Treat Me to Dinner

The Bison, Mountain Bistro - Banff. Alberta, Canada

2009-12-10T18:27:00.000-08:00

Happy with our food at Jasper, we moved on to the next closest city, Banff. If you live in Canada, it's one of the must visited place in Canada. It's located right in the middle of the Rocky Mountains and it's beautiful. It might be the fourth/fifth time we went there, but we were still amazed to see the beauty of it.

Anyway, let's go back to food, since that's what we all care about ^_^.

For our fine dinning experience in Banff, we chose the Bison Restaurant. It is the only restaurant that we know that serves Bison. While it was the third visit for my husband, it was the first for me. It's located right in the heart of Banff.

For appetizer, we ordered the Corndog. It's really good. While it's not my favorite food, the flavor is really interesting.

For entree, we both ordered from the suggested menu. I ordered the Bison while my husband ordered the beef tenderloin. To say that they both are good would be an understatement. They are really really good. I really like my bison, it's really rich (although I'm not sure if I can distinguish between Bison and Beef >_<). My husband's tenderloin is amazing too. Even our side dishes were good. I especially like the whipped potatoes (they mixed it with goat cheese) on my husband's plate. While I'm not a big fan of the pear salad on my plate (not use to have fruit with meat), my husband still found it good and ended up finished the plate for me. So, no complain on anything on the plate for us. ^_^

Grilled Beef Tenderloin, Alberta "aaa"

Grilled Bison

On top of those foods, like any other western restaurants, we were served with free bread as well. Their breads, in our opinion, are one of the best that we ever had in restaurant. Believe it or not, we are still taking about it even now especially when we are out to buy some bread. The waiter said that the bread was made by the bread store right in front of the restaurant. So, while it might not fall directly into what the restaurant served (since it may change from time to time), we still think we should post it up, considering how good it tasted.

So, our bill this time added up to $116, including 18% gratuity. While it was quite expensive for us, we would definitely go back there since they have really good food. It think the price is totally worth it.

In case you are interested, here is their website:
http://www.thebison.ca/

Selamat Makan!
(It's an Indonesian expression equivalent to bon appétit !)

Karouzo's Steakhouse - Steak, Seafood, and Pasta

2009-12-06T19:55:00.000-08:00

First visit during our honeymoon was the beautiful Jasper with it's world's famous view of Rocky Mountains. Karouzo's is located in the heart of downtown. From outside you can see beautiful mountains. We went there during summer. Though it wasn't our first time there, the view was still beautiful and breathtaking.

So, there we were, at Karouzo's Steakhouse restaurant, at the starting point of our obsession over trying on as many restaurants as possible (given the very limited budget that we had ^_^). It wasn't a very crowded restaurant. It might simply because we went there after lunch hour (around 2 pm), but I was expecting more people (there were only 4-6 other customers there).

For appetizer, my husband and I shared a plate of baked potato skins. They were really good. Not the best that I ever had, but were really good. They were rich, crispy, and quite filling. The only thing that I'm not a fan of is its pile of chives. I'd prefer it to have less chives. Nevertheless, they're still yummy and since it's dried chives, it's pretty easy to take them off.

For entree, I ordered "Rainbow Trout" and my husband ordered the prime rib. I liked my trout. It was cooked beautifully, with enough flavor in it, though my husband wasn't a big fan of it.

Well, I guess the man likes his beef because he really enjoyed his prime rib. If I could complain, then the only thing I'd complain about is their side dishes. Maybe it wasn't my lucky day, but the side dishes were kind of bland. So, we got a perfect excuse to didn't finish our vegetables that day >_<

So, with those three dishes, our bill added up to $64.02, not including gratuity. While we noted that the food were good, they weren't super memorable. We actually had to see pictures to remember what we had there at the end of our honeymoon.
Would we recommend it? Yes.
Will we go back there? Maybe.
While it's a steak house, it is apparently a Greek restaurant (I read it in some discussion forum), so maybe going with their Greek Menus might make your dinning experience more memorable.

