Intermezzo // 05 : counting down the days

Our life has been such a busy whirlwind juggling between designing for our thesis project, printing them out, revising the report, deciding on the merchandise, making presentation, buying tons of stuffs, visualizing the display, and basically everything that revolve around thesis. Also, plus working in the studio for Fili ((I will save that story for later)).

I kind of have a mixed feeling working on this thesis. My mood has extremely goes up and down as well as my level of productivity. It's true that I am working on something that I loved so much since I was young, it is something that I am extremely passionate about. But then again, sometimes it can be very overwhelming and I started questioning if I did make the right decision or if I did well enough to be proud of it. In one side, I feel like I want all of this to end as soon as possible, but in another side, I feel like there are gazillion things that I can do to perfect it or at least to make it better.

 

It's not only me, I think both Yelny and I sort of have the same feeling. I think when it will finally end up, it is going to be bittersweet. After all, this thesis marks the end journey of our three and a half years study in university. So it is kind of bitter to say goodbye to our university life, but in the same time, it is going to be so relieving to finally finish our study.

Actually, we still meet up a lot to work on our thesis together with our friend, Joan. Since I have to work three days a week which are usually Monday, Wednesday and Friday, we met up on my days off. We would usually pick a restaurant or mall or coffee shop and hang out there and work on our thesis. I was not a big fan of working together back then because it kinda distract me but doing this actually helped me a lot. Since we can not meet out adviser frequently, we got to exchange our opinion and suggestion to one another by working together.

While I am not working together with Yelny and Joan, I love to be accompanied by music. I feel more energized listening to the songs while singing and dancing to them. If you know me, you know I love Korean music, so it is pretty obvious that K-pop is my go to jam. This song has been on replay from my laptop or phone because I just love D.O and his voice so much. His voice has always been my favorite out of all EXO members. And this song? Just, perfect.

Unlike me, Yelny does not really listen to music when she is working on her thesis. But this is one of the songs that somehow always calm her mind when she is not having a good mood. This is not a very recent song but not that old either. And if you don't know yet, Yelny is a fan of Jay Chou. She said that Jay Chou's voice is so soothing and she especially loved this song because it has always been in her playlist from few years ago.

Okay, that's a little update from us. And bonus: here's a  wallpaper made by Yelny for the sake of thesis motivation ^^ haha. We just can't help it! We love checking our social media so much and usually it takes so much time without us realizing it. So, maybe, by seeing this on your wallpaper everyday, you can hold yourself from opening those social media and focus on working on thesis to graduate. 

We know that some of last year university students are also facing the similar situation with us. So, hold on there! Keep your spirit up! This too shall pass :)

Yey,

Cheers!

Blue Christmas at Bistronomy

Happy February 25th! Lol. You must be wondering if there is anything significant on this date? Um, honestly, nope. haha. But it's two months after Christmas and it falls on Thursday, so it is quite appropriate to post a #ThrowbackThursday post I guess? haha. Lame excuse is still an excuse so yeah. Haha.

Since I was a kid, I have always always loved Christmas! It is always, always the most wonderful time of the year! Same goes for year 2015 too of course. I love how everything is merrier and brighter and warmer. Merry as everyone is significantly more happy and more generous. Brighter as everyone is obviously smiling for little things around them. And warmer as friends get together and family gather to celebrate.

This year I got to celebrate with a few of my closest friends at a beautiful restaurant called Bistronomy. The ambiance is really beautiful and cozy. It has a vintage style which sometimes can be a bit too much. But everything is just nice here, so I felt comfortable spending my Christmas time there. Technically, none of us celebrate Christmas. That also kind of explain why we can come and celebrate with friends because usually people will go to church and celebrate with family. But anyhow, we joyfully gather in this occasion to celebrate the Christmas spirit and start the tradition of gift-giving. We saw that everyone is doing this ((I did one too with my colleagues at my internship place)), so we thought it will be a fun idea for us as well. Unfortunately, Yelny could not join us because she has already flew back to her hometown by that time.

