Jakarta : Ramadan in Grand Indonesia

The weekend was spent in Grand Indonesia, shopping and having Japanese pasta (Pasta Waraku outlet). As expected, the road was filled with cars. The last minute shoppers were hastily buying new clothes, cookies and goodies, in preparation for the Hari Raya (or Lebaran, as the locals in Indonesia call it).

 

The East mall was decorated with a Turkish taste and there was even a Turkish ice-cream stall there (which gave away free ice-cream. A cone of ice cream cost Rp 25 000 and you could choose from 3 flavours - strawberry, chocolate and vanilla. We had all 3 scopes in one cone, for free! :p). 
Just spend Rp300 000 and above in Grand Indonesia, you can either redeem a free Turkish ice-cream from Zahra stall or a picture with the camels (not real ones though). I will definitely go for the ice-cream!

Not an ice-cream lover, I had to give thumbs up (and even toes up, hahaha) to the Zahra Turkish ice-cream. At a quick glance, it looked like any ice-cream out there. But a bite of it will tell you, it isn't any other ice-cream.

The chewy and the smooth texture was the reason why I totally fell for it, on just the first bite! Flavour wise, it wasn't milky as what hubby anticipated. In fact, I didn't find it milky or creamy the way other ice-cream would have been.

We were told by the stall owner that he only sold Turkish ice-cream during the Ramadan month in Grand Indonesia.

I probably was the weirdo to some people. I took a picture of the toilet in the mall. Perhaps you would do the same if you saw it.

A child-themed toilet! Cute, isn't it?? I was waiting for an elderly man to exit from the gent before I started to snap away. He was already looking at me as though I was wearing a shoe on my head. Oh well.....

The next thing I discovered was totally insane! Maybe I was away from Asia for a while but there was a Magnum cafe in the mall! A huge one. It served nothing but only Magnum ice-creams. That outlet was heavily guarded by a number of security guards, mind you. I really wondered why.....

"Magnum Chocolate Experience" - ice-cream for lunch or dinner, perhaps?

I was too excited to share the Magnum chocolate experience that I almost forgotten to mention about Pasta Waraku. A rather famous fusion restaurant in Asia. It is a Japanese eatery outlet that served pasta and pizza.

There was a promotion for set meals. You could order a set of pasta (half-half pasta set which basically means you would have 2 small portion of pasta of your choice. Recommended if you are a pasta lover like I do) or a set of pizza-pasta combination (a set with a small portion of pizza - half of a small platter of pizza and pasta). The set meal included drinks, soup and salad. 

The pizza portion in the pizza-pasta combination set was a little pathetic. First, you could not choose the flavour of your choice. It was defaulted to Beef salami pizza. Secondly, each slice was only topped with a piece of salami and a slice of raw tomato. It didn't look that enticing :p

 Corn soup and salad with Japanese dressing. The corn soup was surprisingly loaded with corns, which made it a little too sweet for a savoury dish. I like the salad...to be precise, the dressing. It was refreshing with a gentle touch of sourness.

Pasta Aglio Oglio with chilli. It was marked as Chef recommendation in the menu. Well, it was all right but may not live up to the "Chef recommendation" status.

As we were starving, I didn't bother to take much pictures. Just took the two things that got served first.