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

#LLHappyNest : Say It with Chocolate

Back on June 2015, Living Loving -one of my favorite local digital media-, hosted a series of workshop called Happy Nest. This was not the first time Living Loving made a workshop, but this was indeed the first time they made a series of workshop for two weekends back to back. Whoop! I was super attracted with the workshops of course, but then I decided to just try my luck by joining the giveaway.

Here's what I wrote on my entry:

Living Loving, just like what its name suggest is a lovely media that I have been following closely since I found out about them. I love how @livinglovingnet is always creative and innovative in terms of engaging more with the readers.

I have to say honestly that I was so curious when they first released the teaser of Happy Nest ((and can I add how perfect this name of workshop is?)) Finding out about what it was indeed made me happy, especially this class.

Simply put, this class is like coming to a wedding of my two loves. One being food and another being design ❤ ❤ ❤ oh my, when these two get married, I can't imagine how amazing will their marriage be. And I hope I can be involved in this sweet occasion as well ❤  #LLHappyNestquiz 

And guess what? I WON!!! Woohoo! Thank you so much Living Loving for somehow picking my name from the raffle. So, let's move on to the report of the D-day!

The workshop took place in Pipiltin Cocoa, Barito. I was a bit late since the venue is a bit far from my home. When I arrived, I met the other participants. There are around 8 or 9 people in total if I'm not mistaken. The workshop started by an introduction from Miranti, one of the co-founder of Living Loving and also our mentor of the day. It began with a little introduction about Living Loving before moving on to the subject which was brush lettering. Mamir shared with us her favorite tools as well as the artists that have inspired her works.

After that, we started practicing. Each participant was given a lettering kit. Inside the kit were lots of paper for practicing, brush, palette, ink, and pencil. They also provided poster color to be shared among participants. We started with basic practice by drawing lines, curls, swirls and shapes before moving on to alphabets. While we were practicing, Mamir suggested us to start thinking the design for the chocolate wrapping. 

When we have felt confident with our choice of phrase, we started painting the wrapping paper. Since we would make two bars of chocolate, we also designed two papers for wrapping. The first one that I made is inspired by this blog, so I just simply wrote 'Candy After Dinner'. For the second one, I used my favorite color, red! After that I wrote a motivational phrase as a reminder and a doodle of cough myself cough.

While we were waiting for our creation to dry, we went to the small chocolate factory right inside Pipiltin Cocoa itself. This is my first time going to a chocolate factory so I was really excited. Though this one was not as big and quirky as the one in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but this one is more than enough to satisfy my curiosity. The founder of Pipiltin Cocoa itself explained the process of making the chocolate from scratch. Seeing how all the chocolate is made from high quality product and detailed process, I came to appreciate it more than before. 

The good news is, we also got to make our own creation of the chocolate bar! After the chocolate is processed, we could use it based on our creation. For this workshop, we could make two chocolate bars. But to make it prettier, we can use colored white chocolate and splashed it into the base of the mold.

After that, we just poured the chocolate into the mold and put the extra beans or cocoa nibs on top of it. In order to make it last longer, we should shove the beans and cocoa into the inside of the chocolate. Next, we could put it into the freezer for about 5-15 minutes then our chocolate is ready!

While waiting for the chocolate to set, we got to taste this chocolate shot which is incredibly good!!! I have never had authentic chocolate drink before so I did not have much expectation. But it turned out to be so good. It is the right amount of sweet and bitterness. The creaminess texture is also fine because it did not feel too thick. Oh, we also got to enjoy the short movie about chocolate making process.

The chocolate was finally ready. So, it's time to wrap!

By the time we finished wrapping, it was also the end of the workshop Say It with Chocolate with Living Loving. I really did not realize how the hours have passed while I was having fun crafting and creating things. All in all, it was a lovely and enjoyable workshop. I would like to thank Mamir and Nike once again for hosting this wonderful workshop and having that giveaway so I could join. It was a really valuable experience that inspires me to do more, make more and practice more. Also, thank you to Pipiltin Cocoa for sharing your knowledge with us and having us in your factory to create our own chocolate.

 ((the other entry about this event can be found here and here))

Cheers,

filicia

Homey Cafe Tanjung Duren

When it comes to visiting a restaurant, there are three things that I paid attention the most. The first is the taste of the food, the second is the the ambiance of the place and the last is the place. This home restaurant is the place that wins my heart in the total in those three aspects. Aren't you curious? Okay, I am going to break down my reasons for you guys.

Premium Chicken Katsu with Rice and Salad - IDR 35,000

They served variety of food ranging from pasta, rice, noodles, etc. They also have appetizers and desserts. One of my favorite is Mozza Sticks but I didn't order it that time.

Creamy Cheese Chicken with Rice - IDR 25,000

I love how the food are simple but very yummy. Just like the name of the place, it gives you a 'homey' feeling when you ate the food. The taste is not so overwhelming and the portion is big enough to feed your hungry tummy.

Spaghetti Carbonara (my favorite!!!) - IDR 27,000

Basically, the food they have here are the food you can actually cook by yourself. But then, I am not always diligent everyday and as you can see, the price is pretty affordable. 

Frozen Peanut Butter Smoothies - IDR 22,000

They also have various beverages here. I usually ordered the "Tea of the Week" which cost me IDR 6,000. Aside of that, they also served mojito, lemonade, coffee, chocolate, etc. But my favorite got to be smoothies. Although I ordered peanut butter that time, but I prefer the quatro chocolate more. 

Now that I have told you the first and last reason.You might as well see the inside of this restaurant. It is pretty spacious and not to mention, comfortable. The restaurant is mostly decorated with vintage picture in frames. They also have private room with minimum order, perfect for celebrating birthday party! 

See that they also had two TVs here. I usually sat down for at least one movie in HBO or one episode of 'The Amazing Race' on Saturday night. Oh, and did I say customers can change the channel by themselves? The service here is also pretty nice and the waiters are helpful.

Also, this can be a perfect place to discuss about your latest Brave Frontier update. Lol. That's my brother and his friend who never missed to talk about this game everyday they met up.

Cheers, filicia.

Homey Cafe & Resto

Jl. Tanjung Duren Utara no. 464

West Jakarta

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