GONI COFFEE KEMANG - JAKARTA

This new coffee shop caught my attention straight away as my friend posted a photo of this particular on her Instagram. I've always have that thing for coffee shops and I found them really sexy in the most delicious and curious ways, there's something about the smell of coffee that's very addicting and comforting, it's almost like you can't have enough of them.

Goni, which by the way means gunnysack in English is this petite and humble coffee shop located in Jalan Kemang Selatan 1 in South Jakarta. I don't exactly know the philosophy behind the naming, except for the fact that gunnysack is the material used to carry the coffee beans, polish it a bit and gunnysack represents who they are: strong and confident with their products, needs to be covered gently as they have good products :). Based on my experience and self-proclaimed "research", I found that most of the best coffee shops are actually located in the South, including Crematology which Argam, one of the owners used to spend his time interning in. Goni might be petite but I won't use the word "cute" to describe it because it's the least thing that's equivalent with a coffee shop in my standard, but I love the ambiance about it, I love it even more for the fact that they're actually located around the Bajaj station, there's something very ethnic, local, unique, vintage and original about it.

For the coffee, they're currently focusing on the Bali Kintamani house blend, which by the way is the ultimate tag team with cappuccino and Padang Solok (this one I never tried before).

Here they do not serve main courses, they just provide light bites like pastries and cakes, well if only you consider croissants light.

Knowing that they're using Bali Kintamani house blend, that means ordering cappuccino (IDR 35k/hot) is a freaking must and yes it was beautiful. I love the coffee as the flavor is rich and with tolerable acidity. I also tried their Iced version of cappuccino (IDR 40k) and theirs was a little unique because they actually blend the cappuccino along with one scoop of vanilla ice cream, and the result? A good comforting-almost must have-drink to fight the day heat.

I tried their banana cake and I wouldn't recommend it to you as it's not my favorite, the texture was not solid and tend to stay apart after every cut.

Overall, I must say that Goni is a strong contender to the coffee shops in Jakarta. The place might be petite but their quality isn't exactly, and it's probably the fact that the owners both spent a couple of their years in Sydney (which by the way serves amazing coffee). It's good to know that there's FINALLY another decent place that sells good coffee despite selling the venue or location. Welcome to the jungle you guys and good luck!

Goni Coffee
Jalan Kemang Selatan I No. 20
(located at the Bajaj station, near HERO and Antipodean)
Kemang, Jakarta Selatan 12730
0815 1304 6461
email: hello@gonicoffee.com
Opening Hours:
Mon-Sat: 7 AM - 5 PM
Sunday: 8 AM - 5 PM
Pricing: $
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Map for Jalan Kemang Selatan 1

YING THAI PANTAI INDAH KAPUK JAKARTA

I don't really put that much care and attention when I first heard that little chaotic situation between this particular Ying Thai that I am reviewing with the one in Melbourne. There has been some "he said she said" thing going on, but I chose not to give a damn, because honestly, what I really care about is the food and that's what makes me feel happy.

Ying Thai is a Thai restaurant located in Pantai Indah Kapuk and soon enough declaring itself as one of the leading Thai restaurant in the neighborhood. This restaurant was quite spacious and me quite fond of their interior design, it's just my favorite: simple, proper with a little twist of playfulness and quirkiness from the mural illustration making it not only a good family restaurant, but also for the younger generation to dine and date here as well. I came here during lunch time and it wasn't very packed, their peak hour is during the dinner service.

Melbournians should know about this!

Their menu is (definitely) dominated with Thai cuisine, authentic with a little twist of adaptation to the local's palate (that's how I smartly explain it HAHA). Even though most of the menu is the sharing portion, but there are also the personal menus like fried rice and the good old Pad Thai.

Kiwi Lychee Tea
IDR 39k
This was for me, the ultimate thrist quencher that day. I love how refreshing this beverage was, sweet with a little hint of sour and fruity.

Yakult Blend
IDR 39k
Short to say, a Yakult smoothie. Flavor wise, rich Yakult flavor and not too milky for my taste bud.

Pla Lard Prik
IDR 69k
Pla Lard Prik is a traditional Thai dish of deep fried fish fillet with sweet and sour Tamarind sauce. I expected more sour from the sauce and personally since I couldn't handle crazy spicy stuff (and this is freaking spicy), I hope they could tone it down, but other than that, the fish was deep fried appropriately leaving the coating to be a little gooey and the fish was smooth and fresh. The sauce was tasty enough for me and fit the character of the fish pretty decently.

