Review - Marche, Icy Blue, Cold Stone, Borobudur Gourmet
I spent this weekend at Hotel Borobudur, which is located at the heart of the capitol city, Jakarta, and I managed to visit Plaza Senayan during my brief stay. So I have several reviews to convey, including the Swiss restaurant Marche, the newly opened fro-yo outlet Icy Blue, Cold Stone's Green Apple Gummy Bear, and finally last-but-not-least, Hotel Borobudur's Borobudur Gourmet Strawberry Cheese cake. I have a thing for cheese cakes and I eat cakes all the time, to the point that I'm kind of scared that the sugar might accumulate and cause diabetes, since diabetes does run in the family, but cakes are my guilty pleasure.
Oh, and also on the note, I bought the October edition of Wallpaper*, but the Karl Lagerfeld cover version was already out of stock. Nonetheless, it's a naked-Baptiste-Giabiconi packed edition. xDDD~
So, first off, Marche. This restaurant is located in Plaza Senayan, P5, which is in the way back part of the building. By the way, they're building an extension to PS. I guess Jakartans have a really high consumptive rate, since it seems every mall nowadays is building extensions. Anyway, back to Marche: it's built in a traditional market style, with fruits, bread, and pasta stacked here and there. Rather hectic, actually, if you decide to eat downstairs. I'd suggest sitting on the 2nd floor mezzanine.
The system is pretty much like any other buffet restaurant, but instead of an all-you-can-eat concept, it's not. They hand you a card that gets stamped for every meal you choose and every stamp has it's worth which has to be paid at the cashier when you're done eating.
My sister and I shared a caesar salad with smoked salmon, smoked beef, and two shrimps, a platter of rosti, and one glass of mixed fruit juice.
The caesar salad was... well, caesar salad, what else do you expect? Lots of green. It's a good thing that we ordered smoked beef to come with it, since the juice of the beef mixed really well with the salad dressing. The salmon was fine, but personally I think they over-did it with lemon juice. The shrimp was awesome. It was relatively quite huge and thick in flesh.
Rosti is somewhat like tatter-tots or hash brown. It's made out of grated potatoes, pressed and toasted. Ours came with a huge sausage and several dressings. The rosti itself was fine, well-cooked, well-done. It's huge, by the way, measuring about 15 cm in diameter and about 2 cm in thickness. The sausage was alright and had cheese in it; it's pretty much like those sausages you can buy at your local supermarket for IDR 45.000 per 5 pieces, but a bit longer.
Mixed juice was mixed juice, nothing much to comment about. Just an extra note, for the three items we had (salad, rosti, and juice) we spent IDR 236.000, which I think is a ridiculous amount. Even though the portions were big and the taste was fine, still I think it's not really worth the price.
Icy Blue is a new frozen yoghurt outlet that is located between Marche and the bowling lane. The trademark of he outlet is the bluish glow that it emanates, which in my personal opinion, makes me feel dizzy. The fro-yo itself? Awful. It tastes like expired milk, instead of yoghurt, and it's really icy. The yoghurt's really thin and doesn't give off much flavor.
On the other hand, Cold Stone's Green Apple was something refreshing. I read that it contains gelatin, but when I asked, they said it was halal, so either it's beef gelatin or they opted for soya lecithin. The texture is unique, thick, chewy, which my sister considers disgusting for ice cream, but I think it's brilliant. It's like eating chewy candy, chilled. It's sweet and sour, in a fresh way. The gummy bears were rather stale though. It costs IDR 25.000 per small cup.
Borobudur Gourmet Strawberry Cheese cake. Hm. The first thing that struck me about the cake was that it had lots of strawberries on top. The next thing was the price. IDR 30.000 for 1/10 of a 7" cake. Pricey. But it was dressed nicely, with plastic wrappings and all. The texture was extremely thick, but soft. It tasted creamy enough, and the cheese was recognizable. I think they used milk, because the taste was thicker than most cheese cakes out there. The trademark of the cake is the use of shortcake instead of biscuits for the base. The shortcake is moistened using a sugary solution with a fermented sizzle to it, but it's not rum. The chocolate cookie that sticks to the cake ends up a bit stale, though, due to the moisture, I guess. For takeaways, the cake comes in a foldable, red box with the name Borobudur Gourmet printed upon it.
