BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: GONG XI FA CHAI!

In case you're wondering, the photo above was edited using my "Bluedrue" tone and I intentionally added the grains on the Photoshop, hence it's very grainy but I love it! 

This is a random post, I just want to show you some of the pics that I took a couple of days ago a day before Chinese New Year and hereby I also want to say:

GONG XI FA CHAI BITCHES EVERYONE!

Truthfully, everyone's a bitch, me included

I do hope that this year, your positive value will be better and better! Sometimes bad is not always bad, but you know your "enough" value or when enough is enough.

Anyway, thanks Kempinski Jakarta for this cute cupcakes! Good luck with Sweet Boutique, I am sad tho that Kempi Deli is moving out </////3

...and thank you Looks Magazine for sending me this cake from Bakerzin!

Some of the BIG feast that we had for the CNY eve dinner. I cooked everything with mom and trust me there's a lot more! It's just that I shot this for Instagram and swear on the square (first world's problem!)

again,

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!

hope you're having a fabulous one!

Cheers everyone for the best of luck!

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email: eatandtreatsindo@gmail.com

LING LING JAKARTA

Recently, I feel like the Dim Sum hype is being more lifted up with the existence of more modern Chinese restaurant. In the last couple of months, I've seen quite a few new restaurants opening and most of them concentrated on the Dim Sum service, some prefer ala carte and some provides All You Can Eat (AYCE) service. Just last night, I had my dinner at this new establishment named Ling Ling located in Mega Kuningan, so was it a mesmerizing dinner? Keep reading.

Ling Ling is located in The East building in Mega Kuningan. First of all, the hallway to reach Ling Ling wasn't the most grand, since The East is actually an office tower and for lack of better word: boring, but once you reach Ling Ling, in a sudden you feel like seeing something pretty and somewhere smells so damn nice (heard they even sell the room fragrance), it just reminds you of this cool elegant Chinese scent and it happened to match the pretty interior as well, they just opened last night and currently they only serve dinner, but next week they'll open for lunch so if you're an Instagrammer who desperately need a better lighting you can come here next week!

The interior was quite simple but nicely designed with a lot of touch of warm and neutral from the wood application and since I came for dinner it was quite dim (and for some reasons I liked it). I am not very sure if they have separated smoking areas, but they do have two VIP rooms where you can be served with a personal butler but of course there's a minimum charge policy.

I love this corner seating, if you come in 10, you should sit here and it's a little more private as well as it's being separated with this standing weld curtain and this is not their VIP so there's no minimum charge.

VIP ROOMS!

They have DJ performances every Friday and Saturday

I don't want to compare Ling Ling to Pao Pao because I feel they're a little bit different in terms of food concept, Pao Pao is currently serving Dim Sum and a couple of Chinese comfort food but Ling Ling has wider range of menu and wider venue, even though they still put Dim Sum as their main menu here, but here you can also find some delightful Chinese cuisines such as Aromatic Duck, a lot of Pork dishes, beef and more!

Since I came with my friends and some of their Chinese menu wasn't quite available yet, we decided to share the Dim Sum! Their Dim Sum starts from IDR 25k to IDR 45k, I think I remember the most expensive supposed to their Chong Fan with Wagyu (correct me if I am wrong), but unfortunately it wasn't available on my visit </3.

Mango and Basil

IDR 40k

This was a quite refreshing drink. I love the Mango flavor and even though I expected that extra kick of Basil (considering I love one and some people may not), but I think this drink had quite a good balance!

Cloud and Mist
IDR 55k
Despite the dreamy name, it's actually Chinese tea. Mild and fragrant and it's also refillable. Now this is very Chinese.

Chicken Siumai
IDR 25k
Appreciate the fact that they cooked the Siumai in a decent temperature resulting this chewy, bouncy and juicy dish. The filling was seasoned nicely and of course it's best served hot as it's still juicy and that extract and broth is a sign of a good moist siumai!

They gave us three dipping (or eventually not so dipping) sauces to accompany the Dimsum: it's the sweet sauce, the spicy sauce and the more savory one. My favorite has got the be spicy one as I love that extra kick, the sweet sauce was just okay and the savory one was quite decent.

Chicken Feet
IDR 25k
This was one of my favorites of the night. I am always impressed with restaurants that served good Chicken feet as it might not be a total rocket science but unfortunately I've experienced a lot of fails </3, but this one was incredibly good with amazing seasoning, very smooth chicken feet and even the bones were soft. They set the default spiciness at "mild" as you can always add in that little spicy kick.

Har Gao
IDR 25k
Beautifully cooked Har Gao with proper amount of prawn filling and beautiful seasoning.

Sprill Roll
IDR 35k
For me, this was the winning dish of the night! The Sprill Roll was AMAZING in terms of flavor! I super love how they drizzle and infuse the rolls with Truffle oil (and I mean quite generously) because it was so fragrant! The filling (I think it was chicken, prawn and mushroom) was quite generous as well. Perfectly cooked, perfectly executed this one you MUST TRY!

Prawn Beancurd Chongfan
IDR 30k
The Chongfan was not a disappointment either! It looked to me like a Twister Dough covered in Chong Fan and drizzled in the soy sauce. The filling was prawn and beancurd and again it was beautifully seasoned. The Twister Dough had this crispiness but goeyness as well but yes, you gotta have it with the soy sauce.

