Halal Din Tai Fung???

Grrrowl!!!

I was reading up on several food blogs earlier today. Those food bloggers are brilliant! They can really whet my appetite with good, yummy pictures of food food food, even though food taste is just so-so. And apart from travelling, Meebops and I are big foodies (if you can't already tell from our fat paws!). We have really similar taste-buds and is always willing to try anything once.

But, i am also an unabashed creature of habit especially when it comes to food. Say if i like a certain kind of food, i can eat it every single day! For every meal too! (like Subway in the US, where i had foot-long Veggie Delight, half for breakfast and half for lunch, almost every single day). Best part is, i can eat them today and crave for them the next day - Heh!

The thing is, these are my ultra-comfort food - like the taste, easy to get it and its satisfying. We all have our own fair share of routiness in the day-to-day life. We go to work at exactly the same time, in exactly the same way, walking the same distance in the same direction, trying to complete the same old mundane suff at work... and i listen to exactly the same music on my iPod (over and over again until i get sick of it!). I just think that the dependability of it all is easing sometimes. To the extent where my monicker is "Cubbies the Predictable" (Right Meebops???)

And so, i have to travel to Jakarta on a work trip next week and before anything else, i am already researching on good food to eat in JKT, preferably near my hotel in Senayan City. Strangely enough, i cannot seem to find a lot of resources on halal restaurants and eateries in Jakarta itself but there is one that IMMEDIATELY caught my bearish attention...

Fascinating, absolutely fascinating!
Din Tai Fung... is actually halal in Jakarta. DTF is not even halal in Kuala Lumpur, where i personally regard as Southeast Asia's halal food haven. DTF is a Taiwan-based restaurant, specialising in meat / vegetarian dumplings as well as assorted hand-made/hand-pulled noodles and a variety of soups. Its basically, a Chinese Restaurant. They have a couple of outlets here in Singapore and each time i pass by the restaurant, i will literally "stick" my paws on their glass panelled kitchen windows to see what the chefs/cooks are cooking/preparing. The other restaurant that suffered similar fate (each time Cubbies passes by) is Lao Beijing.

DTF was also ranked as one of the World's Top Ten Restaurant in 1993 by the New York Times. Researching though, i found mixed reviews on the food (but food is also subjective...) but i thought i should satisfy my curiousity at least once. And at good chance too since the outlet in JKT is halal (Yayy!).

Here are some photos which i took from DTF's website (promise to put my own when i try the real deal! Hah!) First photo - Pork Dumplings or the infamous, Xiao Long Bao! (i think they'll use chicken meat as substitute in JKT)

Here's another yum yum yummy! photos i took from Wikipedia itself... My goodness, baos never look so darn stunning! GASP! *slurp slurp slurp*

Picture of the noodle that i would like to try... Noodle Soup with Shrimps (self-explanatory really...)

And last but not least, a chinese meal would never be complete without SOUP! This is their Shrimp and Pork Wanton Soup. Yummylicious!

And i have decided to give DTF in Jakarta a shot next weekend, at the outlet at Plaza Arcadia, Senayan, which is right behind Plaza Senayan Mall - the one i used to walk to from my hotel and was swarmed by an army of street beggers, peddlers and kiddos.

This time round, i won't be calling up my good old schoolmate who lives in Jakarta and say that i'm in town. Since my first trip in 2007 till my last in July, I've been treated like Her Royalty (not that i did not enjoy it of course... King Cubbies... Ooohhh..), ferried around in her SUV, to wherever i want to go and whenever. She gave me a tour of the city, treat me at dinner, gave me a lift to and from the airport... basically anything i need, i can get (except money, her life, her beau, mother, father, sister, house and car etc...) And it didn't make me feel like i can be independent in Jakarta, which really i need to be.

I don't know Jakarta apart from Senayan City and the 4 walls in my hotel room. And not that i have time to explore the city anywho... but yes, i would like to try out on my own this time. The furthest i went (on my own) during my last trip was to Mangga-Dua, about 40 minutes by cab from Senayan.

And apart from DTF, i will also be paying homage to Ayam Goreng Nyonya Suharti - where i fell in love with a juvenile chicken, fried to a golden crisp. We first met in Yogyakarta... And till today, i never forget and especially, never ever forget this first love i experienced. Mmmmmmmmmmm!!! Gurih lo!!!! Hehehe!

Will pick up my bravado this time... Cubbies wants to explore Jakarta on her own two paws! :)

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