Kontemporary1 • 컨템포러리1

Kontemporary1 (컨템포러리1) also known as Kontemporary Koffee is a small gallery cafe located in the hip neighborhood of Hannam-dong (한남동). The unique space serves as a coffee shop as well as a space for art exhibition that changes from time to time. Opened in September 2018, I remember the cafe went viral on social media for its famous big painting-like revolving glass door as well as its unique interior. If you’re looking for a cafe with unique furnitures, you definitely want to check this place out because they have furnitures made out of wooden panels that are cut in various different shapes that are assembled together to create shelves and furnitures that look like art pieces from a museum (which is very fitting for the concept of the space).

Kontemporary1 also has one of the best milk tea I’ve ever had in the city. It has the perfect sweetness and hints of orange peel, floral, and pineapple (they gave me a card with the flavor notes which was a very nice touch). I thoroughly enjoyed it and it’s definitely one of the more memorable great milk tea I’ve had in Seoul.

Note: Pictures were taken before the pandemic.

 

Kontemporary1 • 컨템포러리1

Address: 서울 용산구 이태원로54길 48
Telephone: 010-2606-0139
Hours: Everyday 12:30 pm - 09:00 pm

Instagram: @kontemporary_koffee

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Penn Deli

Say hello to Penn Deli, a newly opened cafe in South Jakarta brought to you by the same team who brought you Penn Restaurant that’s located in the same building one floor above it. Penn Deli opened its door to the public just last week, offering fresh-baked pastries, sliced cakes as well as delicious sandwiches inspired by New York City’s delis. The small cafe that’s neatly decorated with hip modern artworks and wooden furnitures accommodates about 12 people or so and is a prefect place for a weekend brunch if you’re looking for a great sandwich selections.

The Ambience

I love the design of the place. My favorite part is probably their menu boards which were reminiscent of one of those broadway signs and retro movie marquees in New York. The interior feels very hip and modern yet nostalgic at the same time. The one thing about their relatively small space is that the AC was way too cold for me personally. I visited during a hot sunny day and I was freezing inside. I guess it’s a good thing if you like cooler space, but for me, the temperature could’ve been turned up a notch.

The Sandwiches

Penn Deli’s hero menu is their sandwich selections which are available in limited quantity daily and usually sold out fast. I tried two of them and I can understand why they’re proud of their sandwiches.

Broadway Sandwich (155K Full Portion/83K Half Portion) | 8.5/10

Sliced steak, grilled onions, pickled jalapeño and cheese. This was my favorite menu from my visit. The steak was tender, cooked nicely, and was cut in perfect bite size. Add that to the combination of grilled onions, cheese and the sauce, my first bite was heavenly. It was super flavorful and juicy and everything works together really well. I also really like the sauce. Not sure what it’s made out of but it tasted like barbecue sauce with an asian twist (like sweet onion teriyaki sauce maybe?). It was really good.

The Park Ave Sandwich (95K Full Portion/53K Half Portion) | 7/10

Grilled chicken, pesto, tomato and cheese. Overall, this was also good. The pesto really was the main hero of the dish. The juicy tomato gave it a fresh note to the bite so that the pesto is no too overwhelming. Took off points because the chicken is a little dry for my taste. But overall, a solid sandwich.

Strawberry Danish (25k)

S’mores Cake (65K)

Butter cake, cracker, chocolate ganache, and marshmallow meringue. The portion of their sliced cake is pretty big. It’s probably good for 2-3 people to be honest. The s’mores cake is a little too sweet for my taste, but it might be perfect if you’re having it with a coffee.

 

Penn Deli

Address: Jl. Wolter Monginsidi No.25, Jakarta Selatan, DKI Jakarta 12180, Indonesia
Telephone: +6282299996366
Hours: Weekdays 09:00 am - 09:00 pm | Sat & Sun 08:00 am - 09:00 pm

Instagram: @penndeli

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Jakarta Vlog 01 - Monsieur Spoon PIK & ABC Cooking Studio PIK Avenue Mall

It’s been a while since my last time vlogging in Jakarta. But on this day, I was going to hang out with my friend, Winda, and we had a couple of things we’re going to do so I thought it’d be fun to vlog the day. So this was my first attempt after a long while to vlog/blog again.

