Kartika Sari

What's the common souvenirs to bring back after a trip to Indonesia? Well, most of time I will bring back their local delights, "Thousand Layers Cake" ,or we called it Kueh Lapis. Kartika Sari is a recommendation through my colleagues via words of mouth and since its within 10 minutes of walk from our Hotel (Hilton Hotel Bandung), we visited them during our last minute shopping before departing Bandung.

Kartika Sari

It is housed in the ground floor of a modernly painted building and if you are looking for Tibits and Pastry, this is a good chance to do your purchase.

Interior

Take a look into their chiller and you will notice a good varieties of Lapis and cakes they offered. Since there is no label to indicate the item, we had to select and ask them exactly what was that. Service staff is very friendly although our conversation in English was not that very fluent. The Lapis in the chiller are mostly for display and once after placing our order with the counter, they will instruct the kitchen to cut the ordered portion.

Chiller Display

Lapis is modernly kept in a transparent box with a sticker indicating the number of branches they have in Indonesia. Having bought Lapis from Indonesia all these while, this was the first time I saw them using plastic boxes instead of card boxes.

Kartika Sari

Cost about $17 SGD, I would honestly say that the Lapis was commendable. Every layer was even out and thinly made. Texture was soft and buttery fragrance was present and not overpowering. The amount of Cinnamon and Nutmeg powder was well controlled too. Talking about Lapis being greasy, its actually a norm but thankfully they were not overly done.

Lapis Legit Original - IDR 170,000

With a difference of $0.50 you get to enjoy chocolate flavours in the lapis. Though I'm not a fan of chocolate but the checkered decorations on the cake had enticed me. The taste is as good and with hint of chocolate.

Lapis Legit Tikar - IDR 175,000

After coming back to Singapore, I realised that they have an online service where ordered items can be delivered directly to Singapore as well as Malaysia.

Kartika Sari
Location: Jl. Haji Akbar No. 4, Pasir Kaliki, Cicendo, Jawa Barat 40171, Indonesia
Website

Cafe Geogre V

Walking down the popular long shopping streets and enjoying the crowds, we finally found a place to dine and seek some warmth out of the cold weather. Worrying that food might be on the high side at this tourist place, we diligently search through our mobile applications and visited Cafe George V for dinner.

Cafe George V

They have both indoors and Alfresco dining just that during the cold seasons. Worry not if you are in the cold weather, the retractable awning fell in place with the mounted heater will keep you away from the cold even if you are dining outside.

We had our seats indoors and had a good time experiencing the bustling life of the cafe in the city. Though the table and seat maybe a tad narrow for 2 of us in our bulky cold wear and camera bags, we still manage to make ourselves comfortable even at awkward position.

Cafe George V Outdoor Seating

We had ordered Onion Soup and was excited about it. Felt a sense of contentment to have soup in the french lion head soup bowl. Simply love its caramelized onion and the sweet meat stock served with generous amount of cheese on top.

Soupe gratinee a l' oignon ~ Onion Soup - 10.0 €

As we were without drinks during shopping, the Strawberry shake was emptied soon it was served. Pretzel biscuits was served together with the milk shake too.

Strawberry Milkshake  - 10.0 €

The first time that I have seen steak pairing with sunny side up eggs.  Minced steak was surprisingly cook to its perfect texture at our preferred done-ness with thick cut fries and salad as sides. Dressing for salad is separately placed and you can add them accordingly to your liking.

Steak hache oeuf a cheval (salers) 200g frites - 17,50 €

Steak (Skirt steak Angus) 200g meat was tougher as compared to the former. However they have additional charred flavour here and was seen very well controlled under the fire. Sides like french fries and salad were similar.

Steak (bavette Angus) 200g frites - 17,50 €

Service was prompt and friendly. Visit was overall a satisfying one!

Rating: 3.5 / 5

Cafe George V
Location: 120 Av. des Champs-Élysées, 75008 Paris, France

Carne & Caipirinha [Invited Tasting]

Carne & Caipirinha is an ideal place for meat lovers and someone who enjoy authentic Brazilian cuisine. Better known as a Brazillian churrascaria, a restaurant serving grilled meat to as much as one can take.

Carne & Caipirinha

Therefore, if you think the title of "Meat Lovers" suits you, do indulge in this All-you-can-Eat Brazilian Churrascaria located at Sunset Way in Clementi.

