B' Steak Grill & Pancake - Muara Karang

This was my third visit to this restaurant branch in Muara Karang, and I have never been disappointed by the quality of food as well as the service. I knew what was good, but what's the point of ordering something you've eaten before? So this time rather than ordering my usual favourite, I opted for something a different.



I wanted to drink something less sinful, so we ordered the Evergreen. Basically just blended vegetable, with a bit of lime and some other vege. Not my fav, but just a typical blended vege drink.



Since we had a late lunch, the three of us decided not to order much. For starters, I tried their Grilled Honey Buffalo BBQ Wings once and it's not bad, but it's time to order something else, so we ordered Country Baby Potatoes and the Chef Special Salad. The Baby potatoes are grilled with some herbs, then topped with some tomato sauce (NOT tomato ketchup), some bacon and sour cream. You can really taste the crisp skin of the potato when you first bite, then the inside is soft and the most enticing is the aroma of the herbs smoking through your nostrils. It's a good choice nonetheless. The salad, named "chef special salad", was just ordinary. You don't need to be a chef to make this, not that I'm looking down on the dish nor the chef, but it's really average. The vegetable ingredients are fresh, but they do need to work on the grilled chicken.





Now, meat time! First is the Rib Eye Steak. It's the second time I tried this, and it keeps getting better. I remembered the first time was a little bit overdone, this time we requested medium well and the chef was spot on. You can choose the sauce from a few options; wild mushroom sauce, BBQ sauce, black pepper sauce, traditional gravy and another one I can't remember. And the side dish, the options were; chips, baby potatoes, mashed potatoes and potato wedges. Then we chose the premium size (200gr), rather than the regular (150gr).

Anyway, The outside is charred just the way I like it and you can really smell the burnt mark, then the meat is tender when chewed, just simply nicely grilled. The mushroom sauce, is just not that great. Without the sauce, the steak is already tasty enough. Since we already ordered the baby potatoes, we chose the mashed potato, which I think was a wise choice, considering no more fried stuffs for dinner for the week, and it tasted much better than the oh-so-usual-fries. The texture is not too creamy nor buttery, seasonings were nice, everything is just what I expect mashed potato should be.





Lastly, we ordered the Smoky BBQ Ribs. I knew I had to try this once, just to satisfy the curiosity inside. How is it better than the other ribs houses, and it turns out to OK. For safety sake, we chose the single stack ribs. It takes half an hour to serve after the entree were served, and the ribs was too oily. Not oily in terms of they put lots of oil during grilling, but the ribs meat contains lots of fats. A dieter's hostile enemy. Though I have to admit, the ribs is very tender, you just have to pierce the meat with a fork, and it's easily fallen off it bone. Taste-wise, you got to add the BBQ sauce for extra flavour.





I heard their pancakes are not bad, but we're too full for desserts, so maybe next time.

Overall, it's nice place if you have a steak craving, but not wanting to over-spend. For taste it's alright, though not as good as those high-end steak houses, price still talks.

Restaurant Info:

B'Steak Grill and Pancake

Greenville Blok AS No. 32
Jakarta Barat, Indonesia
Greenville
Tel: 021 - 560-3968

Muara Karang Raya no.42
Jakarta Utara, Indonesia
Tel: 021 - 6603045

Prices as of 2 April 2011

Evergreen - 15k
Country Baby Potatoes - 17.5k
Chef Special Salad - 19.5k
Rib Eye Steak Premium - 64k
Smoky BBQ Ribs - 50.5k

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