Singaporean Coffee Shop: Lau's Kopitiam

LAU'S KOPITIAM

Giant Building G11, CBD Bintaro

Bintaro Jaya IX, Tangerang

Phone: 021-7451793

GI Review

GI definitely think that you guys already heard about “kopitiam” or maybe just hear people talking about it. Recently, kopitiam has already become popular in Indonesia especially Jakarta. The kopitiam itself was originally from Singapore, while hundreds of kopitiam are found throughout Singapore. Kopitiam in Singapore are commonly found in almost all residential areas as well as some industrial and business district, numbering about 2000 in total (Wikipedia 2010).

 
Based on Wikipedia (2010), a kopitiam or kopi tiam is a traditional breakfast and coffee shop found in Southeast Asia. The word “kopi” is from the Malay (or Indonesian?) word for coffee and the Hokkien dialect word for shop (店; POJ: tiàm). The menus typically feature simple offerings: a variety of foods based on egg, toast, and kaya (a local version of jam made from coconut milk and eggs), plus coffee, tea, and Milo, a malted chocolate drink which is extremely popular in Southeast Asia, particularly Singapore, Malaysia and now it is popular in Indonesia.

There are two different kopitiam that GI know so far. They are Lau’s Kopitiam (located in Giant Building, Bintaro and Teraskota, BSD) and Eastern Kopitiam (located in Flavor Bliss, Alam Sutera). Unfortunately, GI only had a chance to try the famous Lau's Kopitiam (don’t worry! next time GI also want to try Eastern Kopitiam).

Lau's Kopitiam itself already has several branches in Jakarta and Tangerang located in Benton Junction, Lippo Supermal, Gading Serpong, Emporium Pluit Mall, Teraskota BSD City, Giant Bintaro Building, Citraland (Mal Ciputra).

Finally, last week GI had a chance to try Lau’s Kopitiam at Giant Bintaro Building. The place is not too big but quite clean and comfortable. The tables is almost full (maybe because it was near lunch time) but the waiter/waitress always ready to serve you whenever you need them.

Like the other kopitiam in town, they served appetizer, sandwich/toast, drinks, dessert, and main course. For the appetizer they served half boiled egg and lumpia (in GI’s opinion, the lumpia is looking more like ngo-hiang). They also served two kinds of sandwich/toast: sandwich manis (kaya, chocolate cheese, butter, strawberry jam, etc) and sandwich daging (smoked beef, tuna mayonnaise, black pepper beef, etc). For you who prefer to have “big” breakfast (or lunch?) more than just light breakfast, GI suggest you to order nasi lemak, laksa, or nasi hainan. 

hot teh tarik (milk tea)

The price also very reasonable. for 1 portion tuna mayonaise sandwich (18,000 IDR), nasi lemak (18,000 IDR), nasi hainan (23,000 IDR), kaya toast (15,000 IDR), iced tea (10,000 IDR), and teh tarik - hot milk tea (10,000IDR) you just have to pay around 100,000 IDR (tax and service charge are included).

Nasi Hainan

Hainan chicken rice (23,000 IDR)

hainan chiken rice, egg, plain chicken soup, lumpia, special chilli sauce, roasted chiken (the sauce tastes very delicious!)

Nasi Lemak

Nasi Lemak (18,000 IDR)

nasi lemak (rice cooked with coconut milk), chiken, egg, salty fish (teri), friend peanut, chilli (sambal), fried wonton

nasi lemak and nasi hainan were taste so delicious! GI are looking forward to having breakfast here again soon. :)

for the food in Lau's Kopitiam, GI gives 3 stars.

Healing and Refreshing Your Soul with Rafting

Guys, did you have some activities that really able to heal and refresh your soul from stress or bad mood?

Really! You should try this activity: Rafting! An amazing adventure!

GI believes there are many places and organizers that provide this kind activity around the world. GI tried one at Citarik, Sukabumi (Indonesia) by Arus Liar ( http://www.arusliar.co.id ) with relatively medium price.

We went to the place with 10 friends. We arranged by ourselves and rented a mini-bus to get there on weekend. We paid IDR 350,000 / pax for all (rafting, mini-bus, photos, breakfast + lunch, and FUN) At the beginning, because this was the first time in doing this adventure, GI think it would be fun like other adventures, however, in fact, GI was really amazed with this eventful adventure!

We followed the 13-km-river by 3 boats in 3 hours. On our way, we faced many solid rocks through quick and wild river stream.

One thing that we needed to keep and never forget was our team work for each boat. Sometimes we got stuck between rocks. In this situation, each boat passenger was needed to think quickly how to get out from there before something bad happens. Sometimes also, because of the stream, our boat got hard impacts. These could bring one or more of your boat passengers were thrown away. This situation often made us got panicked. Not only because of the impact, but mostly because our friends were moved out from one rock to another rock quickly, grabbing anything firmly and waiting for our help.

