Old Town White Coffee - Living World Alam Sutra

I've been to this new mall quite often this past weeks or so. Much of my mates have never been there and why shouldn't I be a nice fella once in a while and take them there. Anyhoo, quite a few restaurants start opening up in the mall, there's a penyet restaurant, HanGang, and a couple more coffee shops.

But out of all places, we decided on this Asian coffee shop franchise from Malaysia - Old Town White Coffee (OTWC). They claimed that they are the largest kopitiam restaurant chain in Malaysia, and looking at the list of chain on their website, no one can deny.





Since I've tried My Kopi O!, might as well just try its direct competitor (More kopitiam-like reviews in the future). So how does OTWC different to others? I don't know. I've tried the OTWC during my trip to KL last year, and whoa the menu is so thick you'll think twice about stealing them. :P I think there's tens of different drink menu and you'll probably keep asking the waiter what are the differences between each one.

But the one here in Jakarta, there isn't much choices in both the drinks and food. I like to have options, and I'm not getting any in here. I think if you would bring a foreign franchise here, at least have a more variety menu. My image of last year's OTWC visit starts drifting away.



Of course when you go to this type of restaurant, the first thing you need to order is their toasts! And this is what we ordered; 1. Their original Kaya Butter Toast and 2. Thick toast with blueberry jam. My original plan was to order their special white coffee, but since it's early afternoon and I don't feel like having coffee for lunch, we ordered Warm Honey Lemon Juice.



Though we ordered the toasts early, the orders came quite late and we were already eating half-thru our mains. Now I'm not going to compare whose toast is better than whose, I'll stay as neutral as possible. The first toast - Kata Butter Toast, was just OK. The kaya spread is nicely overflowing the toasts, and the butter is still in 1 piece, not melted. My one only complain would be the size of the toasts. It's so thin that I think the butter is thicker!



The second toast menu is a much better option than the kaya. And when I meant by thick toast, it's actually really really thick! And I'm loving every part of it. The fat bread is toasted, spread margarine, and topped with blueberry jam. What makes it special is the jam. I don't know if it's home or factory made, but it's just to my liking. Some blueberry jam just can't make it because if they kept it for too long, the fruit's gonna break apart. Not this one, it's fresh and you can practically chew every piece blueberry and still juices oozing out from them.



Each of us ordered a main each. My friend ordered the Superior Nasi Lemak, and I ordered the Superior Rojak Mee. Both dished turned out to be average.

There was a confusion when one waiter brought a plate of unknown order and left it on our table for 5 minutes and later brought it back to the kitchen. Turns out they gave a wrong chicken to us. They suppose to give a piece of Rendang chicken in the dish, but they served the BBQ chicken. To me this is quite unprofessional considering they left the food in the table for 5 minutes. What if we already start eating them? Not even a sincere apology being offered. Tsk!

I have to say, the rice is fragrant. It's been a while since the last time I ate nasi lemak, and this one turns out to be quite nice indeed, though not as good as those in Singapore or Malaysia. The rice is accompanied by a piece of rendang chicken, sambal sotong, fried anchovies, nuts, and egg. All not worth talking about. Except the sambal sotong which I think was a little bit chewy.



The Rojak Mee, which I thought should come close to the original Malaysian dish, turns out to be very home-made, not very "restauran-y". The dish is served with egg noodles in the center, surrounded by pieces of fried tofu, sambal sotong, fried potatoes, bean sprout, and egg. Then topped with fried shallots and sprinkled some curry sauce. Tofu was over-fried, sotong was chewy, and the curry sauce is just bland.



Hopefully they could improve on their service, as well as the non-toasts meals and food varieties.