Here is the link of the website in case you are interested in visiting it.
http://www.karouzosjasper.com/index.htm

Enjoy!

Introducing: New Contributor ^_^

2009-12-06T19:34:00.000-08:00

Hi there!

Before I'm adding on this blog, I thought I would like to first introduce myself. I am a sister/sister-in-law of two original creators of this blog. Yes, their love for food has transferred to us over time.

By us, I mean me and my wonderful husband. We got married last summer and tracking all restaurants that we've gone before has became our thing. We started out during our honeymoon and decided to keep a simple record of all restaurants that we've visited since we got married (excluding any fast foods restaurants, and yes, we kind of consider Chinese food to be fast food since we do take outs most of the time).

So, enjoy and hopefully these information can be any help to you when deciding to visit these restaurants. Please remember, though, most of these restaurant we only visited once, so it might not do justice to the restaurant. What we are sharing is personal opinion. Any comment is welcome.

Chocolate Bread Pudding Recipe

2009-02-04T11:30:00.000-08:00

Several weekends ago, I made this pudding and brought it for after-meeting dessert for a small gathering for 20 people. Some people asked for the recipe, and so, here it is!

Chocolate Bread Pudding

Ingredients:

11"x7" baking dish -- lightly buttered
4-8 slices of bread -- toast until lightly crisp, then cut into large pieces

1 tbsp butter
2 cups of milk
1.5 bars of semisweet baking chocolate

2 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder (optional)
dry raisin as desired (optional)
1 tbsp confectioners' sugar (optional)
Note: you can also use cinnamon-raisin bread instead of regular bread

Directions:

Scatter the bread pieces (and dry raisin) in the prepared baking dish.
In medium saucepan using low heat, combine milk, chocolate, and butter. Stir until chocolate has melted. Keep this mixture over low heat.
In another bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar, and vanilla.
Pour the eggs mixture (and cinnamon powder) onto the warm milk mixture, and stir continuously until combined.
Pour the mixture over bread. Let sit, while you do no. 6.
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
Bake until pudding has puffed and is firm, about 30 minutes. (Well, the original recipe said 30 minutes, but in my case, it's closer to 40 minutes)
Cool at least 10 minutes, and dust with confectioners' sugar before serving

Notes:

This pudding can be served warm, at room temperatur, or cold.
To chill, let cool completely, then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
For variation, you can serve the pudding with fresh fruits on its side.

Enjoy! And happy baking!

Thai Tom (Seattle) - Probably the Best Thai Food in Seattle

2008-07-02T14:59:00.000-07:00

Last week, my wife and I went to Seattle to meet with our family there. Then, we decided to go for lunch together. My wife was in the mood for Thai food and she suggested that we visited Chaiyo Thai restaurant. We have been to this restaurant before and their food were pretty good.

However, our cousin told us of a better Thai restaurant in town. That restaurant was always crowded, and usually there was a waiting time up to 15-20 min before we could even get in. The place was called Thai Tom, and we decided to give this restaurant a try.

Thai Tom Restaurant Menu

Surprisingly, the restaurant had a similar atmosphere as the Kintaro Ramen Restaurant in Downtown Vancouver. The place was fairly small and crowded. I would say that this was the most distinctive Thai Restaurant I have ever visited. The environment reminded me of restaurant in Asia. You could see the chefs cooking when sitting at the bar. One chef was preparing all the ingredients while the other one utilized the multiple burner to cook the food as shown in the following image.

Chefs were busy preparing customer's order

The best seat in this restaurant would be at the bar overlooking the fire from the stove. We ordered three items for the two of us. I order Pad Thai and my wife order Swimming Rama.

For side dish, we ordered Deep Fried Tofu with Peanut Sauce. The tofu was great, the skin was hard because it was deep fried, but the inside was still very soft. The peanut sauce was freshly prepared by the chef and it had a very unique delicious taste. The deep fried tofu was indeed top notch.

