Hilton Hotel - Bandung

It seems like travelling to Bandung has been very popular among my friends recently. Thanks to my recent company bonding trip that gave us this opportunity to have a 2 nights stay at this luxurious 5 Stars Hotel.

Enjoying the cool climate, Hilton at Bandung is located right in the smack of the city, about 2 hours drive from Jakarta. Hilton hotel needs no further introduction as they are very well established and reputable in the hotel industries.

Approximately 4km or 10 minutes ride from Husein Sastranegara Airport, it gave another reason for us to select our stay there.

Hilton Hotel at Bandung

It is also 650m away from Bandung Train Station.

Train Station

Regardless of individuals or vehicles that enter into Hilton's boundaries, securities are their main concern. We have to go through electronic scanning gates with securities check. It gives the hotel guests a sense of assurance and safer with them around.

Trained Dog

Enjoy free WIFI connection in the public area with helpful and smiley services from all their staff.

Lobby and Concierge 

Was impressed by the 45 square meter deluxe twin room, where we were welcomed with 2 queen beds and 4 pillows on each bed which I think is more than enough for two pax. What delighted us further was that the 4 pillows had different softness.

Deluxe Twin Room

Besides being modern and stylish, the spacious air conditioned rooms were furnished with marble tiles and with our beds surrounded by cushy carpet. Room is equipped with a flat screen TV, writing desk and of course mini bar.

TV & Desk Area

What excites me was its En suite see-through marble bathrooms featuring the toilet as well as the rain shower area. For those who feel shy about the see-through, there is an automated blind to cover up.

Toilet

Lucky were those who got their room upgraded to executive twin room free of charge (but at company's expense) due to the shortage of rooms. The size of room is comparable to the usual deluxe twin room but with the privilege of having additional bath tub and access to the executive lounge which serves complimentary and refreshments daily.

Executive Twin Room Toilet

If you are bored of "playing" water in the bath tub and have a chance, do drop by their swimming pool at Level 6 during the night time to enjoy such warming scene.

Hilton at Bandung Night Shot

Get your feet wet by taking off your foot wear and walk along the sides towards the Cabanas. The night view was so therapeutic and pleasant to the eyes.

Pool Side with Cabana

See, as compared during the day time, the mood and ambiance just get totally different here.

Pool Side in the Day

Even after a swim, you can get your meals / drinks over at the restaurant beside the pool.

In front of the Pool

Breakfast area is located at level 1 right next to the concierge area. It was good to have some traditional Indonesian Music Live playing in the background while you were around the area.

Purnawarman

Initially I have the thought that the hotel breakfast will serve the same dishes for the 2 nights of stay but apparently it wasn't the case. Majority of the dishes in fact were changed, thus you don't have to worry seeing the same thing again if you stay for a longer period.

Nuts and Long Beans

It may be too early to see such dish for breakfast but still I could not resist and took a few pieces of it on my plate.

Sweet Sour Fish

Selection of European to Asian cuisine in the Buffet service breakfast, pamper yourselves with all these food and enjoy your stay at Hilton Bandung.

White Sausages

For breakfast, this is the counter that I will never skip. It feels good every time to get your order freshly made on the spot. Order your Sunny Side Up and Egg Omlette here!

Egg Counter

Be patient, perhaps a minute or so after your order, you will get them on your plate.

Add caption

For the health consious, grab your salad and choose your own dressing.

Salad Bar

Juices and infused drinks are all prepared for you.

Juice / Drinks Station

Moving on to the Noodles counter. Choose your preferred ingredients and get served on the spot too.

Noodle Counter

There were simply too many ingredients to choose from and in the end, the service guy took everything for me. Noodles texture was closer to quality of ramen than instant noodles while soup stock tastes subtle without over using of MSG.

Noodles

I'm not sure if you will want crackers for breakfast but just help yourselves to those assorted crackers on the counter.

Assorted Crackers

The spread of food was wide, even with desserts like Pulut Hitam along the Bur Bur (Porridge) counter. Out of curiosity, I took a bowl of their traditional drink and realized its actually Gula Melaka.

Traditional Drink

Another traditional food that you may find at the entrance to the dining area.

