DEATH BY CHOCOLATE

Location:
Pondok Indah Mall 2
South Skywalk, 1st Floor
Unit S-122
Tel.: 021-92777523


There's a nice place for you to meet up with an old friend, catching up while enjoying yummy desserts in a comfortable small restaurant. It's Death By Chocolate. Located at Pondok Indah Mall 2, this place offers us mouth-watering desserts: cakes, ice cream, mousse, ...

They have a few tables and chairs and few sofas with coffee tables. The atmosphere is fine, sofa comfortable. When you sit near the corner where they put the speaker, you might need them to turn down the music volume.

I went there with a friend. Tried Heavenly Dilemma, a chocolate cheese cake (this one's good). And tried Ebony & Ivory.

Death By Chocolate concept is originally found in New Zealand, now the restaurants are mostly in Canada.

If you want to know more about Death by Chocolate, you can visit the web site here. They are also available for franchise.

Real Karaoke!

Want to go to karaoke to SING (not to touch the hostess(es))?

My poor country...the word karaoke used to mean a place for [lonely] male humans sing while hugging and touching the hostess(es) they can afford to keep them company in the karaoke box. (Or a bar where they sing in front of many strangers.)

Lately REAL karaoke were born in Jakarta. The biggest chain is owned by a phenomenal celebrity, Inul. Her karaoke chain is named Vizta. Because this "real" karaoke is relatively new here (thanks to the old bad connotation & impression of the word karaoke), they call it "family karaoke" - to emphasize that this place is family-friendly. They are open in a few places in Jakarta such as Plaza Semanggi, Jalan Melawai, Poins Square Lebak Bulus, etc. There are also a few other real karaoke in Jakarta such as Jalan Fatmawati (D'Best complex), South Jakarta and Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta.

I have only been to one karaoke in Jakarta. It's a good start for this relatively new recreation trend in Jakarta. Still much to improve.

1. Video Clips
In Japan, the song collections are so many, they are retrieved from a network. For Japanese songs the video clips are original of the singers themselves. They even have original soundtracks with video clips of the films.
In Vizta I see that the video clips are ununderstandable. They even use another singer for the video clip! For example, Hoobastank's video clip is of Avril Lavigne! How come? Many Indonesian songs' clips are not original. Could be because the singers haven't made the clips. But maybe that's not the case. Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life" has a video clip; but instead, what we get is some view of a city in Europe. BUT Evanescence's other song, "Going Under", uses the real video clip. Strange.

2. Typo
There are so many typos we cannot rely on the search facility. The data entry staff should be aware that they mistyped either the song title or singer's name or both. The 'safest' way is just to browse the song menu. Or type only the first 2 or 3 letters of the singer or song title which are not likely to be mistyped. For example, if the singer's name is Tommy, don't type the complete word. Instead, type only 'TOM', because it could be TOMMY, TOMY, etc.

3. Room Layout
They can improve it by making a U- or L-shaped arranged seats. It's not necessary for all seats to face the TV. Take these karaoke boxes in Japan as examples.

Cwiemie Catur

A small restaurant serving cwiemie (a kind of cuisine with noodles). ]
Taste: not bad.

Cwiemie Catur
Phone: 021-8291380, 835-1319
(probably no English-speaking waiter)
Eat-in, or order to pick up.
Jl. Catur, behind Mustika Ratu Building. Tebet, South Jakarta.
Accessable through Bidakara Building or Mustika Ratu Building.

dixie restaurant

Dixie serves fusion menu. My favourite is Spaghetti Thai in dixie CiToS: spaghetti with very little tomato sauce, small cuts of hot green chilli (cabe rawit), and cheese. Hot and yummy!

I ordered the same one at dixie Kemang, twice, and was disappointed because the taste was different -- too much taste of tomato sauce.

Why this blog?

I'm in a committee for an event, and a couple of weeks ago I was asked to find a restaurant in a strategic location for a lunch meeting of our sub-committee. Then I remembered a Thai restaurant which I couldn't remember its name. I tried to call the telephone company's information helpdesk but the attendant didn't even know how to spell "Thai", and he apparently gave me the phone number of another restaurant!

I tried to find the name from my friends but I couldn't get any name of the restaurant. Then I searched the Internet for a while that felt like hours. I was frustrated - how come it was so hard to find a local information on the internet, where I usually can find any information I needed?

I went to the local Yellow Pages website and searched by location, keyword, ... nothing. How come I can't even find it on Yellow Pages?? It was so frustrating. I surfed around the Internet and finally, out of curiosity and disbelief, I returned to Yellow Pages where I finally found the information I needed after browsing many pages of unindexed restaurant directory!

So now I will try, although slowly, to put as many local information about Jakarta as possible. I hope when people run a search on the Internet about Jakarta, they will hit this blog eventually, and hopefully find what they are looking for.