food review: pipe and barrel

welcoming february! i'm officially on my maternal leave. the baby will arrive any time soon.. hopefully this weekend.. and today i get the chance to go out to do some errand (administration stuff with the government.. yukss..) and my husband turned out to be my personal chauffeur for the day. double yey! and we decided to get early lunch at pipe and barrel.

if you're living in surabaya, then you'll probably know that there are a lot of new cafes and coffee shops opening in surabaya. one of them is pipe and barrel, which is owned by masterchef ken. yep.. the baldy chef from masterchef indonesia.. since we're nearby and i saw that the menu was edible for my husband, we decided to try it.

the location: it's located in dr.soetomo road, just across the st.louis high school. probably you'll want to drop by outside normal meal time to avoid the crowd. the place isn't that big.. and the parking lot isn't that big either.. so i guess try your luck if you want to eat there.

the appointment: no appointment needed, you can just walk in. but since it's not that big, if you wanted to eat with large group or celebrate special occasion, then i suggest to do reservation.

the menu and the food: it's on the wall just like the other cafe and coffee shops. and you have to order at the cashier, pay in front and then they will give you your table number and then you can wait for your food. the menu has more variety than the other cafes and coffee shops. for beverages, they have selections of coffee, tea, blended, sodas and alcoholic beverages. for food, they have appetizer, main course and desserts. but unfortunately, they only have panna cotta and gelato for desserts.. bummer..  as for the main course, not all the menu are western food. i ordered the barrel beef burger (you can choose the doneness level of the meat) and my husband ordered the honey chicken rice. for me, the beef burger is delicious. but it's strange since they put pickles inside the burger.. an indonesian translation for burger, eh? pretty weird.. so i set aside the pickles. the sauce has some smokiness flavour in it, like combination of mayonnaise and barbeque sauce, just like my husband liking. but the honey chicken rice is another story.. it's too sweet for my husband. we thought it would be sweet spicy, but turned out it was just sweet. and they also serve it with pickles.. the one just like mine. pretty weird. hahaa..

as for beverages, we pick oreo blend and salisbury chocolate.. the oreo is just too sweet again.. meanwhile the salisbury chocolate is supposed to be chocolate milkshake, but somehow it has some bitterness inside it, a hint like coffee, which is weird.

thr price: i might say, you get what you've paid for. not too overpriced. the portion is decent too.

overall, it's a nice place to hang out with friend, but not kid friendly. i don't spot any high chairs. the interior also not kid-friendly. they have indoor and outdoor setting. but when it's full, it's too noisy.. just like monopole.. too noisy for our taste. oh well, this is just a coincidence moment.. for me to enjoy while the baby hasn't been born yet.. soooooo.. if you ask me, probably i won't be back with my husband. but if i'm nearby alone or with friends or with my sisters, probably i'll drop by again.

honey chicken rice

barrel beef burger

my second pregnancy

hi guys.. i know it's been too long since i wrote a post. i've been taking care of my other blogs plus i have no idea what to write on this blog, and i'm still not in the mood to finish my new zealand's trip review.. so i stopped writing here for awhile. while i'm gone, i've been finishing my graduate school, thankfully on time, well..  a little bit late, but it's on time, since i've discovered that i'm pregnant with my second child on my way to thesis exam.

i've told no one about my pregnancy, so i was a bit surprised when i was asked if i'm healthy on my exam. i thought my examiner talked about my pregnancy, but then i realized that it's all about my general well being. hahaa... silly me.. anyway, when it's time for my convocation, i was 5 month pregnant. luckily, my bump is not that big so i can still wear a loose kebaya. hahaha..

soo.. i want to talk about my second pregnancy. since i have no problem with my first pregnancy, i thought that this one will be the same. i even could work until few days before the delivery. i have no complaints besides some fatigue, nausea and backache at the beginning of my first pregnancy. but my second pregnancy is another whole story. at first, no complaints since i was busy preparing my thesis. i thought the fatigue, flu and nausea is caused by stress. but then after finding out that i was pregnant, i believed it was caused by the pregnancy. but then i kept doing my activity as usual. but i noticed that my feet got swollen easily if i was sitting or standing for too long. and then i also got dizziness and even almost blackout when standing for a long time. which is weird for me. my sisters both are the blackouts type.. but not me. during school days, i never passed out. but somehow now i'm very easy to get dizzy. and the nausea. well, luckily i just lost my appetite, not with vomiting.. but i love to eat. so somehow it tortured me.