Traditional FOod

Looks like putu piring to me but an improvised dish with your selected toppings like chocolates, cheese or even rainbow rice.

Kueh with your toppings

Engaging their Spa Services to pamper our legs to relieve the stresses. Jiwa Spa is located at 5th level of the hotel and Hours of Operation: Monday - Friday 12 pm to 11pm while Public holidays, Saturday and Sunday will be from 10am to 11pm. Booking of treatment is recommended, call +62 22 8605 1365

Spa

After an Hour of Foot Reflexlogy, our legs felt very comfortable. Service was professional from start all the way to the end. Thanks pal for making such an arrangement. It costs about 21,000 Rupiah ($21 SGD approx.) for an hour of retreat.

Couple Room

Overall of our stay was memorable and I'm glad that I had a experience on their SPA Services. If ever I have got the chance to come back, I don't mind :)

Hilton Bandung
Location: Jl. HOS Tjokroaminoto No. 41-43, Pasirkaliki, Kota Bandung, Jawa Barat 40171, Indonesia

NeNe Chicken

The quirky name that makes me smile everytime whenever I think of NeNe Chicken. With Korean fried chicken up in the trend, NeNe Chicken is branching out into the neighbourhood retail malls and they offer a range of crispy fried chicken coated with secret recipe sauces. Besides the delectable chicken pieces that got my attention, the way of dining with disposable plastic gloves had also amazed me as it was not a common sight dining in the mall with gloves on.

For those who is not very clear with the ordering, it can be done simply in 5 steps.

1. Choose your chicken
2. Choose your sauce
3. Choose your starters
4. Choose your sides
5. Choose your drinks

NeNe Chicken

You will not get your order upon payment at the counter, instead you will be given a buzzer and collection of order to be made once this device vibrates.

Buzzer

The queue was relatively long during the peak hours and we got ourselves the first NeNe Chicken Meal completed with 2 drinks of our choice.

2 Pcs Chicken Meal - $8.90, Wings & Sticks - $10.90

Chicken which were coated in not too salty-sweet soy sauce were great. At least these fried chicken were not too dry as compared to other chain fast food korean fried chicken.

Soy Sauce

Chicken & Sauce

Thick Spicy Sweet sticky sauce with a mixture of sesame seeds clinging onto the meat. Plastic gloves were very handy in this case as I can totally eat at ease without making my fingers dirty. The chicken are quite hot and you

2 Pcs Chicken (Spicy Sauce)

Starters

Surprisingly, Coleslaw was good and I love the part where you can start abit pf the peppery taste among with mayonnaise used sparingly on the ingredients like corns kernels, cabbages, cucumbers, carrot etc. Good and not too gelat.

Coleslaw

For those who prefer sweet corns can order this. The corn kernels were perfectly tossed with crab-sticks in mayonnaise.

Coleslaw - Corn

Sides

The rough texture of the fries reminded me of the twister fries in Mcdonalds and was just as tasty over here. There were straight cut instead of curling up and was firmer.

Buffalo Sticks

Afterall, fast food are still fast food. Is it a matter of novelty that these stick Korean Chickens outlets keep multiplying and later on getting too mainstream? While comparing them to 4 fingers, I will give an obvious vote to this. Meanwhile still holding my thought that the original fried chicken wings / drumsticks without coating any sauce is still a very good choice.

Rating: 3.25 / 5

NeNe Chicken
Location: Bukit Panjang Plaza, 1 Jelebu Rd #02-10 Singapore 677743
Website

Stew Küche [Closed]

Stew Küche also known as Stew Kitchen when translated from German is located in one of the hipster coffee shop in Singapore. If you feel that enjoying your European meals from air-conditioned Restaurants or Malls is too mainstream, try visiting here for a different experience, also skipping the additional service charges.

Menu

Table Number

The Swiss Farmer Platter is good for sharing for about 2 - 4 pax and consists of the Bavarian / Germans Staples like whole crispy pork knuckled, 2 selected German sausages, Achar, mashed potatoes, harsh browns and darkbeer sauce for pairing. From the look at it, the Asian Cuisine had somehow influenced the "supposed-to-be" German platter as the sauerkraut that I'm looking forward to has been exchanged for our Asian Achar. Portion are large and definitely economical as compared to the usual ones.

