Kopi Luwak, The Most Expensive Coffee In the World

Earlier this month I visited Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, where I lived for 7 years before migrated to Singapore 10 years ago. There are lots of changes happening in Jakarta especially the food choices. There are now much more variety of food and beverages that people can enjoy in malls, side streets, restaurants, and many more.

I happened to be in EX Plaza Indonesia for watching cinema and while waiting for the cinema to start in about 1 hour, I decided to try The Kopi Luwak, a cafe that specialised in service coffee Luwak. Non-Indonesian who used to drink coffee might wonder what kind of coffee it is.

Coffee Luwak literally means civet coffee. Well, allow me to explain a little bit. Luwak is a civet cat that many of them are living in Java and Sumatra, and Sulawesi, Indonesia.  The civet cats only eat the finest and ripest coffee cherries. The beans which are unable to be digested by the civet cats will go through unique fermentation processed within the intestines and come out from the cat's digestive system. The farmers collects them from the jungle and clean them up. The result is the best and the rarest coffee beans in the world which translates into the most expensive coffee in the world.

When the ordered coffee is served, it's served in a very nice tea/coffee set as seen in the picture above. The coffee powder is stored in a small sachet inserted into a nice wrapping. The waitress will open it for you and let you smell the coffee powder. After that they'll pour it into the cup together with hot water. They'll ask you to keep the cup closed for about 5-10 minutes to allow the coffee powder mixed with the hot water. Once it is ready, you may start enjoy the coffee.

Tea Lounge At The Regent Singapore

This is not the first time for my wife and I to enjoy hi-tea buffet at Tea Lounge, but it probably the longest waiting time we've made for reserving 2 seats in this place. I made reservation on 21st May 2012, and I can only get a slot on 22nd July 2012. Well, that's 2 months and 1 day of waiting. What exactly the thing that make us want to wait for so long?

Well, first of all, Tea Lounge is neither a restaurant or cafe. It doesn't serve either lunch or dinner. So what place is it exactly and what kind of food does it serve?

It is actually a lounge in one corner at the lobby of The Regent Singapore hotel where guests are provided with coffee table and sofa arranged according to the number of guests. So if you made reservation for 2 persons, they'll make arrangement for the table and sofa exactly for 2 persons. They are arranged in a way that the guests feel that it is personally arranged for them.

The food that they are serving are ranging from cakes, bakeries, sandwiches, macarons, chocolate fondu, sushi, chili crab (Singapore famous food), up to smoked lamb and fried chicken. Tea Lounge serves in buffet style. It means you can eat as much as your stomach can take. The main difference with other buffet restaurant is that they don't restrict you how long you want to stay there as long as the business is still open that day. You can eat the food there slowly while enjoying the conversation with your friends. If you come alone, it's a good idea to enjoy the food while reading books.

From time to time, they slightly modify the variety of food they serve. So, when you come another time, you will be spoiled with another set of food variety.

Tea Lounge also serve various types of tea. Well, of course, they do. Otherwise they're not called Tea Lounge. They will serve free flow tea of your choice. You can change your choice of tea once.

Enjoy the photos below to see what I meant.

Macarons

Berries and kiwi

Strawberies

Watermelons

Brown Sugar Tart

Tiramishu

Sandwiches

Caviars

The tea pot

Deserts

Dozo - Fine Modern Japanesque Restaurant

Dozo Fine Modern Japanesque Restaurant. This is not the first time my wife and I comr to this place, and this is one of our favorite one. This restaurant is set to provide a sexy and seductive nuanse of fine dining experience. What does it mean? Well, think of fine dining experience with low light is available to produce such a romantic experience. But what makes this restaurant is the dining experience you'll need to try by yourself.

At Dozo, there is only a single price available here at a time, the lunch package price with 6 type of dish which cost around $50 or the dinner one which is more expensive but with 7 type of dish to choose, cost around $70. Once you arrive, you'll be greeted and ushered to your table. If this is your first time coming here, they'll start explaining what to expect.