We began the celebration by having a lovely lunch here. I chose the ladies' lunch set which come with soup and tomato salad for appetizer, fettuccine and various bite-size dish for main course, dessert and drink. My other two friends, Joan and Sandi ordered another lunch set which name I forgot but has more dishes in it including steak and pasta too. Alvian who we joined us last minute ordered salad because he was on a diet program. Was. haha. Lovy ordered a separate prawn ceviche for appetizer, lamb chop for main course and lime sorbet dessert which is tad too sour.

I honestly can not really judge the taste of the food here. Everything is nice and the plating is pretty. It is just that I think the food did not really suit our palate so we did not really enjoy the food that much. But it is fun to try on new flavor and eat fancy lunch on special occasion like this. Oh wait, there is one that I really liked but sadly did not get pictured which is the chocolate mousse! It was really nice and I am craving for it right now. Aargh!

Anyhow, after we finished our lunch, we began the Secret Santa game. We have drawn the lot to determine who will give the gift to who on our previous meeting. The rule is that it has to be approximately one hundred thousand rupiah and includes a handwritten card! I am a sucker for handwritten card. It always feel special, don't you think so?

So, here's what I got! Look at my major happy face! haha. It was a coloring book plus a cutely drawn Christmas card from Joan. Coloring book has been really trending lately but I have not got a chance to buy it yet because I did not think it was necessary yet. But now that I have got this as a Christmas gift, I think it is a perfect gift and I can't wait to make some time to color it ((gloomily stare at my thesis project)).

And here is my gift for Lovy which is a small pouch with a girl illustration. I gave it to her because of a "small incident" when we traveled to Bandung. Her makeup stuffs kept on falling on the street back then because her clutch has quite a wide space for small makeup to slip off. So I gave this pouch to her hoping that she can store her makeup or other stuffs and it can become handy for her daily needs.

If you are curious what the others get, Joan ((the one on the back)) got a tumbler from Sandi and Sandi ((the one on the front left)) got a pair of shoes from Lovy. Sandi's gift was a bit unfair though because it exceeded our agreed number to spend on the gift. Lovy's excuse would be that the gift is combined with birthday gift. Again, lame excuse is still an excuse so, yeah. haha. Alvian, as said before joined us last minute, so he did not join us on this gift-giving process.

Well, that was our fun and intimate Christmas lunch! This was the dessert from the other set which is chocolate cake with ice cream that is good. But my chocolate mousse is still better! So sad I did not take any picture :( Also, one funny thing, none of us planned to wear blue outfit that day. But we somehow did. Before we all met, I did send a message to Sandi worrying that if I wore blue it would make me salah kostum ((wrong dresscode)) and became odd. Sandi said that he is also wearing blue. And it turned out that everyone was wearing blue! So it somehow turned into a Blue Christmas. In contrary, none of us was feeling blue ^^

All pictures are taken by Alvian who blogged about the day here. Thus explaining the square crop and dramatic tone. The last photo is taken from his blog, it features a DIY Christmas card I made that I love myself since it looks like a wrapped gift with the red ribbon hehe. Last but not least, cheers to the Blue Christmas this year and hopefully the years ahead ❄

Cheers,
filicia

Foods To Celebrate Chinese New Year

Happy Chinese New Year! Today is Cap Go Meh (the 15th day of chinese new year) which is the last day to celebrate chinese new year. So, I think I'm not too late to say Happy Chinese New Year to you guys. Cap Go Meh is actually the closing of chinese new year celebration. So, there are Liong and Barongsai festival around the city. But, I will not talk about Cap Go Meh in this post as I didn't celebrate Cap Go Meh in hometown. 

I was super excited celebrating Chinese New Year this year because I WAS CELEBRATING IN HOMETOWN (sorry for the caps lock cause I was too excited HAHAHA). I was so happy to meet my uncles, aunties and cousins again that I meet only in chinese new year. For the last 3 years, I celebrated my chinese new year not in my hometown. I have really missed the ambiance and the people's enthusiasm. That's why I was super excited to celebrate my chinese new year in hometown.

