Food Tasting at 3 Wise Monkeys

3 Wise Monkeys

Jl. Suryo No. 26

Kebayoran

South Jakarta

Indonesia

Tel: 021-2912-6528

3 Wise Monkeys is a brand new Japanese restaurant in Jakarta.

One day, I am invited to attend its food tasting. Sounds great! 

The 3WM restaurant is located at one of the busiest roads in Jakarta where you can also find many other restaurants to visit to. So, it is a tough business, and the owners of 3WM are brave enough to be very confident in building this kind of business.

As I enter the 3WM building, I feel that it is built in a modern atmosphere. No, you will not find a full Japanese taste here. I can sense that 3WM wants to answer the need of people in Jakarta who want to eat and drink in a Japanese restaurant without leaving that metropolitan taste. So yes, you can hang out with your friends or date your lover here. 

Let me talk about its food now. At the food tasting, the 3WM presents its Kaiseki set. The kinds of food in the set are:

Zensai (appetizer)

Mukozuke (seasonal sashimi) 

Chawan Mushi

Agemono (fried dish) 

Nimono (steam tofu)

Yakimono (grilled seasonal meat)

All the food are delicious! My tongue says that the food have been adjusted into the Indonesian taste. This is good for Indonesian customers.

All the food are delicious! My tongue says that the food have been adjusted into the Indonesian taste. This is good for Indonesian customers.

But hey, let me talk about the food that capture my heart. I really love Yakimono. The meat taste so yummy. The slices of meat come with its sauce, but I prefer to eat them alone without the sauce. The meat itself has tasted so deicious, and adding the sauce will kill its taste. Just my two cents.

Its Chawan Mushi is rich with surprise contents inside it. It is not just an ordinary Chawan Mushi. It is perfect for people who want to eat something above the snack.

My special appreciation goes to its Garlic Rice. The garlic, the salt, the rice and other ingridients have made it perfect! So delicious! My Indonesian tongue can not lie about it. No, it is not in the list of Kaiseki set. The Garlic Rice is presented as a bonus food, but turns out to be my favourite one. Surprise! From here, I can learn that we can plan anything in life, but sometimes unplanned stuffs can be extraordinary too. Life is full with surprises.

Now, let me talk about the drinks here in 3WM. You can forget about Ocha or Green Tea or any other tea. 3WM has great selections of drinks and cocktails. One of them is the Sangria. Fresh, sweet, sour and bitter are inside the Sangria. I can imagine that I am sitting in a beautiful beach looking at the blue sea while drinking it. Oh well, the Sangria successfully brings the beach imagination into my mind ;-D

Overall, 3WM is a good place for eating, drinking and hanging out. You can feel the sense of Japan through the food in 3WM, while grounding your feet in Jakarta - the metropolitan city - through the collections of cocktails in 3WM.

Enjoy your celebration of life!

Find Alumni from Line - the digital reunion

Line - the free messaging, voice and video call platform from Korea, just launched "Find Alumni" feature at its application. It is said that the feature can turn the reunion from traditional way to digital way.

I have that Line app in my iPhone. So let me try to use this feature. 

From my Line app, I just click the "more" button and click "Find Alumni". In the feature, I need to choose Primary School, Middle School, High School or University. So I click University. After finding the name of my university and adding the year of my study, I just click "Add My School". 

Well, I find my university! But the number of people in that category is still six people including me ;-))

Okay, I hope the number will be increased soon.

Line has listed all the schools and universities registered at the Department of Education and Culture. The app also opens the chance for people to add their school if they are not listed yet. 

I am just wondering why there is no specific category by year and faculty at the university field. This could be a good homework for Line.

And I am also wondering how Line can position itself face to face with Facebook that never say it is a reunion app, but it reunites people in reality from the bigger classification, not just school, but also family, business, and many more.

Overall, the Find Alumni feature is quite easy for the users. 

The schools and universities can find it very useful for their database. Instead of making a new column for alumni at their website, they can just link the feature at their website. Simple, easy, fun and free.

On the other side, from all Line features, the one I love the most is Line Camera. You can find my short review about it here: http://astridamalia.blogspot.com/2014/07/photo-applications-on-my-iphone.html

I also like pick, the app from Naver Corporation - a part of the companies that create Line, for sharing fun pictures.

Anyway, enjoy your digital reunion! 

An Evening with the Joy of White

An outdoor lounge.

Quite a hot temperature night.

Some wines.

Some good old and new friends.