Because I was coming here for dinner, I need to choose 7 type of dish and drink. The 7 type of dish for me and my wife don't need to be the same. It's up to each individual to choose from the available menu. Within each type of dish, there are about 6 or 7 menu to choose, so you have plenty of choices to satisfy your stomach.

So here are the food that I chose:

Cold Yuzu Refreshment

This Yuzu refreshment is not part of the menu to pick. It's complimentary to refresh you. It's super cold until the drink is mid-frozen. As seen on the left, 2 small cups of yuzu are served in a big bowl full of ice to keep the drink fresh.

Chef's choice of starter. From left to right: Salmon with mint leaf, scallop topped with yuzu foam, and chocolate topped bread

The starter in the photo above, or on the right is the first one to be served. It's not my choice, but it's chef choice. So I guess it's gonna be different from time to time. However every guest will get the same one. As the waiter suggested, it is best to start from the center, which is scallop topped with yuzu foam; continued with the one on the right, which is bread topped with chocolate; and finished the starter with the one on the left, which is salmon sitting on top of mint leaf and topped with cream. Well, it's really a starter because it really makes our stomach crave for more.

Smoken duck breast on bed of greens with cranberry vanetta

The above dish is really the one I ordered. It is called "Smoked duck breast on bed of greens with cranberry vanetta". As the name says, it's smoken duck breast, cut in thin slices. The meat is really tender and combined with some vegetables and crackers dipped in cranberry sauce, it's a perfect dish after a nice starter. The portion is just right, not too much and not too little considering we still have a few more dishes to go.

Gratinated escargots topped with yuzu butter

The next on my order list is escargots. To be precise, it is gratinated escargots topped with yuzu butter. The escargot is baked with a topping of grated cheese. For those who don't like exotics food, I really suggest you to try this. This is unlike any other, the escargot is soft with topping of cheese and baked perfectly, it's something you really have to try.

Before the main dish, I actually have ordered a bowl of clam soup. Unfortunately the look of the soup is not really good for photo snapping. But don't get me wrong. Though the look is not so good, but the taste is superb. It really makes your stomach warm.

Duck confit

And for the main dish, I chose duck confit. Well, the name says it all. For those who don't know what duck confit is, you can take a look here. In short, it is duck leg cooked in its own fat and preserved. How about the taste? It's the best.

Iced fruity refresher - refreshing blend accompanied with assorted fresh fruits

The drink is also part of the 7 menu that I have to choose. This time I choose Iced fruity refresher. It's basically juice of combination of apple and pineapple; that's why it is called refreshing blend.

Japanese style red bean puff with vanilla ice cream

The last but not least, it's the dessert. For dessert, I choose red bean puff in Japanese style with vanilla ice cream. The red bean filled puff is slightly different that any other puff. The red bean is kind of melted within the puff, so when you start to bite it, the lava of red bean is melted in your mouth

Mutton Biryani at Bismillah Biryani Restaurant

When my colleagues arranged for Friday team lunch in Bismillah Biryani, my initial thought was, is it nice food? My experience eating Biryani rice so far was not so good. Most are tasted like too oily fried rice with some Indian gravy. But it would be unfair if I rejected to join without really knowing how the food quality is.

Located at 50 Dunlop Street, it is between Bugis and Little India MRT station. We took MRT to Bugis station and walk to the place. Arriving at the site, I was even more skeptical when looking at the front of the restaurant. It looks like a rundown 2 storeys shop house that requires poles to prevent the second storey to collapse, with limited lights within the restaurant. Does it really have nice food?

Entering the restaurant, we were greeted by two Chinese old couple who took our orders. There are only 4 dishes served, namely chicken, mutton, fish and vegetables biryani. So I tried the mutton biryani.

Mutton Biryani

Usually when I look at any biryani rice sold in Indian restaurant, it looks like oily fried rice topped with so much gravy. Here at Bismillah Biryani, there is so little (almost none) of oil in the rice. I was amazed from the first mutton entered my mouth. It was so soft and tender. It was like melted in my mouth and tasted so good. As you can see in the picture above, the rice does not have so much oil. It also does not have extra gravy.