Gai Hor Bai Toey
IDR 39k
Gai Hor Bai Toey is actually the Thailand naming for "Pandan Chicken" and this Pandan Chicken from Ying Thai was beautiful! The marinated chicken wrapped in Pandan leaves and deep fried altogether. The benefit of using Pandan leaves is to have the aroma and essence of the Pandan leaves on the chicken so the chicken could be more fragrant and flavorful. I love how they cooked it in a good temperature leaving the chicken to be completely tender, not greasy. Flavor wise, it's a good balance between sweet, savory and smokey.

Som Tum Talay
IDR 32k
Som Tum is Thai's incredibly famous papaya salad, the character of Som Tum dish should be a damn good balance of sweet and sour and in away, fresh! I was glad that Ying Thai managed to create their own good version of their own Som Tum with seafood.

Yum Sam Grop
IDR 49k
This particular dish was my personal favorite and I highly recommend this to you all. It was an exciting Thai salad with prawn and salad as their main condiments, the highlight must be the crispy pork skin and I suggest not taking too long to photograph or else the crispiness will disappear. Overall, this was a beautiful flavorful dish, and I love the beautiful balance between the sweet and tanginess <3.

Ox Tounge Grapow
IDR 65k
This is their take on Gyu Tan Don but of course with Thai twist with the usage of deep fried basil leaves. The ox tounge was seasoned beautifully and the meat was tender enough for my liking. Again it's pretty spicy for my tastebud and I did expect the overall consistency to be a little moist, probably by adding more sauce on the rice, but that's just my personal preference, others might like it just how it is.

Tom Yum Seafood
IDR 49k
It's hard to find good Tom Yum in Jakarta, frankly speaking, this Tom Yum seafood from Ying Thai is the closest to my standard (or even on my standard). The soup was incredibly flavorful: spicy and tangy and you really-really need to have it while it's searing hot. I expected more generous seafood in the portion but for a IDR 50k and what I got, this was a good deal!

Thai Cassava with Coconut Sauce
Still my favorite Thai dessert! Ying Thai's version had decent texture (without being soggy) and the coconut milk sauce was the bomb to everything on the portion.

I browsed through their menu and they had so many menus, and based on what I experienced on my lunch time, I am so coming back for more. I wasn't disappointed with the food, there were just some minor issues (like the portion) but didn't really matter much on how I value the overall performance. The pricing wasn't bad as well, it was pretty worth it and the service was also good!

Short to say, it's not only a good place for you to dine, it's also a good place for you to hangout, not so many people actually hangout in Thai restaurant but this one just got the ambiance for it.

Ying Thai
Ruko Crown Golf Blok B No. 8-9
Pantai Indah Kapuk, Jakarta Utara 14470
021 - 2952 5756
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Map for Rukan Crown Golf

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EATANDTREATS! FREE CURVE SUNDAY: BLUTRO & POPPYLOVE AND HOW TO SAVE PHOTOSHOP CURVE

Photo credit: Google, Cereal Magazine

TODAY IS EATANDTREATS SECOND BIRTHDAY!!!

Flashing back, I get a little overwhelmed right now, especially when I realize how blessed I have been along the journey with eatandtreats. So many good things have been happening and so many chances (even those I never expected) were given. God has been seriously good to me in my life and I always in need to share happiness with others. Trust me, the most worth it thing in this life is to do good, people!

As I wouldn't retype how I started the blog and my first year journey, you can read it HERE. Simply because I don't want to bore people with my story and I hope you won't ever. PS: you're going to find a skinnier version of me and how bad Blogspot has compressed my photos! Always realize everything at last tsk!

I honestly just got back from Bakerzin Plaza Indonesia to buy a mini cake to take pics for, a birthday without a cake is just a reunion, and when you're alone, it's nothing, and when I got back, unexpectedly, the cake slipped to the side of the box and stuck there, I got so pissed off that I threw the cake to the rubbish bin! It's such a freaking effort driving from home to PI (and literally just buy the goddamn cake) and went back to realize it was just time-wasting! The cake was pretty tho, forgot the name but it's this chocolate mousse cake with passionfruit layer in the middle T_______T.

I have been receiving quite a few emails and social media greetings from readers who actually remembered this day before I announce it on Instagram just a while ago. Seriously, I got touched knowing that this blog matters to some people and they do read it. I have been losing the urge to write because it came that I don't know if people still read words or they just want to look at the photos, but I always have this in mind whenever I am feeling that mini meltdown: "Whatever, Hans, whatever! The number one reason you you write this blog is for your own pleasure, and that's the reason why people start reading your blog!" and that's why I am always passionate about writing a post and probably 90% of the posts are always long.