Beside these hectic-fun-and-challenging situations, there were beautiful nature point of views also. The river was flowing between two high hills and also streaming through the edge of farms and villages, so we could see natural environment during our trip. We even had once stop to get rest with coconut.

By the way, if you guys want longer trip, there is a 5-hours-trip provided. Overall, GI felt this was really an amazing adventure and full of fun experience. After this trip, all of us got tired, but we began the following week with really fresh mind and full energized.

GI really recommends this to you for being refreshed. For the fun, challenge, cost, and the others we got from this experience, GI gives 4 stars.

Dinner at Andakar (Aneka Daging Bakar) Steak

ANDAKAR STEAK (Aneka Daging Bakar)

Jln. Warung Buncit Raya No. 1

Jakarta Selatan

Phone: 021-7901360

Monday-Sunday (12.00 – 22.30)

GI Review

Last monday, GI had dinner at some new cozy-tempting-nice place around Warung Buncit (near Pejaten Village, Jakarta Selatan) called “Andakar Steak” and it stands for “Aneka Daging Bakar”. Do you guys ever heard about this place? because honestly GI had just known about this place last week when GI are in the middle of traffic jam after office hours. 

So, yesterday GI had a chance to eat there and try the famous “Aneka Daging Bakar”. First time GI get there, GI got confused about the parking things (GI forgot to mention that Andakar shares the same parking lot with Pizza Hut). Fortunately, there are a lot of “parking guys” that are willing to help you.

Andakar itself is not as big as GI thought before but the place is quite nice and romantic. Well, there are smoking room area which is outdoor and non-smoking room area which is indoor in the first and second floor (GI chose the non-smoking area in second floor). The room is very clean but not too big and we can see Warung Buncit road from the window (well, maybe just the traffic all the time). The waitress then brought the menus to us.

GI took photos of the menus so you can see what they served :)

As you can see from the menus, they served fish, lamb, chicken, and also beef. GI ordered a lamb shank with melon juice ,and a sirloin steak with hot lemon tea. After a while, the foods and drinks were came and the first thing GI remembered over this was another well known delicious steak called Abuba Steak :) (we also attached the picture of our food). But, when GI got a bite of the sirloin steak GI said each other, “ooh, this also good!”. Well, the sirloin and lamb shank were good. The meat was so tender and delicious, and the barbeque sauce is very nice but maybe the portion was not as big as Abuba Steak.

Melon Juice (left) and Hot Lemon Tea (right)

Lamb Shank (left) and Sirloin Steak (right)

One thing that GI like about this place is they put the mayo on the table (well, “G” is a big fan of mayo!). They also put ketchup, chili sauce, and Tabasco ( “I” likes the Tabasco while “G” don’t) :)

The condiments (“G” loves mayo!)

Overall, GI think that Andakar is worth to try :). The food was good, the place was nice, and the price was not so expensive. Last night, we had to pay 110.000 IDR for 1 portion of lamb shank, 1 portion of sirloin steak, melon juice, and hot lemon tea.

Maybe you guys should try Andakar by yourself someday! :)

For the Andakar (Aneka Daging Bakar) Steak, GI gives 3 stars

A movie that inspires you - Facing The Giants

FACING THE GIANTS (2006)

Director:
Alex Kendrick

Writers:
Alex Kendrick, Stephen Kendrick

Stars:
Alex Kendrick, Shannen Fields and Jason McLeod

GI Review

What is your giant? Have you ever look back and think "it was so hard to pass on this way" And...Which way you chose? Did you surrender to the giant?

GI ensures that everyone ever has the same situation..facing a big burden in life. If we stick some samples of the situation, we are able to see that one person may reacts differently from others to face his/her giant. GI can state that not all of persons have a strong willingness to defeat the giant and reach the beautiful goal behind it. Most of them will choose another way for alternative and just stay away from the hard situation.

So, which one are you? If you think you found yourself very often in the second one, GI recommends this movie. It shows how to hardly deal with "THE GIANTS" because sometimes you do not have many choices and sometimes you only have one way option.

GI identifies many interesting events in this movie that surely motivates you. We also are able to find useful interesting motivation quotes in it.

For you that like watching movie with friends or family, this movie is an excellent choice. If you like to watch movies alone, this movie is also recommended, especially when you get down with your situation, to re-energize you back to fight your giant.

This movie takes a background of a struggled football coach at a christian school.
Therefore, you will find the plot in christian religious background. Inspite of this, for you that are not christian, just take the positive movie messages.

Ssssh...GI also used this movie to motivate self in doing death-crawling to face the big "wall". So..ready to face The Giant? Watch it and you will find yourself in full energy to prepare the fight.

For the inspiration and motivation in this film, GI gives 5 stars.