Anyway, I grew up in a family that has very traditional chinese culture. And, my hometown has a majority population of Chinese-Indonesian ((that's why the name of hometown foods have the sense of chinese)) so chinese new year in my hometown is a little bit wow. Streets are decorated with red lantern, houses are decorated with chinese decorations, and everybody are wearing red. I saw many people ware posting about their chinese new year on social media, so I decided to share my chinese new year on my blog. 

Nian Gao (年糕)

People in my hometown called it as Basket Cake (Kue Keranjang) or Tiam Kue. It is a cake that is made from glutinous flour and sugar, also, it has elastic and sticky texture. This cake is a mandotary cake to celebrate chinese new year. My mom said that this cake was a symbol of the sweetness because Tiam in Teo Chew means sweet, so this cake would bring the sweet moments everyday in this year. I don't really believe about the facts or history about this cake and I'm not a fan of this cake, I just want to enjoy this cake, but I don't really like it. People usually keep this cake in refrigerator for few weeks to months after chinese new year, but the texture will be so hard, so they re-steam it or fried it with flour and egg. 

Sweet Barley Soup

I started my chinese new year by drinking sweet barley soup. This soup has been served in the morning on the first day of chinese new year. I don't really like this soup actually as it taste like drinking the rice water in the sweet way HAHAHA. This soup is also the symbol of sweetness for new year.  

Layer Cake

Layer cake is actually not so chinese-new-year-cake as it also found when I come to friends' house during Eid Al Fitri and Chistmas Day. I heard that layer cake is one of the hardest cake to be made, so that's why the price is expensive. This cake was made by full fats butter and 30++ eggs, it contains with so many calories and fats. I really love this cake but I would not eat big size at once cause of the fats and calories that contained.

Mandarin Orange

Mandarin Orange is my favorite fruit besides durian and mango. The best part of chinese new year is I could find mandarin orange everywhere. My dad always buy two big boxes of the mandarin orange every year. Mandarin orange should be the healthiest food during chinese new year. HAHAHA.

Cookies and Snacks

A lot of cookies and snacks were served to celebrate chinese new year. In the photos above, there are (left-right) pineapple cookies, cornflakes cookies, cat's tongue cookies ((lidah kucing)), silk worm snacks, beef floss snack and snow white cookies. It's actually another cookies and snacks except in the picture, but I was too busy during chinese new year and couldn't capture all the cookies and snacks in my house. 

The chinese new year of this year was super great. I met a lot of family and friends who I have missed for a long time. We gathered and shared the story of our life while enjoying the chinese new year food. For me this chinese new year was the best moment as I have longed for 3 years. And, I hope I could share another story of chinese new year from my hometown next year. 

恭喜发财! 新年快乐! 万事如意! May this year bring prosperity, good luck and good fortune to you, guys! 

Yey!

Yelny

Missing Hometown's Food (Pontianak Culinary)

A throwback to my last year's post, I have promised to share my hometown's food to this blog. FINALLY! I could fulfill my promise. I will share 9 of hundreds delicious foods of my hometown. 

I was born and lived for 18 years in Pontianak, West Borneo (click here if you don't know about Pontianak). Pontianak (坤甸, Kūn diān) is close to Malaysia, so people generally speak Bahasa with Malay accent. Chinese-Indonesian generally uses Teochew and Hakka for daily conversation. It's also used by the Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia. So, don't be confused if the name of some foods sounds weird and not familiar. 

Chai Kwe (Choi Pan) 

First food, Chai Kwe (also familiar as Choi Pan)! It has been my favorite hometown's food. I never miss to eat this food when I go back. Chai Kwe consists of 5 flavors: soybean, yam, chives (kucai), bamboo sprout and  bengkoang. Yam, bengkoang and chives are my favorite. This food is easy to  be found, you can find this in the morning at the market or in the afternoon and evening at restaurant or cafe.  Anw, I can eat 20 pcs in one meal :> oops. 