Onde Sesame, Onde Salted Egg Custard
IDR 25k each
For the sweet menus, I think this was the fucking BOMB! I couldn't decide which one my favorite one was out of two because they're equally NICE! The filling wasn't your typical paste or cream like, it's actually a little more liquidy, only thicker. The Sesame filling was OMG so beautiful I could die but I don't know how to explain it, if only the sesame was a fruit, this was like their puree. The Salted Egg custard was also annoyingly delicious! Even though I wasn't quite fond of the butter flavor (the filling was salted egg with butter), the Salted egg was creamy, sweet with that signature salted egg flavor (imagine) and somehow rich. LOVE LOVE!

Mango Pudding
IDR 60k
This was the dessert: Mango Pudding with Pomelo Sago and Granita. I was fond of the texture and flavor play from the Granita, the pudding and the pomelo sago, there's just something icy and freezy. Flavor wise, it was ok. I found the pudding flavor to be a little milky for my palate.

Must admit it was quite an enjoyable dinner. I didn't have any complaint to the food, service or the venue or whatever that is. The food was good, the company was even better! Together we spent around IDR 420k for everything (including tax) and yeah it's quite worth it for all the goodness that we experienced. I would love to come back for more and I bet it will be full in just a short so you better do the freaking reservation!

Ling Ling
The East Building GF
Jl. Lingkar Mega Kuningan Blok E3.2 Kav. 1
Kuningan, Jakarta Selatan 12950
021 - 2554 2707/2708
Opening Hours: 6 PM - 12 AM
info@maisonling.com
WEBSITE | #linglingjakarta

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email: eatandtreatsindo@gmail.com

Map for The East

VINTAGE TONE PHOTOSHOP TUTORIAL

One of the highly requested blog post is this particular tutorial. I have been receiving so many questions (and *ahem* compliments) about the tone that I am applying for the pictures on the blog and Instagram, but truth be told, I am not 100% satisfied with my works because my blog concentrated on restaurant reviews and each restaurant has different setting and lighting situation and for some reasons, what I had in mind about the pictures can't always be translated as how I wanted them to be, I can't always shoot with natural daylight because some restaurants don't even have the sunlight access. Aside from that, I am still having so much fun tho!

So many of you ask me how to create a Vintage tone on Photoshop. I love creating filters using Photoshop and I have almost one hundred color settings in my drive. I can't help not making more because it's almost like a challenge and on top of all, I AM HAVING SO MUCH FUN! The downside is that at some cases, it's like another challenge to actually set my heart on the filter that I REALLY wanted on a single photo because I could be loving 3-4 post-filtered ones! Anyway, here I am showing you the most simple one, but the most simple doesn't mean the bad ones. I've been using this tone setting a lot!

Hey it's Chinese New Year and I am thinking about doing something good, the least I can do (online) is to teach you guys this tutorial. Anyway, Happy Chinese New Year bitches!

I am using this picture that I took at Publik Markette and I am going to transform the photo from this...

to this!

ENOUGH YAKKING, LET'S GET STARTED!
For me, Vintage tone means something classic, a bit old-school but on top of that, dreamy with that beautiful sense of warmth and cool and I am trying to translate this using my style and I believe that each person has their own style, but I do hope you'll love this tutorial, changes are always easy to make and you can always set everything depending on your standard.

1. I feel like certain areas of my photo is quite dark, so I am pushing the brightness and contrast up! I set the brightness to (+20) and contrast (+15), and to get that old photo look, I desaturate the photo to (-30).

After brightness (+20), contrast (+15) and desaturate (-30)

2. Create a new fill layer and type in the number "B2B2B2" in the box, then set the blending mode to "Hard Light" and set the opacity to "30%". This to create that soft misty faded look. I honestly starting to feel and lovin that vintage faded look. If you're satisfied enough, you can stop here :p.

3. Create a new level layer and adjust the numbers to your settings. I only adjust the settings for the RGB, Red and Blue. After this, your photo will turn very blue and purple-ish, but don't worry you're on the right track!

4. Create a new fill layer and type in the number "A25DA1" in the box, you'll have a layer of purple-pinkish color fill and change the blending mode to 20% and set the opacity to "20". Again, your photo will appear purple-ish and slightly faded.

5. Create a new level layer and adjust the numbers to your settings. I only adjust the settings for the RGB for contrast and Blue for the tonal setting. This following step will transform your photo to have this warmer undertone: yellow with the touch of green.

6. Create a new fill layer and type in the number "575245" in the box, this will create a greyish tone with a touch of brown (for some reasons didn't show up on the screen), set the blending mode to "Soft Light" and set the opacity to "40%".

7. This is the final touch! Create a new fill layer and type in the number "2F4660" in the box to create this blue color fill, set the blending mode to "Lighten" and set the opacity to "60%", this will make the shadow area layered by the moody blue color and added that extra magic touch!

I finished everything by managing all the setting in one group (drag the whole thing into the group) to make the overall opacity setting much much easier.

Here are some of the sample photos that I edited using this vintage tone, but I didn't always set the opacity to 100% because each picture has different amount of lighting, shadows and highlights, but it obviously works better on the daylight!

Opacity 80%

Opacity 50%

Opacity 70%

Opacity 65%

Opacity 80%

Opacity 50%

Opacity 80%

Opacity 70%

Opacity 75%

Opacity 80%

Opacity 60%. I love the tone for portraits!

Opacity 90%

Opacity 100%

Gosh I miss Sydney lights like A LOT! I barely put any effort to shoot </3

Remember, the key is basically play around with the settings! Exploring is a part of experimenting and trust me if you're into editing, this is so much fun, and you could probably find your soul and style ;).

GOOD LUCK AND THANKS FOR READING! If you're satisfied with my tone, show me because it's exciting and I am very happy knowing people are using my tone to edit their pictures. I don't need you to credit me or what, but if you can show me your works (by emailing or tagging me on Instagram), that would be very nice of you guys :).

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