Deep Fried Tofu with Peanut Sauce

I purposely ordered Pad Thai, because I had tried it at multiple Thai restaurants and none had met my expectation to date. Hence, I wanted to know if this restaurant offered different Pad Thai that would suit my taste. True to our cousin's promotion, that was the best Pad Thai I have ever tasted, and I would definitely try it again next time I visit.

Tofu Pad Thai

My wife's order was Swimming Rama - rice with sautéed chicken and spinach poured with peanut sauce and peanut :) The chef used the same peanut sauce as the one on deep fried tofu. My wife loved her order.

Swimming Rama

For all menu, we were given the option to choose the level of spiciness, 1 to 5, 1 is the lowest, and 5 is the highest. In term of customer service, the waiter was not friendly at all. When we finally got a seat in the restaurant, the waiter asked us what we wanted to order, and if we couldn't tell her right then, she would give our place to other people. We were shocked, but we could stand it as long as the food was awesome (and it was!). We will visit this place again next time we go to Seattle.

Sop Konro Karebosi

2008-05-23T18:06:00.000-07:00

Sop Konro is my most favorite food in Makassar. My favorite Konro restaurant is Sop Konro Karebosi located at Jl. Gunung Lompobattang to eat Sop Konro. Everyone in Makassar must know this restaurant. Karebosi is the name of big soccer field located near the restaurant.

Sop Konro Karebosi with All Food They Offer

The main item for Konro is beef's ribs (Iga Sapi). We eat it with rice.

Sop Konro

Originally, the restaurant only offers Sop Konro and Kikil (Beef's Tendon), but about 8-10 years ago, their branch at Kelapa Gading, Jakarta, invented the new menu, BBQ Konro (Konro Bakar). They basically BBQ the ribs and pour special made peanut sauce on top of it. The BBQ Konro also comes with soup on the side.

Konro Bakar

The meat's tenderness plays crucial role in determining how good the Konro is. I have tried Konro at several other restaurant, they are not as tender as the one sold by Sop Konro Karebosi. If you have chance to visit Makassar, Konro is a must try food.

Soto Banjar Jalan Sangir

2008-05-20T11:32:00.000-07:00

During my last visit in Makassar, I got chance to visit Soto Banjar located at Jalan Sangir. The restaurant does not sell Soto Banjar only, but it also sells other type of food. We decided to order the following items.

Gado-Gado (Indonesian Salad)

Gado-Gado is usually referred as Indonesian Salad. It is made of various vegetables poured with peanut sauce. My wife loves Gado-Gado at this restaurant because it does not use bean sprout and it also contains tempe (i.e. fermented soy bean) and tofu.

Nasi Rawon (Rawon Rice)

Nasi Campur (Mix Rice)

My dad ordered Nasi Rawon. The item came with rice, sambal goreng, cucumber, abon, and a bowl of Rawon meat soup. My wife ordered Nasi Campur; the rice came with more items compare to Nasi Rawon. Her Nasi Campur also came with a bowl of Rawon meat soup. I believe Makassar is the only city in Indonesia that sells Nasi Campur with Rawon meat soup.

Soto Banjar

My mom and I ordered Soto Banjar. It contains chicken meat, egg, noodle, lontong, and perkedel. The taste is similar to Soto Ayam, but Soto Ayam has stronger spices. I accidentally put too much chily on my soup and it's pretty hard to describe the original taste. However, I like it and I will definitely visit this place again in the future.

Pangsit Mie Ujung Pandang (Ujung Pandang Wonton Noodle)

2008-05-19T05:56:00.000-07:00

Pangsit Mie Ujung Pandang is one of my favorite food in Makassar. It is usually consumed as breakfast. Various Pangsit Mie's restaurants in Makassar are opened very early in the morning (i.e. ~6 am) . In my recent trip to Makassar, Pangsit Mie is one of the food that I tried alot. Different restaurants offer different taste and I love them all.