What is the best about them? A great time!

I am invited to An Evening with Penfolds Wine event at the Jimbaran Outdoor Lounge of Intercontinental Hotel in Jakarta. I am so glad to receive the invitation as Penfolds is one of the first high end wine that I know when I try to learn about wine sometimes ago. The Australian made Penfolds never fail my taste. At the right time and at the right condition, Penfolds has won a part of my thirst.

In this event, they serve Penfolds Koonunga Hill Chardonnay, Penfolds Koonunga Hill Autumn Riesling, Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet and Penfolds Koonunga Hill Seventy Six Shiraz Cabernet.  

When I smell the Penfolds Koonunga Hill Chardonnay, the white wine is like a lime. Somehow I wonder if the white wine is mixed with a lime juice. The color of the wine is so clear. So clear that I want to jump into the glass and swim there. When I drink it, the white wine tastes so fresh, not too sweet and not too sour. So easy to drink it, just a perfect taste for the night. As it is served chilled, it is like showering my dry throat.

As I try the Penfolds Koonunga Hill Autumn Riesling, all of the smell, the taste and the appearance are even better than the Chardonnay one. The Riesling is great! It is fresh like a lime (again) and is a bit sweet, between fruity and flowery. This is my favorite one! It is served chilled, so it is another refreshment to my throat at that hot night.

I try to pair both of the white wines with chicken and fish. I find that the chicken is a great companion for the white wines. Chewing the chicken with a sip of the white wines, I can feel that the taste of the chicken is upgraded to a new level. How can the white wines do all this magic? I can only look at the wine glass and smile.

On the other side, the red wines that night could not cooperate with the heat around my body. The Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet and the Penfolds Koonunga Hill Seventy Six Shiraz Cabernet taste so bold in my mouth, which is quite good, but I feel that they are too hot for the hot temperature night. Maybe because the red wines are not served chilled. From this, I can learn that eventhough red wine should be served at room temperature, but maybe I can chill it first if I want to drink it in a dry season. Sometimes, breaking the rules can give more joy, right?

At the event, I meet old friends and new friends. We come from different backgrounds, but we agree about one thing that the white wines are the winners at the event. It is a surprise for me, as I always take myself as an ordinary new person in the wine tasting. I do not know much about wine and how to taste it in a correct way. To know that my opinion about the wine is accepted by some wine experts in the event is totally an achievement for me. This encourages me to learn more about the beauty of wine.  

I also learn that, for myself, wine is good to be consumed when I eat some food. As soon as I finish eating my food, I do not find the joy to drink the wine alone. Could this be a sign that wine is the spices for the food I eat? Well, maybe yes.

I am happy to know that I learn about so many things from the great people I meet and from the joy of white I taste. Such a great night!

Welcoming Our Beloved President Joko Widodo & Vice President Jusuf Kalla

20 October 2014.

The day when the Indonesian people celebrate the victory of democracy. The time when the new faces of democracy starts their works on our beloved country.

Congratulation, Joko Widodo and Jusuf Kalla. Good luck on your new journeys!

Congratulation, Indonesia!

With Susi Susanti and Alan Budikusuma, the national badminton champions!

With Richard Sam Bera, the national swimmer and triathlon athlete!     

With Kania Sutisnawinata and Tommy Tjokro, the national news anchors! 

The New Faces of Democracy in Indonesia

Congratulations to the new President of Indonesia Joko Widodo and the new Vice President of Indonesia Jusuf Kalla! May God always bless you from today and forever. You are the new hope for a better Indonesia. Amen!

And I guess, this is the first time in the Indonesian history tthat Indonesian people are really happy to celebrate the new leaders of democracy in Indonesia! 

On the other side, Jokowi, Ahok, and Risma are some of the new reasons for me to love Indonesia more. They are really sincere hard workers who share their true loves to Indonesia by working hard to make sure that humanity, prosperity and equality are restored. Just like what Ahok said, one of the simple ways to love Indonesia and to fight for Indonesia is not to conduct corruption.

By the way, congratulation to the new Governor of Jakarta Basuki Tjahaya Purnama aka Ahok! You are the new hope for a better Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. We also hope that someday you become the next Indonesian president. Amen! 

Whoever you are and whatever you do, let's love and support these new democracy faces in Indonesia. They need our trusts, supports, loves and also our contributions to make a better Indonesia! 

Once again, congratulation, Indonesia! God truly bless our beloved Indonesia! 

Namaste.

(Photo: Courtesy of Google.com)