and talking about appetite, suddenly i experienced different kind of appetite. with my first pregnancy, i kept eating the food that i like before pregnant, and dislike food that i dislike before pregnant. but now, somehow i'm fond into instant food, sushi and snacks. like burgers, chips, cafe menu.. and lately bubble tea. most of them i dislike before being pregnant, but my husband loved instant food, so i guess probably the baby's taking his father appetite. and i experienced cravings now, which is something that i didn't experience with my first pregnancy. and i'm especially crazy toward makeup and all those beauty-related things.

since i have difficulty in eating, i didn't gain weight as much as my first pregnancy. for my first trimester i even lost a kilo. i had difficulty gaining weight on my first pregnancy. with crazy eating, i only managed to gain a kilo a month. but now... no weight gain for first trimester, and still a kilo a month after 4 month pregnancy. but in the last trimester, somehow my bump grew larger instantly. hahaha.. pretty weird, and it gave me a lot of pain. back pain, ligament pain. ohhh... and don't forget the reflux. it came early this time. with my first pregnancy, i didn't experience heartburn up until last trimester, but now, even at 5 month, i've already experienced heartburn. bummer...

and talking about those pains, i do exercise regularly now. at my first pregnancy, i do my pregnancy pilates or yoga when i remembered. but now, since i've realized it's pretty important to keep active, i do it more regularly, but somehow the pain kept coming and it made me lazy to exercise. ha! quite contrary. and sleep is getting harder these days. i know that pregnancy can cause difficulty in sleeping, but on my first pregnancy, i didn't experience any trouble in sleeping, so i was quite surprised when i couldn't sleep up until 1 am in the morning.. and my bump is not that big! so i was wondering why. so i guess no pregnancy is the same. oh and if you've been curious, we're having a girl this time.. lucky me! yey! soooo.. with only a few weeks to go, i hope everything will go smoothly with all the preparation, and the delivery will be as smooth as the first one, and both mom and baby are healthy. until then...

historica coffee and pastry

i'm on my teacher's presents hunt the other day and i persuaded my friend to have brunch before sending me home, since my son's about to have his afternoon nap and he will be nagging me so i can't have lunch at home, so better eat first.and he agreed. so we headed to historica since it was nearby. haha.. pretty nice coincidence right?

actually, historica is in a complex which also have 1903, the fine dining place. and supposedly one more place but i can't see it. funny thing is, the parking space is very limited just like domicile which is nearby, but they have valet service at the complex, so even though it wasn't busy, we had to give the key to be parked by the valet officer. 

okay, now stepping inside the coffee shop, it was quite spacious compared to libby and monopole. just like libby, the menu is on the wall, but they also provide an ipad with menu inside. beside the cashier there's a display for cakes and juices (sorry... i've forgotten). the menu was not extensive, just like the other coffee shop, but compared to libby and monopole which have several "heavy dish" menu, historica has the lightest menu. and they don't have many choices on non coffee beverage.. so i ended up ordering oreo frappe and egg benedict while my friend tried the green tea frappe and yogurt muesli.

i have to say in terms of ambience and comfort rating, historica wins over libby and monopole. libby is comfy, but it's not that spacious. monopole is the worst. it's cramped and too busy and too noisy inside.. though probably when i went there it wasn't peak hour, but judging by the placement of the sofa and other seatings, even though it's busy, it won't be as cramped as monopole. in terms of service, i might say that all of them are average. average on the service given by the waiter and the time of service.

the oreo frappe is average. it's sweet but i can still taste a hint of coffee inside. though my friend said that he didn't taste the coffee when he ordered it.. but still, being not a coffee lover or drinker, probably makes me more sensitive to coffee than him. but it's okay.. it didn't make me palpitate. the egg benedict is a standard egg benedict, and it has the original hollandaise sauce (yayyy!!) but i forgot to tell them that i'm pregnant and the poached egg is very runny, runnier than libby's which means it's almost raw.. but hopefully nothing bad will happen. but it's just an ordinary egg benedict, nothing special about it. my friend told me that the yogurt muesli was a waste. you can make it yourself at home..  the green tea.. well, it's green tea.. no special thing about it.