Oh, and also on the note, I bought the October edition of Wallpaper*, but the Karl Lagerfeld cover version was already out of stock. Nonetheless, it's a naked-Baptiste-Giabiconi packed edition. xDDD~
So, first off, Marche. This restaurant is located in Plaza Senayan, P5, which is in the way back part of the building. By the way, they're building an extension to PS. I guess Jakartans have a really high consumptive rate, since it seems every mall nowadays is building extensions. Anyway, back to Marche: it's built in a traditional market style, with fruits, bread, and pasta stacked here and there. Rather hectic, actually, if you decide to eat downstairs. I'd suggest sitting on the 2nd floor mezzanine.
The system is pretty much like any other buffet restaurant, but instead of an all-you-can-eat concept, it's not. They hand you a card that gets stamped for every meal you choose and every stamp has it's worth which has to be paid at the cashier when you're done eating.
My sister and I shared a caesar salad with smoked salmon, smoked beef, and two shrimps, a platter of rosti, and one glass of mixed fruit juice.
The caesar salad was... well, caesar salad, what else do you expect? Lots of green. It's a good thing that we ordered smoked beef to come with it, since the juice of the beef mixed really well with the salad dressing. The salmon was fine, but personally I think they over-did it with lemon juice. The shrimp was awesome. It was relatively quite huge and thick in flesh.
Rosti is somewhat like tatter-tots or hash brown. It's made out of grated potatoes, pressed and toasted. Ours came with a huge sausage and several dressings. The rosti itself was fine, well-cooked, well-done. It's huge, by the way, measuring about 15 cm in diameter and about 2 cm in thickness. The sausage was alright and had cheese in it; it's pretty much like those sausages you can buy at your local supermarket for IDR 45.000 per 5 pieces, but a bit longer.
Mixed juice was mixed juice, nothing much to comment about. Just an extra note, for the three items we had (salad, rosti, and juice) we spent IDR 236.000, which I think is a ridiculous amount. Even though the portions were big and the taste was fine, still I think it's not really worth the price.
Icy Blue is a new frozen yoghurt outlet that is located between Marche and the bowling lane. The trademark of he outlet is the bluish glow that it emanates, which in my personal opinion, makes me feel dizzy. The fro-yo itself? Awful. It tastes like expired milk, instead of yoghurt, and it's really icy. The yoghurt's really thin and doesn't give off much flavor.
On the other hand, Cold Stone's Green Apple was something refreshing. I read that it contains gelatin, but when I asked, they said it was halal, so either it's beef gelatin or they opted for soya lecithin. The texture is unique, thick, chewy, which my sister considers disgusting for ice cream, but I think it's brilliant. It's like eating chewy candy, chilled. It's sweet and sour, in a fresh way. The gummy bears were rather stale though. It costs IDR 25.000 per small cup.
Borobudur Gourmet Strawberry Cheese cake. Hm. The first thing that struck me about the cake was that it had lots of strawberries on top. The next thing was the price. IDR 30.000 for 1/10 of a 7" cake. Pricey. But it was dressed nicely, with plastic wrappings and all. The texture was extremely thick, but soft. It tasted creamy enough, and the cheese was recognizable. I think they used milk, because the taste was thicker than most cheese cakes out there. The trademark of the cake is the use of shortcake instead of biscuits for the base. The shortcake is moistened using a sugary solution with a fermented sizzle to it, but it's not rum. The chocolate cookie that sticks to the cake ends up a bit stale, though, due to the moisture, I guess. For takeaways, the cake comes in a foldable, red box with the name Borobudur Gourmet printed upon it.