Avigayil Damm

When the new mall, Pejaten Village just opened last year, my hubby and I went there to check out what is in store. Since it was not fully functional yet (they said it was only a soft opening), not many of the stores were open. At that time, the Matahari department store and Hypermart grocery store were open, with some small stalls selling girlie accessories, a few food stalls in the food court, and some small restaurants including Secret Recipe.

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Ever since I quit my regular job last September, I had more time for myself in hands during the weekdays. So I figured I would change habit and go to my salon on weekdays so I have the weekend free to spend quality time with my hubby. My salon of choice is Lutuye on Wolter Monginsidi street, because I was fortunate enough to find staff whose services were to my satisfaction.

I have noted that my three favourite staff have their days of on Tuesday, so I usually go there on any days but Tuesdays. Normally I would get a cream bath and a manicure and pedicure. That’s a biweekly visit. My monthly visit would normally include a hair dye also.

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Although I love cooking, and don’t really mind spending some extra time in the kitchen if the recipe so calls for it, there also comes a time when I don’t feel like spending too much time in the kitchen. In this case, I turn to my trusty Indofood instant spices collection. Last Saturday was one of those nights, because we came back a little bit late from our monthly grocery shopping.

This time, I used Indofood’s gulai (oriental curry) spice package to cook boneless chicken thighs in. Although the package says it already contains all sorts of spices including coconut milk, I still added some real coconut milk (or as real as UHT processed coconut milk can be). I first fried the chicken to brown them slightly so it does not look too pale, and when it was browned, I added the spice package and stirred it until fragrant. Then, I added some 400 ml of water, really gradually to give some time for the chicken to absorb the spices. When all water was poured and it came to a boil, I added about two tablespoons of the ready made coconut milk and stirred often for a few minutes to prevent it from breaking. In no time, a delicious dinner is served!

Today we went out to Gourmet Garage again in Kemang, as we needed to do some shopping anyway. We tried out some new dishes at their restaurant. My hubby chose the salmon fried rice and I picked the chicken mushroom pasta. Actually, I am not quite sure what the name of my dish was, but basically it had chicken and mushroom with pasta in creamy sauce. If you want to try it out, just look out for the menu description (obviously).

The salmon fried rice was served with some salad and also chilli in soy sauce. My hubby, being a bule with sensitive stomach, he skipped the chilli in soy sauce of course. But I enjoyed it very much although I could only take some two spoons to try out the dish. It tasted like a typical Chinese fried rice actually, which gives this slight smell of burnt rice (in a good way) but does not taste burnt at all. The salmon was a nice touch – it was the first fried rice ever with salmon that I tasted. In fact, it’s the first time I found this type of dish in any restaurant.

As for my dish, it was very tasty as well, but unfortunately since it was served with cream sauce, it was quite heavy. Hence I could not finish the whole dish, but they were kind enough to pack away the rest into a doggy bag. And this time, it was not for Sam, but for my lunch the next day.

My friend – who originally lived in Yogyakarta but had moved to Bandung recently for a new job – and I went out for a girls’ day out today. We wanted to just hang out for some coffee and to catch up. So we ended up at La Codefin, and tried out Black Canon Coffee. They had all sorts of coffee in their menu, but I opted for a blended ice chocolate instead. We weren’t really hungry but could eat something for snack and we chose a menu which I forgot the name of. It’s basically green chilli stuffed with minced chicken.

It was something very unique that I have never seen or tried anywhere else. It was not as hot (spicy) as you would think it would be since it seems they have cleaned out the seeds (although not all of them and I did come across some hot parts). I thought it was quite a nice change from the normal snacks that coffee shops usually offer (bitterballen, sandwiches, french fries, chicken wings, etc.) and I think I am going to get myself another portion of that sometime in the future.