Up until today, even though it's a fact (not to be arrogant, and I always tell you whenever I got featured somewhere) that I got exposed by a lot of medias, I still manage to feel like myself, I never stop cursing if something's really good or bad, I always write things how I want it to be even though I know that I don't have the perfect English vocab or grammar, and I know I always maintain to be... myself :), and I am so fucking proud of it!!!

Okay enough with the compliments and praises this ain't eatandtreats ad wtf, but seriously, thank you guys for following me through the years and trust me, this is just the beginning and a lot of more beautiful gorgeous amazing spectacular and all those term finer that finest will be happening to me. Thanks to you, you guys change certain parts of my life :").

AND HERE'S THE FUN PART!!!

As what I've promised you, I am giving away samples of free Photoshop curves created by me that could help you increase the beauty and enhance the feature of your photos but of course I'm not sharing you all secrets hence everyone will have my signature tone. I want you guys to do good but somewhere below me but not that insignificant *smirk*.

Since last week I missed giving you the curve (I was in Bali and it's really hard to open your laptop when you're travelling), I am giving you not one, but two freaking Photoshop curves and even better, they're FREE!

The first picture on the above was edited with simply a layer of "Blutro" curve and here's the before and after picture:

BEFORE

AFTER

Blue-ish color, fixed highlight and contrast with a little cross processed touch! Love this curve!

I'm going to tell you upfront that I love dreamy vintage faded tones and you're going to see that a lot every Sunday, well each person has their own preference about the photos and the mood and it's going to be seen in their pics, but I hope you're gonna like the colors! The Blutro curve has this blue-ish faded look with mild blue shadow resulting your pictures covered with soft and subtle highlight. I tried applying it and I found the effect works best on photos with heavy-blurred background and photos will major black or white areas as it's the 'it' key of faded tones!

Another example to show you how nice the curve works on black and white background.

I am setting the tone to 100% so this is the heaviest the effect is, but remember there's always the "opacity" setting so you can custom how you like the strength to be.

BEFORE

AFTER

Photo courtesy: Cereal Magazine

BEFORE

AFTER

Photo courtesy: Google

BEFORE

AFTER

BEFORE

AFTER

Bonus: POPPYLOVE PHOTOSHOP CURVE

This is the bonus of the week to redeem last week's absence. I am also loving this curve of mine (what?) called Poppylove, again it will give you faded retro look but still very very mild and subtle - I believe less is more - and you're going to have this crushed blue and green colors resulting grey-ish tone, soft highlight and shadows and I learned that it worked best on outdoor photos, underexposured photos and also heavy-blurred background (as always).

BEFORE 

 AFTER

BEFORE

 AFTER

Please keep in mind that editing a photo is not only about applying a filter, you also need to do some minor personal adjustments like brightness, contrast or saturation :).

To download the Blutro curve, click HERE

To download the Poppylove curve, click HERE

HOW TO SAVE, INSTALL AND LOAD PHOTOSHOP CURVES
Hereby, I am also showing you the tutorial on how to install the downloaded curves to Photoshop and trust me they're easy.

First, you're going to have to close the Photoshop application because eventually you're going to restart the app.

1. After you download the curves, go to your assigned "Downloads" folder, mine is the default one and then "copy" the files.

If you're having the difficulties finding where it is, right after you download the file, there will be a new bar on top of the taskbar, click on the arrow and "Open File Location" and after you find the files, "copy" them.

2. Now we're going to paste the files, but make sure you know where you locate the "Adobe Photoshop" file, but mostly it's going to be on the Drive C:, and please make sure if your computer is either 32 or 64 bit.

The path should be like this -> Local Disk (C:) -> Program Files (or Program Files (X86) for 32 bits) -> Adobe -> Adobe Photoshop CS(your number series) -> Presets -> Curves and copy the curves to this.

3. Start the Adobe Photoshop app and the curves should be stored!

HAVE FUN PLAYING WITH COLORS!

For the previous tutorial on VSCOCam Photoshop Tutorial -> HERE

Once again, thank you guys for sticking to eatandtreats. I have so many upcoming projects and great news, it's just that I can't share them right now because they're all big and secrets! I can't thank you enough how thankful I am because of God and you my lovely readers/friends, as well as how I can't emphasize my gratitude enough! THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

And for you readers and dislikers out there, stop wasting your time to underestimate me, because you're just making fun of yourself and your lame life. If you want to achieve something, work on it instead of talking shits about others, now you can suck on this *pointing at my balls*. You might think that I am just this pale Chinese boy with nothing but white skin and small eyes, but trust me, in real life, I am way whiter in the best way!!! MWAHAHAHA!