Pangsit Mie consists of BBQ pork, steam chicken, and wonton (i.e. pangsit). Some places serve only steam wonton while others serve both steam and friend wonton. It is also served with one bowl of soup. Some people like mixing the soup with the noodle. I am a bit different, I eat the noodle and the meat first then drink the soup and eat all the wonton at the end.

Enough explanation, following is picture of Pansit Mie. It is taken at Pansit Mie Singapore Restaurant (i.e. located Jl Lombok).

Pangsit Mie Ujung Pandang

I wish I can cook it myself so I can still consume while living in Canada :)

Ikan Bakar Dinar

2008-04-23T20:39:00.000-07:00

This time, I will talk about different seafood restaurant that I visited last week, Dinar Restaurant. Dinar Restaurant is a larger restaurant compare to Apong in term of size. It has 2 branches in Makassar. Due to its large building size, one can reserve a VIP room if needed.

In term of taste, it is good. In term of fish, it also has wide variety of fresh fish. In term of how the fish is cooked, most restaurant have pretty much the same style. The main difference is usually on the chili sauce ingredient. For this reason, I prefer Apong restaurant. However, if you prefer larger restaurant size and more comfortable dining experience, I'll suggest Dinar restaurant.

This time, we ordered a lot because all of us haven't eaten yet. Let's start with the first item, Sito's Shrimp (Udang Sito). You can figure out the size by looking at the following pictures; it is almost impossible to find shrimp this size in Canada.

Sito's Shrimp

Sito`s Shrimp, smaller size

The next shrimp we had is fairly unique, it looks like lobster, but it is called Udang Kipas, not really sure how I should translate it to English. Direct translation of Kipas to English is fan, but Fan's Shrimp sounds weird. Anyway, the taste of this shrimp is awesome.

Udang Kipas

The following fish is called Ikan Bolu in Makassar and Ikan Banden in other cities of Indonesia. The fish has a lot of bones, I don't like it that much, I only like its ja'nna (i.e. fish's belly).

Ikan Bolu or Ikan Bandeng

We also ordered two type of fishes that used Palape sauce. I forgot the name of the fish. I will update once I get the answer.

???

We also ordered Ikan Sunu goreng, another name for Ikan Kerapu or Cod in English. Goreng means deep fried as you can see at the following picture.

Ikan Sunu Goreng (Deep Fried Cod)

Green Mussle with Padang sauce (Kerang Saus Padang) is another item we ordered. The sauce is a bit spicy and rich of flavour.

Green Mussle with Padang Sauce (Kerang Saus Padang)

Last seafood item we order is the following Boiled Fish (Ikan Tim) that I cannot identify as well.

???

Last, we always have vegetables to complement all the seafood we had. This time we order the favorite veggie, Stir Fried Kankung (Kangkung Cah Polos).

Stir Fried Kankung (Kankung Cah Polos)

That's all for that day, another nice day :) Overall, the food are fresh and cooked nicely. It is nice to live in Makassar, you can eat seafood like a king.

Ikan Bakar Apong (BBQ Fish Apong)

2008-04-18T09:17:00.000-07:00

Apong Seafood restaurant is fairly new seafood restaurant in Makassar, compare to the other seafood restaurant, but the restaurant has good popularity among people in Makassar. The reason is that it always has very fresh fish and you can find a lot of weird and delicious fish here as well. There is a story that one of the reason why this restaurant always has new fish. The story said that the owner of the restaurant has very close relation with one of the police inspector in Makassar; hence, the restaurant has a very good connection with the fish supplier.

Enough history, let's get to the food. This time, we did not order much items, because I am kind of half full before going to this restaurant. When I first arrived, we have to choose the fish by yourself and tell the server how you want the fish cooked; BBQ, Boiled with your choice of spice. In Makassar, we love chili, so the restaurant always gives various ingredient for creating our own chili sauce. You can see the ingredient in the following pictures.