Carne & Caipirinha

Dining concept is pretty simple with tables and chairs placed in front of their restaurant on the raised wooden flooring like the rest of the eating places beside.  The 74 seater restaurant offers an alfresco dining experience and ideal for people who love such dining style.

Dining Environment

They are the one and only Brazilian churrascaria in Singapore that adopt Charcoal in their roasting method. The slow-roasting process allow meat in getting rich and smoky flavours. A key highlight of importing meat from Brazil is not only about their quality but that their flavour of beef tastes differently from American and Austrialia's thus look forward to this different gastronomic experience. 

Roasting Process

Other than serving roasted meat, the restaurant also offers a buffet counter consisting of salad, pastas, rice and even traditional Brazilian Feijoada (black bean stew).  Let's have a look at some of the dishes on the buffet counter.

Buffet Counter

Up keeping its authenticity, this black bean stew is actually a National dish in Brazil and can either be served with pork or beef. In fact most part of the pork can be found in the stew and they were boiled till soften yet retaining its original flavours. If you don't mind eating innards or parts of pork, give it a try!

Brazilian Feijoada (Black Bean Stew)

Its good to indulge yourselves with some vegetables as sides before the real meaty challenge kick start. Egg plants were baked and was rather spongy with spices and condiments at its top.

Baked Eggplat

Even during mid way if you find that you need a break from those slow roasted meat, head back here to have some greens. In my opinion, I find that these sauteed mushrooms with onions and celery were good.

Sauteed Mushroom with Onions

Another side dish you may be interested is their butter corn on the cob. They are slightly charred on the outside yet retaining its juiciness.

Buttered Corn on the Cob

However if you want to make money worth while, it will be good to plan the use of your stomach space efficiently. Focus more on the skewers meat than the counter buffet items.

Cold Pasta Salad

These baby potatoes come good as side dishes to complete your meaty meal. Do be mindful as it contains starch and will fill your stomach easily, have a few but do not overeat ya!

Roasted Baby Potatoes

Describing these items as the Palms' Hearts but in layman terms this is the bamboo shoot that we have on most Ramen dishes.

Palm's Hearts

Ta-Da! Here's a bite of everything from the buffet counter.

My Selections from the Buffet Counter

Using the original and authentic recipe from Brazil,  Caipirinha is in fact one of Brazil's finest invention and signature tipple. Its refreshing and tangy flavours together with a bite of citrus infused with a shot of the finest liquor made this beverage outstanding.

Caipirinha - $12

Teetotalers, grab yourself a can of Guarana Antarctica, the first ever soft drink produced in Brazil. This soft drink is produced in only 3 countries and is now available here. It uses some kind of berries and is definitely refreshing but not too sweet.

Guarana Antarctica - $6

A popular snack and breakfast food in Brazil, Pao de Queijo (Cheese Bread). They were cute and small in size, baked and served warmly.

Cheese Bread (Pão de Queijo)

Just take a good look at the cheese Bread. Beware, they are really addictive.

Cheese Bread

They are actually quite malleable and fragrant in which reminds me of Japanese Mochi. However if you are preparing to eat more meat later, you must control yourself on this as they are actually make up of starch and cheese are really very filling.

Its Filling

The servers cum chefs also known as passadors, were smartly dressed in the traditional gaucho outfits. They are professional in service and never fail to smile at the diners even though they were sweating all over with a hot skewer on hand.

Happy Passadors

They will go around the restaurant from tables to tables bringing their skewers and carve the portion of meat right on diners' plates.  This concept of serving known as rodizio is very popular in Brazil.

Skewers are hot.

We started our meat eating rounds with the smallest items first and they were sausages and bacon wrapped chicken. They came together with a steel plate as its base.

Start of churrascaria

Indicate your interest to the passadors and they will serve you right away at your plate.

Serving Sausage and Bacon Wrap Chicken 

This disc will be very useful as it helps you to give an indication to the passadors if you will like to have more meat. The disc has two sides, the red and green, the concept works like traffic light with green instructing them that you will like to have more meat while red representing to stop serving the food.

Disc

Add a bit of salsa or even crashed croutons / bread crumbs to your meat for additional taste.

Condiments

While the sausages were the preliminary start, these chicken thighs looked enticing. The smoky flavours and the glorious looking lined up thighs were simply irrestiable.