will i go back there? probably if i'm nearby.. but if i'm not, there's no reason to go there just to eat..

oreo frappe

egg benedict

food review: monopole coffee lab

yep.. i'm in the mood of trying new cafes. since i'm not that attracted to full main dish, and more attracted to various blended beverage in a cup, so i decided to drag my husband to try another cafe again. this time it's monopole coffee lab. unfortunately it didn't open early in the morning, so i had difficulty to find the right time to go there. but thankfully, i got afternoon shift and my husband picked me up, and the place wasn't full, so we ended up there.

the place had very limited parking space. fortunately, the restaurant across the street was closed, and they had plenty of parking space, so i guess some of the visitor parked there. and the seating arrangement was pretty crampy. i don't know if they had their second floor open for public, but we were seated in the first floor and it was crowded. and the space between each table was not that spacey.

monopole is quite famous for their coffee. but being pregnant and not a coffee lover at all, i can't say anything about it. thankfully, they have non cafein beverages, so my husband ordered the red velvet (which was not similar to red velvet cake) and i ordered cookies and cream blend. there were also not so many food in the menu. i tried their egg benedict, but this one was not using hollandaise sauce, but mornay sauce. i read nothing in the menu that would indicate the egg benedict would be spicy, but when it came out, it has chili flakes on top of the poached egg. at first i thought the chili flakes wouldn't be that spicy, but turned out it was very spicy for me.. since i don't like spicy food. and it was pretty weird for my taste. i prefer the hollandaise sauce better i guess. both the beverages were sweet, mine was sweeter than my husband's.

the food was okay, but will i come back there? i don't think so...

cookies and cream blend. it's very sweet

red velvet blend. it's not as sweet as the cookies and cream

food review: libby cafe

i know.. i supposed to finish my new zealand trip review, but somehow i lost my interest in writing about them. so i guess i will stop pushing myself to write about it and try to write something else. okay.. so if i haven't mentioned it before, right now i'm pregnant with my second child. and somehow this pregnancy is different. in my first trimester i didn't feel that nausea, but i lost my appetite. even the smell of some food made me want to vomit. plus when i realized i was pregnant, i was preparing for my thesis exam, so i was pretty stress at that moment. no wonder i couldn't gain any weight, even lost a kilo. but after that, it wasn't much difference. but now, almost a month now, i could feel my appetite is back. but strangely, i wasn't that attracted to rice, but i was drooling over snacks and sweets and lately beverages in plastic or paper cup with big straws. yepp.. that kind that you will find in starbucks or coffee shop. soooo.. i've been drooling to try some new cafes around my house, and i managed to persuade my husband. so the first one we tried was libby cafe.

i've been there before, but not dine there. it was a small cafe and limited parking space too. luckily it was open quite early, so after dropping my kid at school, we can go there and eat and then back to school to pick him up again. when we went there, they had this breakfast package promotion, and i tried their egg benedict breakfast package. it was egg benedict plus ice/hot chocolate. while my husband strangely still ordered the chicken wing plus tried the new brownies blended or something like that. after he saw other bloggers recommended the beef stew toast, he ordered that one.

the cafe was small, and half of the cafe was a showroom for the cookies (yep.. libby used to sell brownies and cookies). but it was comfortable. we chose to sit at the back so we can observe the whole cafe. hahaha.. oh, and you have to order at the cashier, and the menu is up on the wall. i guess this becomes new habit of new popping cafes in surabaya. okay, for my ice chocolate, it was standard. but the brownies blend it was okay. a bit sweet but i prefer it than mine. for my egg benedict, usually they used english muffin, but here in libby they used brioche. i had no complain about the egg benedict, maybe more sauce and not too acid on the poached egg. but other than that, it was a satisfying second breakfast (yep, we've already eaten our breakfast before, hahaha..). i didn't try the chicken wing, so i have no saying about that. but i guess it wasn't that good since my husband took it home and never touched it again. the beef stew toast was okay, but not enough sauce for my husband. the beef stew was pretty much to cover the brioche toast, probably more than the other bloggers have eaten. maybe they added the portion lately. the taste according to my husband it was okay, but he prefer the beef to be cut bigger, not chopped like in stew or semur. hahahaa...