Chili Ingredient

My Chili Sauce

For appetizer in all seafood restaurant in Makassar, they serve Otak-Otak (it's fish meat wrap in banana leaves). I love otak-otak, in addition to its good taste, I always used it to test to my chili sauce, to check if I need to add more ingredients or to check if it's spicy enough.

Otak-Otak

Every time I go to seafood restaurant, I always order BBQ Squid (Cumi Cumi Bakar), it is a must for me :) You have two options on how it's BBQ-ed: with the black ink or not. At that time, I choose the one with no ink as you can see at the following picture. Some people like it with the ink because they said it's more healthy; I don't know the reason why. Beware when you ordered Cumi-Cumi Bakar, some restaurant give a very small squid, you should check how big it is before putting order. At this place, the squid is big enough even though it's not as big as squid in Canada.

Cumi-Cumi Bakar

The other fish we ordered is boiled rock cod (Ikan Tim Kerapu Tikus). It's pretty hard to get this type of fish; therefore, the price is expensive. However, in Makassar, it is still much cheaper compare to other big cities in Indonesia, such as Jakarta or Surabaya. You can taste its freshness by feeling how soft its meat felt in your mouth. We had a very fresh one.

Boiled Rock Cod (Ikan Tim Kerapu Tikus)

The last fish we ordered is BBQ Manggali Fish (Ikan Bakar Manggali). It is BBQ-ed, cut into half, poured with Palape sauce (it's garlic, chili, and other special ingredient that I am not sure). At Apong, the Palape sauce did not taste as good as the other restaurant I have tried, and they only gave very small amount as you can see at the following image. The fish is good, the complaint is only on the sauce. It did not taste bad but it's not good enough.

BBQ Manggali Fish (Ikan Bakar Manggali)

When eating fish, it has been tradition that we will also order at least one type of vegetables (Sayur). Normally, I order Kangkung (Ong Choy), but this time, I order Cai Sin, I am not sure what the english translation of this veggie. You can see the image and find it out :)

Cai Sin Veggie (Sayur Cai Sin)

Ok that's it for now, very full, I went home afterward and fell asleep. Last week, I got chance to go to other seafood restaurant with my wife-to-be's family. I will post some photos once I had time :)

Banana Leaf

2008-04-17T18:00:00.000-07:00

Last Friday, Joyce and I went out to eat at Banana Leaf. There were only the two of us, so we didn't order a lot of food, but that was enough.

I could tell Joyce has changed since her 2-year stay in Indonesia. When she ordered food, she did not look at salad or appetizer with greens anymore. She used to eat lots and lots of vegetables, and only a little bit of meat.

We started with Roti Canai, the flaky layered bread with curry dip. I liked the bread. The curry dip was only an okay though. I didn't like very strong curry presence like they had in Indian restaurant, but this curry had very mild taste, to the point of having almost no taste. The plus side is that we didn't waste any dips, since we needed lots of it to have a bit of flavor.

Roti Canai

Joyce ordered the red snapper. Doesn't it look yummy?

Red Snapper

I ordered the eggplants with rice. Haha.. even though we ordered separately, we ended up sharing the whole thing. I cannot stand not eating meat, as it turns out.

Eggplants with Rice

Overall, it was a nice experience. I got to talk to Joyce after not seeing her for so long.

Nyuk Nyang

2008-04-17T07:51:00.001-07:00

Nyuk Nyang is fairly unique food name and I believe it only exists in Makassar. In other cities of Indonesia, it is usually referred as Bakwan. This food is normally consumed during breakfast or lunch time; however, today I had it in the afternoon, because I forgot to have lunch :)

Nyuk Nyang

Nyuk Nyang consists of Pork Meat Balls in a soup. One bowl usually contains 10 meatballs. There are several varieties of Meat Balls offered:

Hitam, tendon ball
Putih, normal meat ball
Pangsit, tendon ball covered with wongton skin
Pangsit Goreng, similar Pangsit but it is deep fried
Goreng, deep fried ball, not sure what it is made of

Depending on places who sold it, Nyuk Nyang is eaten with Buras as the complement; it is rice with special aroma.