Koi Sai Tin Kwe

Next is Koi Sai Tin Kwe. I'm not sure about the name, but my mom told me that is indeed the name and she said that there is no Indonesian name as Indonesian doesn't really eat this. Koi Sai means chicken's sh*t and kue means cake, so Koi Sai Tin Kwe means... umm (fill the following blanks by yourself). The names of this food are super weird and disgusting, but the taste is good. Mom said that the black color was made by Daun Kentut (Fart Leaves). Omg, the facts about this cake are too silly. This cake is a little bit difficult to be found, I found this in the morning at the market. It also reminds me about the trend of black colored food in nowadays. 

Egg Tart 

Egg tart is the third. Pontianak's egg tart is quite similar with Hong Kong's egg tart but it has a bigger size. It is baked on a plate and cut into 8 pcs (click here to see original size). I love this egg tart more than Balinese or Portuguese as it has a bigger size of the custard. I can easily find this in the market or traditional cake shop. Nowadays, there are chocolate, green tea, oreo flavor, but my favorite is always the original one,

Crab Noodle (Bakmi Kepiting) 

Pontianak's Crab Noodle (Bakmi Kepiting) is quite famous in Jakarta. There are 2 options to enjoy this noodle, with soup and without soup. Mostly, the restaurant also serves Kwetiau and Dumplings. And, I prefer the noodle with soup. This food could be enjoyed at breakfast or lunch. 

Chicken Rice (Nasi Campur) 

In Pontianak, this food is called Chicken Rice. I don't know the story of its name, but it's totally different with Singapore Chicken Rice (hmm.. the roasted chicken is almost the same btw). There is no Hainanese rice in this chicken rice, and there are many pork with less chicken inside. In Jakarta, this food is called Nasi Campur. Until this time, many friends of mine ask me why it's called chicken rice in my hometown, and I just answered with laugh haha. I enjoy this food for lunch, btw. 

Tiam Mie (Sweet Fried Noodle)

Sweet Fried Noodle? Weird? It tastes good, guys. The sweet taste was made of palm sugar. It's quite difficult to find this food since not every person can cook this noodle. My mom has ever tried to make it by herself, but it was too sweet. Btw, I enjoyed this for lunch. 

Che Hun Tiaw + Bongko

Che Hun Tiaw is just like Indonesian Cendol with plain color, and Bongko is just like Selendang Mayang with green color. It can refresh me up in the super hot weather of my beloved hometown. Mix up two of them is an option, some people enjoy Che Hun Tiaw or Bongko only, but I love to mix them up. I can easily find it in the afternoon.

 Lek Tau Suan (Green Beans Dessert) 

Sharing about Lek Tau Suan reminds me to my dearest ex-roommate. She made this for my friends and me when we were living in the dormitory. Lek Tau is green beans that have been peeled off and Suan means diamond as the beans shine like a diamond, they said haha. The best part of this Lek Tau Suan is the Chakwe or dough fritter, I won't eat it without chakwe. I can easily find this at the market, but it's definitely cheaper to make this at home. This is so easy to make, the ingredients are simple and easy to find. There are many recipes about it on the internet. 

Tofu Pudding 

Last but not least, Tofu Pudding! It's a combination between pudding and Soy milk. Sweet and soft are perfect are two words that suitable to describe it. Tofu Indonesia has many variants of their product, such as tofu tart, tofu ice cream, tofu bean curd with many flavor and topping. And, they have opened their store in Kemanggisan, Jakarta, but I have never gone there. Maybe I should go there and introduce Tofu to Fili :)

That is my story about my hometown's culinary. Hopefully, there will be part 2,3,4 and 50, I hope you guys will never get bored about my hometown hahaha. Well, for those who are going to have a culinary trip in Pontianak, you should follow Kuliner Pontianak on Instagram. This account was made by my friend ((and I was helping her to make the logo :>)). And, I got my references about Pontianak Culinary from there. The caption of the photos is detailed enough, location until prices. The way she describes the food is fun. Hopefully, I could do a collaboration with her someday :)

Btw, me and Fili are in the last term of our university life! We are doing our final project now. We pray that this project will be completed smoothly and finished on time, yohooo! Wish us luck! :>

Yey! 