The day started kind of early for me. I was suppose to meet her at 10.30 but ended up running about fifteen minutes late because I couldn’t fall asleep and ended up falling asleep at 4.30 am the night before (or I should say early that morning). I’m one of those people who usually get anxious the night before if I have to wake up early the next day (and since I’m a night owl and definitely not a morning person, my definition of early is any time before 10 am). On my bed in the dark, I’d be thinking, if I fall asleep now, I’ll get 8 hours of sleep. And then an hour pass and I’d go if I fall asleep now, I’ll get 7 hours of sleep. And then another hour passed and the cycle would continue for another four to five hours until I finally fall asleep. I wish I could not be like this.

But anyways, I finally made it to her place thirteen minutes late and immediately headed to our brunch. Winda and I have been hanging out quite a bit these past couple of months and we usually carpool together and take turns driving on our outings since we live pretty close from each other. On this day, she’s driving and I was in charge of the playlist. As soon as I connected my phone to her car stereo, she said, “You know I’ve been listening to Joji’s new song a lot these past few days.”

“Yeah? Which one?” I asked since I don’t really follow Joji’s songs.

“Glimpse of Us. It’s such a great song. I’ve been listening to it on repeat these day.” She said enthusiastically.

“Never heard of that song. Want me to play it now?” I offered while typing out the song title on the search bar of my Spotify app.

“Yes please!”

So there I was, starting my day listening to a sad love song on a sunny late morning. Granted the song is great and everything, but it’s the type of song that made me want to crawl back under my covers and go back to sleep instead of jump out off the bed and start my day.

After the song was finished, I commented, “Joji’s songs are a bit sad. I don’t think it’s the type of song that can hype you up to start the day.”

“But his songs are not trashy sad songs though.” Winda argued.

I laughed at her comment. “You mean it’s more like poetic sadness than trashy sadness?”

“Yes! But still elegant at the same time and not one of those stupid sad songs.” She added.

We then get into a little bit of discussion about her favorite Joji’s songs, which are now ‘Glimpse of Us’ and ‘Slow Dancing in the Dark’, which I haven’t heard before either. So we listened to that one and of course it also follows the same poetic sadness theme that we were talking about. Between the two, I personally like ‘Glimpse of Us’ more.

The drive to our brunch place was about 40 minutes so after we finished talking about Joji, we ended up discussing about a couple of different topics surrounding graphic design and Jakarta’s creative industry. Portfolio class, importance of presentation, people’s appreciation and willingness to pay for art and design, growth in Jakarta’s creative industry, curating clients, these are some of the things we talked about during our car ride (watch in on the vlog) to pass the time.

And before we know it, we finally arrived at Urban Farm PIK where the restaurant we want to have brunch at, Monsieur Spoon PIK, is located. A little backstory, Winda actually had vouchers to dine at this place that were going to expire soon so she invited me to lunch to use the said vouchers. And it just happened that I never been to Monsieur Spoon before so she said all the more reason to go.

We arrived at the place, got seated and ate our lunch (see more photos and read about my reviews about this place on this post).

When we got the bill, the total came up to IDR 301.537 ($20.11) and Winda’s vouchers were for IDR 300.000 ($20) so we only had to pay IDR 1.537 ($0.11) for our lunch. That was probably the cheapest lunch ever.

After we’re done with lunch, we drove over to PIK Avenue Mall where Winda’s next schedule is. She invited me to tag along to her trial cooking class but since we’re a little bit early, I stopped by Heycha to get some drinks because we didn’t order any back at the restaurant.

I was going to get milk tea but then I saw new Coconut Shake menu and decided to give it a try. On a side note, I think coconut drink is definitely the next trend in Jakarta’s F&B scene. Been seeing lots of new coconut drink menu being introduced by different restaurants and brands lately.

