer days. During the day, it could be very hot and humid with temperature easily reaching up to 50 degree (do wear sunscreens on the day!), and during the night it’s just so moist with almost no air and temperature around 40 degree. I honestly didn’t see a lot of people walking on the streets as they prefer to ride cab and metro, well I would also.

2. DIRHAM IS THEIR CURRENCY
Dirham or DHS is Dubai’s national currency, as this post is published, one dirham equals to IDR 3.950

3. MALL OPENS UNTIL 12 AM DAILY
I am a mall person and I was more than happy to find out that the shopping malls in Dubai opens until 12 AM daily. That really helped me dealing with my boredom in my hotel room, and since I stayed in the Sheraton Dubai, The Mall of The Emirates was a joined building and all that I needed was to take the connecting elevator to reach the mall.

4. THEIR FRIDAY IS OUR SUNDAY
Yup, their regular public holiday falls on Friday daily, so their weekend usually falls on Thursday and Wednesday. You’re going to see restaurants and malls very packed during Friday.

5. ONE OF THE SAFEST CITIES ON EARTH
Not only Dubai is one of the cleanest cities in the world, it’s also one of the safest cities in the world with almost 0% crime rate!

6. BIKINIS ARE ONLY ALLOWED AT THE BEACH
Honestly, I thought that Dubai was going to be very strict, well in a way it was, but not in the most intimidating way. Not everyone is fully covered with traditional Muslim clothes (like burka, thobe, kheffiyeh, or kabaya), they were actually a little flexible when it comes to fashion there, but yes, a lot of people did wear trousers covering the knee-under, and I don’t see a lot wearing shorts. Bikinis are only allowed at the beach area and the beach only. Unlike Bali where you can wear bikinis or go shirtless walking around.

7. LIVING IN DUBAI IS NOT CHEAP
Thanks to the dropping Indonesia currency rate, everywhere I go now feels more expensive than it should, and Dubai is included. I went to several cafes and did compare last year’s exchange rate to this year’s and still pretty much expensive. For example, I had 4 cupcakes, one cake and two coffee drinks at Hummingbird Mall of The Emirates and that would cost me IDR 500k ($45). Main courses at restaurants and cafes starts at 70-120 dirham and an average spending for two would be around 250 dirham. I digged a little information online and Dubai is now the most expensive city in the UAE and the 22nd most expensive city to live in the world.

8. THEY HAVE THE LARGEST SHOPPING MALL IN THE WORLD – DUBAI MALL
Dubai Mall is gorgeous & GINORMOUS! I don’t even know if ginormous is already the appropriate word but shit that mall was very-very huge and spacious. I lost my path with friends and I was kind of lost inside the mall, so when I tried to reach where they’re at, if let’s say I walked from Kinokuniya to Blitz Megaplex in Grand Indonesia and needed 10-15 minutes, I literally spent 35-40 minutes just to walk and find them.

9. THEY HAVE INDOOR SKI IN THE MALL – MALL OF THE EMIRATES

Dubai is amazing at functioning a space and magically fitting another amazing thing to the arena. If you’re an avid ski fan, then you can check out their indoor ski located inside the Mall of The Emirates, but if you’re not a big fan but still want to enjoy looking at people skiing, I highly recommend having dinner at Cheesecake Factory (not the same as in Jakarta) and get the window seat as they have a clear access for it.

10. THEY HAVE GINORMOUS INDOOR AQUARIUM IN A MALL – DUBAI MALL
Dubai Mall impress me in so many ways! Not only for its size, but also because they host what probably was the largest and most gorgeous indoor aquarium I’ve even seen in my life.

11. HOME OF THE TALLEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD – BURJ KHALIFA

The existence of Burj Khalifa is often related to one of those memorable scenes from the movie, Mission Impossible 4 where Tom Cruise climbed on the tower (and he DID the scene himself without any stunt). I was mesmerized by the simple yet chic design and how visible the building was to my eyes, almost everywhere I went to in Dubai.


12. DUBAI CAN GET VERY FOGGY
One of the many reasons I didn’t upload a single picture of Burj Khalifa was because Dubai was quite foggy on my visit and I was in a way, upset. I really envied those who can take good and clear pictures of Burj (now I believe they might apply heavy editing to the picture), because on my visit, Burj Khalifa was not exactly clear and totally visible.

13. GOLDEN TICKETS TO THE BURJ KHALIFA
If you really want to get to the top of the magnificent Burj Khalifa, an online ticket purchase is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, because if you choose to pay on the spot, you could be charged three times more expensive that the online rate, and do remember that you’ll be charged different depending on the level of height you decide to choose.

14. GENERALLY, THEY DO NOT SERVE ALCOHOLS
I got this information from a waiter who served me on my dinner at PF Chang’s. I noticed they wrote “cocktail” on the menu, but since I didn’t really drink one, I asked for the non-alcoholic version and he told me that their cocktails didn’t have alcohol in it and I instantly got what he meant, so instead of writing “mocktail” here, it’s kind of more to the ethic-code. The waiter added that alcohol is served at several places but I didn’t have any idea where it was.


15. THEY HAVE THE ONLY 7-STARS IN THE WORLD

Burj Al-Arab it is! It’s undoubtedly the most expensive hotel in Dubai (based on room rates) and one of the most expensive hotels to build. The cheapest room rate here is $2000/night. I might have to save more to really splurge like royals, Dubai style.

Additionals:

- To get that local and traditional Dubai feeling, then don’t forget to make your way to their souks where they sell spices and golds, they have the traditional ones located at the more sub-urban area and the most modern one like Souk Madinat Jumeirah.

- A lot of Filipinos working in Dubai, you’re going to see them working in restaurants and department stores.

- There’s not exactly camels in town, you can find them in deserts and normally a 1 hour car ride to the east will take you there.

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