Chicken Thighs on the Skewer

Let's try it!

Chicken Thigh

While the pork belly scored at its crackling top layer with glistening and chewy fat on the skewer.

Pork Belly on Skewer

A simple and close up of the pork belly let us distinctively discover its prominent layers of fats and meat.

Pork Belly

The lamb had a gamey taste which may not be suitable to everyone.

Lamb Leg

One of the premium meat that is hard to find in Singapore. These meat are actually from cow with hump and only found in the humped Brazilian cattle known as zebu. They also contain more marbling than other meat.

Beef Hump (Cupim)

Beef Rump is nothing as compared to the Hump. Meat is tougher here but still the good slow roast brought out the flavours.

Beef Rump

The chunky pieces of Escolar Fish that looked like bread on the hot skewer were cooked beautifully and had a strong buttery fragrance.

Fish Escolar

Though it was chunky and had a good taste, we were told not eat more than 4 pieces as it is high in fat content and rather oily as our digestion system may not be able to take them.

Fish

Another must try by the restaurant would be the chicken heart, it was said that those who do not love chicken offal will end up enjoying this delicacy. They are firm and tender, however still, they are not my kind of food.

Chicken Heart

These grilled pineapple was rubbed with cinnamon power and was sweet. This is the only slow roast item that gave us a break from those overwhelming selection of meat served to our table. Its serves as a very good fruit to have after all the heavy meat we had.

Grilled Pineapples

"The FireBomb" is a seasonal promotion that you might not want to give a miss.

Parmigiano-Reggiano Cheese Wheel

Following the food trend, Carne & Caipirinha offers Flaming Carbonara Pasta in cheese wheel too. The freshly cooked carbonara pasta was placed in the large Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese wheel and was tossed. There then the staff would prepare the flaiming cocktail consisting of 3 secret blends of alcohol and pour into the wheel. The pouring process allow the flames in melting the cheese as well as charring the pasta which in turn give out a different kind of aroma. Once the flame dies out, additional cheese will be added from the wheel into the dish before dishing out to the diners.

Preparation of The FireBomb

The FireBomb gave me a different prospection of having carbonara and having carbonara is not just dull with mushroom, bacon and cheese only. Instead, the alcohol had lifted the dish making it more savoury. For those who are interested, FireBomb is available at $10 per serving. However if you prefer just only carbonara, serving is unlimited.

FireBomb

Though Pork Ribs looked delectable and fall-off-the-bone kind, I was way too bloated with amount of food and drinks I had in my stomach.

Pork Ribs 

Thanks OpenRice for the invitation.

Rating: 3.25 / 5

Carne & Caipirinha
Location: Sunset Way, Blk 106 Clementi St 12 #01-50 Singapore 120106
Website

Fei Fei Roasted.Noodle 肥肥烧腊云吞麵

What's there to eat at Jurong East's Yuhua Village Market & Food Centre? Besides its fish soup and porridge stall, Fei Fei Roasted Stall is something I'm looking forward to everytime when I was there. Via words of mouth, people commented that their Wanton noodle is a must try but I have no luck as most of the time they were already close or sold out.

Joining the queue with more than 20 pax in front, it took us about half an hour before ordering. We did a take away and the noodles remained springy. Wanton noodle may have the "Gu Zhao" taste (Taste of the old days) but did not manage to leave a big impression.

Char Siew perhaps is something worth noticing if you prefer a mixture of fats and meat instead of those lean type. If you notice, Fei Fei's Roasted Meat has a good ratio of fats among the meat and the taste reminds me of Char Siew bought directly from the market. Another noteworthy item will be the Wantons which were beautifully wrap in its "tight-fit" skin revealing its shape of minced meat filling.

Wanton Noodle - $3

If you prefer a filling meal, reach out to their plate of rice with roasted meat. In this case, we had Roasted Duck and Char Siew. Roasted Duck was glossy looking and meat was juicy. For those who loves Roasted delicacies, Fei Fei might be one of the better choices among the rest in Jurong East.

Roasted Duck & Char Siew Rice - $4

Rating: 3.25 / 5

Fei Fei Roasted.Noodle
Location: Yuhua Village Market & Food Centre, Blk 254 Jurong East St 24 #01-28 Singapore 600254