Served with an egg, it costs only $9.00. It so much worth for the money, considering the portion is really huge.

The owner (I guess) told me that the way they cook is by cooking the mutton first, then put the mutton at the bottom while cooking the rice. That way, the mutton flavour will be absorbed by the rice. So with four different flavour of biryani rice, he cook them separately to get each flavour deeply within the rice.


Location: 50 Dunlop Street. You can stop at Bugis MRT station or Little India and walk to the restaurant.

Dim Sum at Xin Cuisine Chinese Restaurant (Part 2)

This is my second visit to Xin Cuisine Chinese Restaurant for tasting their famous dim sum menu. In previous visit I had tasted the century egg porridge, deep fried dumpling with fresh salad, chicken feet, shrimp dumpling and the deep fried ice cream. This time, though I also tried a few favorites dim sum like century egg porridge and chicken feet, I'll write only those dish that I've not covered in the previous post.

Shrimp & Vegetable Rice Noodle Roll (Prawn Cheong Fun)

Shrimp and vegetable rice noodle roll, or what people usually call prawn cheong fun or xiā cheong fun. The difference is that aside from prawn, this rice noodle roll also include vegetable as you can see the green color inside the roll at the left photo.

The rice noodle roll is quite smooth and silky, covering each prawn and vegetable deep into the dressing sauce.

Deep-Fried Vegetable Spring Roll

The next dish is deep-fried vegetable spring roll. Presented in a portion of 3 pieces on top of small oval plate with thin sliced carrot lining, the spring roll is a must try. Try to dip the spring roll into the provided sauce, you'll crave for more.

Mushroom Dumpling in Hot-Plate. Another interesting and must try.

Fried Sesame Ball with Chocolate, Red-Bean and Liquor Filling

The last dish we tried, and the best one is fried sesame ball. Presented in a portion of 4, the above sesame ball is something you can't miss. It looks like other sesame ball, but the real secret is the ingredient inside that ball. As you can see in the photo below, underneath the sesame ball layer is chocolate filling, mixed with red beans paste.

The Liquor Filling Fried Sesame Ball

The best part of it is the clear yellowish liquid at the center. That's the liquor filling for this sesame ball. It is fried in high degree temperature such that even after the outer layer is cooled, the liquor inside is still pretty hot. So beware for you who like to eat things fast. It may burn your tongue, but it could be the best sesame ball out there.

Recipe: French Macarons

This is a guest post by Kat about her journey cooking French macaron.

Blueberry Cheese Macarons

I got opportunity to write in my friend's blog about French macarons. So here I share the recipe to bake macaron.
It started few years ago when i ate French macarons at SweetSpot Marina Bay Sands. Ever since, I'm so crazily curious about how to make one. Finally I tried to bake one after I bought a microwave oven 1.5 years later. Since my kitchen is too small, I baked macarons using microwave oven. It should actually use a big oven.

My mom bought me a book written by an Indonesian writer about macarons recipes. Unfortunately the entire recipe written on the book are wrong because when I followed the steps in the recipe, it did not produce the macaron as I expected. The shells don't have the feet below, the top is not glossy and looks frumpy. At the end I throw away the book.

My first attempt baking macarons without any book was last year and it failed. It seemed that I over beaten the meringue so it was dry and broken and the mixture couldn't spread. So they all ended in trash.
My second attempt, the meringue is under beaten, the mixture is too flat and it didn't rise at all. The shell became flat like cookies.
This failure made me frustrated but I kept reading and looking for perfect macaron recipe. i read so many recipe and blog and try to understand how to beat the meringue until it become soft enough but not dry. How to fold in but not stir in.

So one fine Saturday night I tried to bake again and ended with successful French macarons! They had feet, smooth and glossy top, flat base and nice body. It seems to be a success case until I found out that it had air pockets when I bite. Then I searched in Google why my macarons produced airpockets and how to avoid it. Was it under mix, undercook or over beaten? So I tried again and this time I stirred not more than 50 strikes. I couldn't remember how many strikes I did but I was sure not I didn't strike it more than 50 times. The result? No more air pockets.