overall, i was happy to visit this cafe and hopefully i can persuade my husband to be back there again. i wanted to try the pasta, but since they said the portion is big enough, probably not as second breakfast. hehehe..

egg benedict

beef stew toast (i forgot the exact name)

brownies blended

the hermitage hotel

i'm sorry for the very..very late post. i've been busy with school and my pregnancy, and then graduation plus managing my other blog, so somehow this blog is a little bit neglected.

the hermitage hotel is the only hotel in mount cook area. the other one is just motel, so we didn't have so much choices. last time i was there with my husband we were just staying for one night, but this time we stayed for two nights. the first night we slept at the old wing, the room was old and it showed it the bedding and tiles of the room. the other night we slept at the lodge which had living room and kitchen in the room.

the ordinary room, it was quite big. it's enough for 4 people per room. the bed was large enough, and it had magnificent view. we got the room that had a big window to a balcony facing the mt.cook. so it was lucky we could see mt cook early in the morning, and it was a magnificent view for my son, so we could feed him at the balcony without any fuss. the only let down was the heater. last time i was there, there were 2 heaters. one in the bedroom and one in the bathroom. since the room was smaller than the one we were having, the heater was enough. but the old wing room's heater was not enough to make the room warm. moreover, the bathroom had tiles on them, so it was freezing cold when my feet touched them in the morning. and the heater in the bathroom was set at 15 minutes, so after 15 minutes or so, it would automatically shut down. i supposed it was for energy saving, but it wasn't friendly for us, asian people who lived in tropical country. we're not used to the cold, so a 30 minutes window for the heater was the minimum time to keep us warm in the bathroom.

okay.. so the old room was spacious, comfy bed but not too comfy heater. i could make breakfast for my son using minimum space and utensils there. but moving to the lodge, it was heaven. still the warmer became problem. but at least the bathroom floor was covered in something else, i forgot the name of the material, it was similar to the one used in the operating room, so it wasn't that freezing cold in the morning. the heater in the room was not enough too, but fortunately, the bed was equipped with heater too. the kitchen was perfect to cook lunch and breakfast. but don't forget to open the window when you cooked since it was one room for all.

the letdown being in the old room was the breakfast arrangement. though the room was supposed for 4 people, we only got breakfast for one person per room. sucks. and the additional fee for the breakfast was quite expensive. but when we moved to the lodge, breakfast were free for all. unfortunately, my son didn't have the appetite to chew anything beside the honey cereal, and i didn't either, so the free breakfast almost went useless.

so, if you didn't travel with family or kids, probably the motel will be enough. since there were not so many attractions at mount cook. but if you had the money and opted for comfort for the whole family, your choice is limited to hermitage. it was okay, but a bit pricey for me.

this is the room in the old wing 

my son was in front of the heater since it was late at night and it was freezing cold

mackenzie's, lake tekapo, new zealand

we were on our way to mt.cook, and it was a long journey, so we were quite late for lunch at lake tekapo. actually, we were planning to have lunch at gohan, japanese restaurant, but unfortunately, it was closed at 2 pm. it only opened from 12-2pm for lunch. *sigh* i was drooling over their pictures at tripadvisor when i was searching for a dining place, and i had to swallow it back. and we were lucky we found mackenzie's was still open for business.

the place: it has outdoor seating which will be great when the weather is great. and it has access to the lake. so my son was excited to finish his meal and then running around toward the lake.
the menu: they have kid's menu, which was a relief.. and it had pizza! it was what my son wanted for lunch that day.. fiuhh.. for the rest of us, we managed to order burgers and steaks.. some were great, but some were not.
the service: well, mostly you have to pick the menu yourself, and then when you're ready, you can order at the cashier. and then, after waiting for a few minutes, they will serve your food. we got the cashier officer to serve us, but i noticed there was this one blonde waiter, who seemed sour, and wasn't that friendly. and when i read at tripadvisor, someone else also complained about the blonde waiter. i guess it's a habit..
the price: well, since we were starving and we needed place to eat, it was decent, but for a comeback, a no-no.. it was a bit pricey..

advice: just order the steak, but not the trio grill (just pass the pork-chicken-beef combination).

and since i forgot to take picture of the food, let me show you the view that you can enjoy from the back of the restaurant. it's the beautiful lake tekapo.