So while I was waiting, there’s a GoFood order right before mine and since there’s only 1 server manning the store, he had to go down to deliver the order before coming back up to make my order. Before this, I didn’t realize that the servers are the ones who have to deliver the foodto the driver (I thought the driver’s usually the one who goes into the mall and pick-up the order from the counter). But I guess different malls have different protocols for GoFood orders. The only downside about this protocol is he could’ve easily missed prospective customers while he was gone (there were people who came by to order but left because nobody was there).

Anyways, that’s one random new thing I found out about GoFood orders.

Also, update: I just checked Heycha’s Instagram and apparently I visited during their last day of operation at the PIK Avenue Mall location. This location has now closed.

Coconut Shake (33K) | 7.5/10

Not too sweet and has some great texture to it. It’s a little firmer than a slushy texture and not too watery, but still goes up the straw quite smoothly. The texture also held up well in room temperature even after an hour or so. A pretty nice refreshing coconut drink.

After I got my drink, I reunited with Winda at ABC Cooking Studio for her trial class. ABC Cooking Studio is a modern cooking studio originated from Japan that aims to bring joy and happiness through food by teaching people how to make healthy delicious dishes. They essentially offer membership for cooking classes in a high-end cooking studio. The cooking classes also vary from cooking course, bread course, cake course, wagashi course, and even kids course. What made them different compared to other cooking studios is that they apparently use original recipes that were developed in Japan but using ingredients that are available locally to create the same result. The PIK Avenue Mall location is actually their third and newest location in Jakarta (the other two studios are located at Central Park & Senayan City).

Winda was kind enough to arrange a spot for me but since I personally am not really into cooking and more into eating (and washing the dishes usually) because when I cook this is what I do:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by FOODY DREAMS (@foodydreamss)

Plus, somebody needed to take photos and videos of the experience (with clean non-greasy hands) so I volunteered to do that instead and be a spectator on the side while watching everybody else doing the cooking.

So how it works for the trial class was every table was assigned a different recipe and our table got the Japanese Beef Hamburg Steak recipe. There was one instructor per table and we got Chef Michelle who guided us through the cooking process. All the cooking tools and ingredients were already prepared and cut per one serving portion. We only needed to follow the cooking instruction on the sheet (although the Chef mostly was guiding us through her explanation during the class so the sheet worked as a secondary guide) and do some cutting, pouring, and stirring throughout the process.

Since I opted out of cooking, the Chef offered to take over my ingredients and cook them for me so I can still try the dish while she can demonstrate the cooking for others as well. Of course I said yes to that. That was really nice of her. In the end, I got a portion to take home and had it for lunch the next day. The Japanese Beef Hamburg Steak was actually really tasty (even after I reheated it on the microwave). The meat was juicy, the Japanese rice was cooked perfectly and the sauce was seasoned really well.

Also, check out Winda’s Instagram reel below that she made about the experience. You can see the end result on her video since I didn’t take any picture of it.

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A post shared by 𝑊𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑎 𝑉𝑒𝑟𝑓𝑖𝑑𝑎 | 𝗝𝗞𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗢𝗗𝗜𝗘 🇮🇩 (@munchandsnap.jkt)

After we’re done with the cooking class, we stopped by Pantjoran PIK because Winda wanted to get Gong Cha before we go home. The sunset was pretty nice that day and there was surprisingly a lot of people around the area for a Monday. Maybe because it’s now school summer holiday that more people are out and about during weekdays? I certainly wasn’t expecting the place (and the mall from earlier for that matter) to be this crowded to be honest.

And that’s pretty much wrapped up the day for us. It was such a fun outing and I feel like we did a lot of things throughout the day. And just like how we started the day, we also ended the day by listening to Joji’s Glimpse of Us.

‘Til the next hangout!

(And if you’ve made it here, thanks for reading!)

Also, Joji’s Glimpse of Us was stuck in my head after this day and I literally listened to it on repeat for the next couple of days.