Restaurant info:
Old Town White Coffee
Living World Mall - Alam Sutra
Unit G19 - 19A, Alam Sutra Boulevard Kav.21
Serpong - Tangerang

Ph: 021 - 532125502
www.oldtown.co.id

Prices as of 24 April 2011
Honey Lemon Juice - 17k
Kaya Butter Toast (S) - 9k
Blueberry thick - 20k
Supreme Nasi Lemak - 38k
Supreme Rojak Mee - 30k

Munchies - Gandaria City

Just last weekend, my first visit to the new Gandaria City Shopping Center in Kebayoran Lama. The last time I was tempted to go there was last year's Korean Indonesian Week, where there were kimchi tasting and BiBimBap competition, but never actually went there.

So finally, my friend and I went there to explore the new mall (It was more like what food are available there?). After a few round here and there, we finally decided on Munchies. Looking through heaps of restaurants menus with an empty stomach, but still can't decide where to eat, is unbearable.







We were recommended the "Combination of two meats and sauce" main. So how it works is you've got to choose two kind of meat (red and(or) white) and then there are varieties of sauces to combine with the meat. In the end, we didn't try those mains.

So after a quick glace through the iPad (I wanted to see the pictures of the menu), we decided to order 2 different type of mains (sandwich and pasta) and a salad (You know, to make you less guilty about eating too much meat).



For beverage, we ordered ice blackcurrant tea and ice jasmine tea. The thing I like about the beverage is the rock-sugar solution is in another shot glass, so we could adjust to our own preferences. Mine was a little bit less sweet even though I did put all the sugar. As usual, there's a mint leaf just for decoration.



For the salad, we ordered Chicken Aioli. I definitely didn't expect the salad to be like this! Craftly built, the base was a piece of bread (or nan), then sliced lettuced-mixed-with-mayo in the middle, and topped with grilled chicken breasts. First impression; unique. Never in my life to have salad to be served like this. Taste-wise, it wasn't as good as I expected. The chicken was crispy, which was good, but too salty, really really salty for my liking. Then the lettuce was good, even though I think they could reduce the amount of mayo used. By the time we reached the bottom of the salad, the bread below is too soggy. (Anyone tried soggy bread before?)



My main is the Chicken in the Middle Sandwich, which was recommended by the waitress. The highlight of the dish is definitely the soft white bread. Probably even the best single ingredient for that meal is the bread. It's super soft, not mushy, doesn't get stuck in your teeth, and smells like it's just came out of the oven, simply nothing ordinary. Inside those buns, is a piece of grilled chicken, caramelized onion, some mayo and melted cheese. Accompanying the sandwich is salads with balsamic vinegar dressing (I think), and a bowl of creamy mashed potato. I did request the chips to be changed to mashed potato, due to other 2011 resolutions.

My only complain about the dish is the over-cooked onion and over-used mayo. The onions literally smelled like instant noodles (READ: Indomie). Other than that, the mashed potato is very nice, not too creamy, and seasoned perfectly.





My friend ordered Mushroom and Almond Fusilli. Basically just fusilli cooked in white-based sauce, topped with a couple fried mushroom, a bunch of stir-fried mushroom, sliced almonds, and cheese. Couldn't really taste any almond flavouring, aside from the sliced almonds scattered on top. The fusilli, on the other hand, was nicely cooked, there's still this "al-dente" feels to it. The sauce too, was not too thick nor creamy to make you sick.



We were too full to order desert, so got to ditch them. Overall, the experience was nice. Trying something different than I had always tried before surely makes one think so much food varieties in the world, you won't finish them even though you had one different ones in every meal for the rest of your live.

Prices as of 23 Jan 2011:
Chicken in the Middle Sandwich Rp49k
Mushroom & Almond Fusilli Rp48k
Chicken Aioli Rp35k
Ice Blackcurrant Tea Rp18k
Ice Jasmine Tea Rp16k

Restaurant Info:
Munchies - Gandaria City Mainstreet Ground Floor,
Jl. KH. Syafi’i Hadzami No. 8, Kebayoran Lama
Jakarta Selatan

Phone: 021 2905 3076