Buras

Nyuk Nyang can be found at Restaurant or on the street, some seller walk from places to places with green cart. Everyone will know if they are Nyuk Nyang seller by looking at their cart.

Nyuk Nyang's Green Cart

Today as appatizer, I ate Jalan Kotek, it contains meats, bean sprout, carrot and other veggies. In Jawa, it's called Pastel. Makassar's Jalan Kotek is unique because we consumed it with special chili sauce, instead of Thai chili used by people in Jawa when eating Pastel.

Back: Jalan Kotek, Roti Goreng
Front: Lumpia Goreng

That's all, short report from Makassar :)

Bambuden Restaurant - Food Trial

2008-04-15T04:47:00.000-07:00

Bambuden Restaurant has been well know in Makassar for long time. Almost everyone living in Makassar know about this restaurant. It has been established since 1942 and now the ownership has been passed to the third generation. Bambuden is famous as a place for Wedding event. Even though, now there are a lot of restaurant in Makassar that could host a wedding event, Bambuden is still one of the favorite location.

Bambuden Restaurant

For my upcoming wedding, Olivia's family and my family decided to use Bambuden for hosting our wedding reception. For my family reception, I got chance to go to the restaurant for the food trial. Food trial gives us opportunity to taste all food we ordered before the event, so we could give feedback on things to improve or change.

The first item is Hongkong Salad, it contains various meats, duck, pork, shrimp, chicken with jelly fish and longan in the middle covered with yellow mayonnaise. I like its combination of jelly fish, longan and mayonnaise, it felt refreshing in my mouth.

Hongkong Salad (Selada ala Hongkong)

The second menu is Crab and Shark's Fin Soup. The only complaint here is that the soup is a bit too salty for some people, even though it's ok for me.

Crab and Shark's Fin Soup (Sup Kepiting Hisit)

The third menu is Three Type of Shrimps Combination. One of them is shrimp with mayonnaise, while I am not so sure about the difference between the other two. They all taste good.

Three Shrimps Combination (Trio Udang Kombinasi)

The fourth menu is Abalone with Mushroom. The abalone is very tender, eating one piece will make you want to eat more :) Mixing moku mushroom with the abalone is surely a great addition to the tastiness of this menu.

Abalone with Mushroom (Angsion Abalone Moku)

The fifth menu is Black Mushroom with Brocolli. I believe the special ingredient in this menu is the Black Mushroom. I don't have much to say about this menu, it taste great and it is good to have some veggies after consuming so much meat/seafood.

Baklion Tongku

The sixth menu is Bun and BBQ Pork. I already felt full before tasting this bun; however, things changed after I took the first bit; the combination of BBQ Pork and the Bun is perfect, it's not a regular bun. For some reason, this menu is called Shanghai Satay, I have no idea where it is originated from.

BBQ Pork with Bun (Sate Shanghai)

The last item is Fried Noddle, it did not taste good, maybe because I am full already. At the reception the last menu will be fresh fruit.

Mie Soa Goreng

That's it, what a very fulfilling night, it's pretty hard to walk after eating all these food :)

Dan Tai Fung Jakarta

2008-04-06T07:18:00.000-07:00

On March 30, my brother told me that he will take me to Chinese Restaurant located at Senayan, Jakarta for dim sum. The restaurant looks very luxury and it also has great interior design. When I looked at the menu, I was pretty surprise because this restaurant has been chosen as Top 10 Restaurant in The World by New York Times. They even wrote brief history of the restaurant on the menu. You can read the history here.

Din Tai Fung

We only ordered five boxes, as you can see from the following image :)

Dim Sum Packaging,
the size is bigger than what I normally see

The first item we tried is the Steamed Pork Dumpling. We are suggested to eat it with ginger mixed with soy sauce and vinegar; this is new for me, because I usually ate dumpling with Vinegar only. This dumpling taste different than any dumpling I had before. When I bite it, you can feel some warm water coming out from the dumpling, then it mixed with the dipping sauce, it taste and feel so good ...