Yelny

Fancy Sandwichy

We have now come to the most exciting part of the tutorial: making sandwiches! Yay! It is no secret that we both love food and so do our guests. Well, without further ado, here is our simple sandwich recipe.

Ingredients:

Plain bread, banana, chocolate jam or peanut butter, chocolate rice.

Steps

1. If your bread still have skin, you may cut them or you can leave it according to your preference.

2. Cut your bread into half on opposite direction so you will get four breads with similar square size.

3. Now cut your banana diagonally. 

4. Spread the chocolate jam over your bread.

5. Next put the banana.

6. And lastly, sprinkle some chocolate rice.

For the other variation, you can just cut your bread into half once and stack one more bread on the top. And then wrap a doily paper around it and tie it with a ribbon. 

You can now enjoy your sandwich and probably, take a picture of it first if you’d love to. Bon appetite!

Yeey, cheers!

[Versus] Cacaote, Senopati

Hello there! We are on our second installment of Versus, the feature where we talked about our different experience visiting one same place. This time around, we are going to talk about one pretty restaurant located in Senopati, one of the hippest culinary place in Jakarta. Just by looking at the exterior, you can already see how pretty it is. The outer appearance looks a bit Victorian and princess-y to us.

Turns out that the inside do look as princess-y as the outside. If I am not mistaken, Cacaote has two floors. Both floors have a contrast vibe. On the pictures, you can see the details of the first floor that looks more girly and feminine. While on the second floor, it looks more glamorous and such.

It happened on our visit that we both went to different floor. Yelny enjoyed her dessert on the first floor during the day and Fili went to the second floor to enjoy not only the dessert but some food as well during dinner time. Either ways, we love the ambient there. The place itself is pretty big and the space between tables are distant enough to give each group of customers the needed privacy.

Some more pretty details on the first floor. Super cozy to enjoy your afternoon tea and dessert, isn't it? Also, look at those chandelier and curtains and pillows, like, everything coordinates very well,

Also, just one picture from the second floor ((huhu, sorry)). The lighting up on the second floor is a bit dimmed, to give you the much needed romantic vibe and coziness. Thus it explains that some of the pictures turn yellowish. Haha.

Now, moving on to the food, shall we? Uh oh. I am typing this in the middle of the night and I am craving for these not just pretty but delicious dessert.

First up is the battle of eclairs. Yelny ordered Crunchy Nuts Eclair for IDR 50,000 and Fili forgot already what she has ordered. lol. Both eclairs are pretty good. Fili also loved the macaron. It was pistachio flavor and it cost IDR 12,000. Love the texture of the macaron and the pistachio flavor is lovely as well. 

This one is called Intense Chocolate and cost you IDR 50,000. Just like how the name suggested, it is rich with chocolate and would be a perfect choice if you love chocolate. 

Here's the Dark Chocolate cake. I could not remember it correctly if the sides are hazelnut or popcorn. If I am not mistaken it was popcorn, but cmiiw okay? The chocolate cake is nice but the popcorn is a bit soggy, if it is a bit crunchier, I guess it would be very nice.

I also ordered the Tropical which has a good combination of sweet and sour. Also, on the bottom picture you can see another round cake which is coffee banana. As for me I do not really like the coffee banana combination because the banana is a bit too moist. 

Also, one of my friend ordered this duck sandwich. I didn't get to taste it but he said that it was nice.Well, I bet it is! hehe.

It wouldn't be complete with some beverage. I ordered Matcha Latte which turns out to be okay, because I am not a big fan of green tea and stuff. My friend ordered the selection of tea which came out in a very pretty teapot and sugar pot. What a pretty tea set. 

All in all, both of us had a pretty pleasant visit to Cacaote. The place has a very nice ambient and cozy vibe. I really wanted to spend whole day just chit-chatting or doodling in this pretty place. The desserts here are also pretty nice though not all of them are suited to our preference.

Yeey, cheers!

Cacaote
Jl. Senopati no. 80, Senopati, Jakarta
T: 021 2930 6127