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Monsieur Spoon PIK

In 2012, Monsieur Spoon chose Bali as its home base where they established their first flagship store on the famous island. Nine years and five more outlets later, they’ve successfully established themselves as one of the go-to French bakery cafe in Bali and continue their expansion outside the island by opening its first outlet in Jakarta at Urban Farm PIK on April 30, 2021. Just like their Bali outlets, Monsieur Spoon PIK also carries a wide variety of artisan breads, desserts and pastries, including their signature French all-butter croissant, a well-known best-seller in Bali.

The architecture of the bakery cafe itself is inspired by the French conservatory with cushion seats by tall windows, French rattan chairs and round marble tables decorating the interior. The space is pretty and classy, yet still casual enough for people to come without having to dress up to the nines. They also have outdoor areas with plenty of seatings if you prefer the fresh air but if you come here during lunch or day time, sitting outside can get pretty hot, especially on a sunny day.

After we sat down at our table, the server came over and took our orders. I came for lunch with a friend so we ordered the main dishes and skipped the pastries.

The Food

King Prawn Angle Hair (135K) | 8/10

Pan seared king prawn, tomato fondue, cashew nut, and basil pesto. A light and tasty dish. The pan seared King Prawns were cooked nicely. The meat texture was nice, firm and juicy. The fresh tomato fondue and the basil pesto were also a nice combination. And the chili flakes gave a nice little kick to the dish. Overall, a beautifully presented and tasty dish and I really enjoyed it.

Chicken Cordon Bleu (120k) | 7/10

Organic chicken, beef bacon, emmental cheese, fresh tarragon, and French fries. The breading was crispy and not too thick. The chicken was cooked well, tender and moist with melted cheese around it. The french fries were also good. I’m usually pretty picky with chicken dish in general, but this was pretty alright for me.

Overall, it was a nice satisfying meal. The service was great. The servers were friendly and they were quick to tend to our requests during our meal. One additional note, as nice as the lighting is, the seats by the windows could get pretty hot during the day (we moved table because the sun was a little too hot and the air-con wasn’t too cold inside) so if you plan to come, maybe don’t wear an all black shirt like me or choose a table away from the windows to avoid that.

 

Monsieur Spoon PIK

Address: Urban Farm, Jl. The Golf Island Boulevard, DKI Jakarta 14460, Indonesia
Hours: 07:00 am - 10:30 pm Daily
Telephone: +628170114344

Instagram: @monsieurspoon
Website | Dine-In Menu

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Summer Day at Ewha Womans University • 이화여자대학교

Ewha Womans University (이화여자대학교) is one of those tourists spots in Seoul that’s worth making a visit for. Plus, if you’re a fan of architecture, you’ll probably have a lot of fun checking this place out. Designed by Dominique Perrault Architecture, the campus was build in the middle of Seoul’s urban neighborhood creating a new unique topography reminiscent of the Champs-Élysées in Paris or the Campidoglio in Rome. From the shape of the architecture, the scale of the campus, the amphitheater-like stairs area, and the garden on a hilly slope, the campus is a perfect place to walk around and admire this contemporary structure and the view surrounding it.

I’ve been to Ewha Womans University many times in the past and I still find this place fascinating during every single visit. I also brought many of my friends who were visiting Seoul for the first time to this place just because I personally think that the architecture of the campus is pretty cool. And since I’ve been here quite a bit, I can also say that the vibes also change during every season (fall is probably the prettiest season to visit this place, especially during peak autumn week). During summer, the campus is pretty much surrounded by greeneries. There’s less people sitting on the stairs during daytime because most people prefers the cool air-conditioned indoor spaces than sitting outside under the scorching hot sun during Korea’s humid summer day. But right before sunset when the sun is not as high up in the sky, you’ll see more people around the area. From students who just finished their classes to visitors who simply came to walk around the campus or sit down on the stairs to enjoy their afternoon coffee, everybody seems to be enjoying their time around this campus.

Note: Photos were taken before the pandemic.

Also, you can check this post out if you want to see what it looks like during winter time.

 

Ewha Womans University • 이화여자대학교

Address: 서울 서대문구 이화여대길 52
Subway: Subway Line 2 | Exit 2,3

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