Steamed Pork Dumpling

Then as side order, I had Shrimp Spring Roll, it is served in the mini basket as shown below. The spring roll is made very crunchy while the shrimp and meat inside are still soft. It tastes very good.

Shrimp Spring Roll

Then I opened another box, and it is Shrimp and Pork Shaomai. The shape of shaomai is very unique and I like eating shaomai in this shape compare to normal one; what a creative chef.

Shrimp and Pork Shaomai

Just like any other dim sum, ordering Bun is a must, so we ordered two types of Bun: Taron Bun and BBQ Pork Bun. Both of them taste really good as well, similar to previous items we consumed.

Taro Bun

BBQ Pork Bun

For main dish, I order Chicken Noodle Soup. The noodle is hand made. Similar to any noodles sold in Indonesia, the noodle and soup are separated. In Vancouver, most of the times the noodles are put in the soup already when server. I actually love it when they are separated, so I don't have to drink all the soup first before eating the noodle. As predicted, the noodle and soup are really good too; however, I think 369 in Surabaya has better chicken soup.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Following dish is not related to Dan Tai Fung. It is Satay I consumed on the same day before we went back to my brother place. It's pork Satay. On the right, you can see it's only Pork's Fat, called Sancan. I tried to limit myself to eat only one sancan even though it tastes really good ... To accompany the pork satay, I also order Baikut Sayur Asing plus stream rice :)

Pork Satay

Pondok Indonesia

2008-04-04T23:14:00.000-07:00

Pondok Indonesia is the best Indonesian restaurant in Greater Vancouver area. It has a nice atmosphere and close to skytrain. Earlier tonight, a few friends from work and I went to have dinner in this place.

For appetizer, we ordered Gado-Gado, which was a mix of vegetables, bean sprouts, tofu, and boiled eggs topped with peanut sauce. It tasted sweet from the peanut and the veggie was crunchy, forming a refreshing combination.

Next, we had Sate Ayam, again topped with peanut sauce and fried shallot. The satay came on the hot plate and looked really appetizing. Mmmmm... it was a good call to order this one; the chicken was really tender and tasty. The taste was very close to what I had growing up.

One of the main dishes were the Vegetarian Plate. It came with Tahu Isi, Bakmi Goreng, Tahu Kecap, and Toge Tauco. This one came with the peanut sauce on the side as well. I am starting to realize that peanut-allergic people probably wouldn't enjoy Indonesian food. But I love peanut, so I am safe.

We also ordered Buncis. I didn't taste it, though, since I love meat more than I do veggies. Plus, a friend was vegetarian, so she definitely enjoyed it more than I did.

Next we had Ayam Bumbu Bali. I suggested this dish because it was very different than any western style chicken. It was sweet and spicy, but unlike Chinese style sweet and spicy chicken. I believe the chicken was marinated first, then deep fried, and then pan fried with more spices.

Lastly, we had Rendang. I was pretty full when this dish came out, so I only ate a little. I would prefer the beef to be more tender, but it was okay. It tasted a bit like beef curry.

I love the dessert. We ordered Pisang Gulung Manis to share. It came in 4 pieces, which surprised me a little (in a good way).

All in all, it was a good dinner. The ambiance was good. The waiters were very helpful. The food was delicious. Oh, and it doesn't hurt that my friends treat me to it.

Welcome to Treat Me to Dinner!

2008-04-04T16:36:00.000-07:00

One of life's joy is food. And although it's healthier to eat more for lunch, it's often not possible, due to working hours. So for me, dinner is the time for trying out different dishes and visiting different restaurants.

This blog is dedicated to the delicious food, restaurant, and recipe that will spice up dinner time. If you have recommendations, please feel free to leave a comment below.

Hope you enjoy the site!