The method I use to cook macarons is the French method. Most people try the Italian method with great success with simmer sugar and water. The French method is more difficult but less hassle. Since I only have hand mixer I can only bake with the French one.
Some recipe says to age the white eggs for 3-5 days , some  says it doesn't really matter.
To lesser the hassle i never age the eggs. The day I want to bake the day i buy the eggs from supermarket.

So here are the ingredients.

The shell
 150 gr Egg whites
 100 gr Caster sugar
 180 gr Ground almond
 270 gr Icing sugar


Direction:

1. Begin beating the white eggs at low speed until it become foamy. Add slowly castor sugar  in the egg white then increase the speed to medium/high and beat until a firm meringue forms. One minute before become peak add the food coloring.
2. Shift the ground almond and the icing sugar.
3. Fold in the ground almond and icing sugar gradually to the egg white mixture. Do not stir in, you have to fold in from the bottom. Do not over mix as the mixture will became runny if you do so. The mixture should be like magma, flowing and shiny.
4. Put a baking sheet on a tray and using a plastic piping bag, create the shells onto a baking sheet at about 3cm wide. The mixture will spread a bit.  Some suggest using Silpat (silicone mat), but I use wax baking paper. I did try once though, using silpat, but the result wasn't good. It had fewer feet and the shell didn't rise quite well.
5. Once you've finished creating the mixture on the baking paper, tap the tray gently.
6.  Let it rest for 20-25 minutes.
7.  Bake them at 150 degree celcius for 12 mins or adjust it depending on your oven. Mine is 170 degree celcius for 15 mins.

Once the baking is done, remove it from the oven let them cool in the wire rack as the shells are not ready to eat, you'll need to pair 2 shells together, put the filling (read more about making the filling) between the shells and fridge them for about 24-72 hours.
I guess that's the reason why macarons is so pricey in store because the process take some time :D

Macaron shell

Note:
~If you don't want to be too sweet, add a pinch of salt onto the almond ground mixture.
~I only made 1/4 of this recipe ended with 15  macarons, to avoid disappointment when it fails.

Now let's make the filling
Chocolate Ganache Filling
120 gr heavy cream
240 gr dark chocolate (I combine it with white chocolate)

Direction:
Heat the cream over medium heat,  until bubbles start to form around the edge of the pan but don't let the cream boils. Remove it from the heat, add the chocolate, and let sit for 30 seconds. Slowly whisk the mixture until the chocolate is completely melted and smooth. Let it cool down in the room temperature and put in the fridge until ready to be assembled with the shells.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Filling
113 gr cream cheese
25 gr powdered sugar
1 cup fresh blueberry, chopped
1/2 half cup castor sugar
50 gr unsalted butter, softened

Direction:
1. Mix the cream, sugar and butter until smooth and fluffy.
2. Heat the chopped blueberry in medium stir, add a little bit of sugar and then heat them up until they are boiling. Once boiled, let it cool before mixing into cream mixture.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Filling

3. After it completely mixed, put into a piping bag, and it's ready to use. You can also put them in the fridge for later use.

Tonkatsu/Tonkotsu Ramen at Watami (Raffles City)

The last time I dined at Watami I enjoyed the special Kaisen Tori Kamameshi which I suggest you must try it. This time I am writing about different special dish. It's the special tonkatsu ramen.

Tonkatsu Ramen

Served in a quite big bowl and special pork broth, the ramen becomes one of all time favourites. If you go to other restaurant to find tonkatsu ramen like this one, you'll usually get ramen with fried tonkatsu. Watami serves differently. It serve ramen two slices of tonkatsu, boiled in the same special pork-bone (tonkotsu) broth producing very smooth contour and super tender, completed with boiled egg.

Tonkatsu Ramen

I find that the ramen served in Watami has slightly different contour. It's a little bit thicker than ramen usually served in other restaurants, but it's not too thick to make your stomach bloated eating it. As you can see in the picture left.

Completing the dining experience is Pasionfruit Mango Tea. As usual, it is served in a tall glass container (about 20cm), it will satisfy your thirst.

Pasionfruit Mango Tea