Make love, not war!

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email: eatandtreatsindo@gmail.com

EGGO WAFFLE JAKARTA

I have always been a huge fan of pancakes and waffles, not to mention cakes, breads, pastries oh shit that's everything! I heard about this snack from a friend but it wasn't this particular brand that I am talking here and for some reasons I got excited to try it and I did last week! I have heard amazing reviews from some of my friends telling me that this might be the best in town, but rumors are rumors before I actually tried it.

As you can see on the title, I am talking about EGGO Waffle! They have several outlets spread in Mall of Indonesia (MOI), Living World Alam Sutera, Summarecon Mal Bekasi but I went to their outlet in Mal Kelapa Gading 3, not because it's the closest but it's more like...the only option -.-". It's located just below Zara on the LG level, for some it might be isolated, but I think they're genius with the location. It's located strategically in between the entrance and access from the LG parking area and also the first thing you'll see smell right when you take the escalator down to the LG, smells annoyingly delicious everyone's going to cheat!

The venue wasn't spacious but it's not small either, and FYI this is their only outlet where you can actually dine-in, the others are more like island-outlets. The reason behind the naming (Eggo) was the fact that egg is the main ingredient used to make the waffles and you can't have too much eggs (well at least me). They currently have 10 flavors but since I finally realized my tummy actually has a freaking limit so I tried four...and four is quite a lot. If you want to customize your creations you can add up an ice cream topping for IDR 25k/scoop, they're using Spiky Smooth ice cream and you can choose between Hazelnut, Cookies and Cream, Matcha, Peanut Butter, Durian, Cream Cheese and Choco Milo.

PS: The creations already include one scoop of ice cream as the serving side and you can choose not to include the ice cream and get some "k"s waived off your bill.

Cherry on Top
IDR 42k
What makes this waffle special was the fact that they're using the Black Forest infused flavor with choco chips, completed by rum and raisin with literally cherry on top. Okay, I gotta give it to the texture of the waffle: AMAZING. For normal Belgian waffles, I usually love the crispier ones but as the physical appearance of this particular waffle was different, I like the round ones chewy and moist and that's what they are. The rum, black-foresty flavor was pretty rich but not overpowering. In default, this was served with cream cheese ice cream, but you can change it if you want and I did change it to Choco Milo flavor, the ice cream wasn't bad but I need bolder chocolate flavor I guess.

Half and Half
IDR 43k

The Half and Half was unique because there were two flavors in a portion: chocolate and vanilla egg waffle. However, there were chocolate chips inside both waffles, topped with skippy jam, almonds and dressed in chocolate sauce (the chocolate sauce was so good, premium-like) and served with peanut butter ice cream! I prefer the vanilla flavor to the chocolate, because remembering the condiments on this portion, the vanilla flavor really evolves that one whole bite of waffle, peanut butter jam, chocolate sauce, and peanut butter ice cream to a burst of flavor, and for some reasons, the vanilla waffle smelled so damn good, and yes better than the chocolate. I am not saying that the chocolate's bad, not at all, also yummy but I love the mixture of vanilla and chocolate. Recommended!

Firefloss
The Firefloss waffle was the more from the savory side of the creations and this was very simple, literally spicy floss inside the vanilla waffle and as simple as that resulting this very yummy moist chewy unforgettable waffle, and you might think that I rave so much about the waffles but I am not lying right now (not even an ad wtf), it's just simple but tasty (and quite spicy).

Pandan Waffle
The pandan waffle had this rich and bold pandan flavor which I quite like, but if they could tone down the pandan flavor just a little bit this would be even better for me. I adore their instinct of putting in kaya jam inside the waffle because the mixture of the pandan flavor and kaya jam felt just right! Shit I am getting hungry right now typing this!

The society (or life in general) is really funny because what's trending is really fast growing. I don't really know who bring this trend to Jakarta but I don't really care about trend as it comes and goes, but I do care about those who put more effort with the quality so they could have loyal fans who don't get too starstrucked with the trend. I could see good things happening to Eggo as quality wise, I think they have it, they just have to maintain it.

Either for the sake of bonding with the trend, Instagram purpose or whatever that is, you should try Eggo, at least for once.

Eggo Waffle
Mal Kelapa Gading 3 - LG level
Jl. Boulevard Kelapa Gading
Kelapa Gading, Jakarta Utara 14240
Opening Hours: 10 AM - 10 PM
Price: $, ranging from IDR 25k - IDR 45k
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Map for Mal Kelapa Gading