Schweizer Bauern Platte (Swiss Farmer Platter) - $40.66

The scene-stealer was perhaps none other than that salivating big pork knuckle that were cut into pieces. Meat was moist and fare better than the chain German Bistro that I had visited. Meat was marvelously tender and best to go with the given sauce.

Pork Knuckle

The Bavarian Pork Sausage was perfectly served in its plump texture and lend a good savoury bite with its juice bursting as we sank our teeth into them.

Bavarian Pork Sausage

Though those shredded potatoes that make up the Rosti may not be as fine as what we had from Marche, it was more fragrant and not very oily. Together with the platter, we topped up this at $5.50 only.

Rosti - $5.50

Having good memories from Hofbräuhaus München in Germany, I had the Hofbräu original. This is brewed by the brewery in Germany and the acquired taste was refreshingly light to go with some good german food! While for my guy friend, he prefers something stronger in flavour and went for the darker beer.

Original Weiss Beer - $11 (1 Pint)

Paulaner Dunkel - $11 (1 Pint)

Stew Küche may not replace the restaurant environment and have limited seating but you can still call in for reservation. Overall, with menu being extensive, I find that its a good alternative if you are looking for more German Food options in Singapore.

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Stew Kuche
Location: Blk 119 Bukit Merah Lane 1 #01-40 Singapore 151119

Restaurant Haesje Claes

I got hooked by the taste of Traditional Dutch Food and insisted we have another Stammpot before saying good bye to Amsterdam. We visited Restaurant Haesje Claes which was recommended by the Tourist Centre and in fact we should be visiting them for dinner during our first night in Amsterdam but due to our itineraries, we kept it for 2nd Night.

Restaurant

Menu

Part of the Intterior

Comparing to The Pantry from the first night, Haesje Claes is bigger, catering to more seating with 2 levels of dining area. Environment was definitely more rustic with wooden flooring, furnishing and given a homely feel under the orange lighting as well the hospitality from the service crews. 

Interior at Level 2

Interior

Place was bustling with people and if you looked around, it feels like you are entering a grandma's house with old school stuff that you have never seen before.

Interior

Interior

Though it may be old school design but I still like the low lighting ambiance that create a good atmosphere with burning flame on the candle stand.

Burning Candle

Worrying about being filled fast and Since Im looking for Stammpot in my meal,  we cant go wrong with their fixed set menu "Amsterdam Menu 24,95 which consists of 3 courses and a cup of coffee.

Coffee 

As for myself, I took the opportunity to have some beer again!

Beer

Starter

This is another version of Pea Soup I had with ingredients in it. Taste was pleasant with sausage, bacon, carrots, potatoes and celery in combination. The style of soup and even the side that comes with it was a total different picture from what I had last night and was filling. Instead of toast, they had a slice of rye bread with thin slice of bacon for pairing.

Pea Soup with Sausage, bacon

What's in the Soup?

Bacon on Rye Bread

Main

Time for seafood and that's the main reason why we had Poached Salmon Fillet. Not much of Wow Factor here but Salmon was cook to the correct doneness and given the buttery and herb flavour Bearnaise Sauce amd lemon squeeze, the fillet was down in my stomach within 3 minutes, leaving the mashed potatoes behind.

Poached Fillet of Salmon with Bearnaise Sauce

Topping up the Set with another main course, Stampotten. There are 3 in the menu to choose from and I had the one with Sauerkraut. Meatball was savoury but I do prefer the ones I had last night. Sausages, so to speak was an average fare, not something out of expectation.

Sauerkraut with meatball, sausage and bacon - 16,25

Dessert

Our meal comes to an end with the Lemon Pie as the last course. At least the colors had brighten up the dish and it gave a refreshing feel with its fruits on the plate (Kiwi and Orange).

Lemon Pie with Cream

Having Sausages and Sauerkraut in our meals these two days, I find that Dutch Cuisine is kind of close to what a German Cuisine is. Overall, Haesje Claes is a good recommendation if you want to enjoy some authentic flavour from the Dutch.

Restaurant Haesje Claes
Location: Spuistraat 275, 1012 VR Amsterdam, Netherlands