Kemang area is certainly a favourite area for people to open up a restaurant, cafe or anything else related to food. Well, a few months ago, I just (sadly) found another spot, which might not be new to many, but new to me. HYDE. The place is quite hidden away, and it is located not in the main road.
Form the outside, the place looks awesome. It has that natural beauty (and broken white paints) which will attract people’s attention when they happen to pass by. It has a glass house concept, where glasses were used dominantly. After stepping inside, the temperature was pretty warm, almost hot. I expected a cooler place to chill but I would survive anyway, so I just shut my mind off so I wouldn’t complain.
The interior looked pretty, neat and somehow photogenic. The bar where drinks are made, is in the centre of the room. People who wish to just have a sip of drink or have a casual quick chat with friends can sit there and at the same time, enjoy the sight of the “bartender” making drinks.
There are separated smoking and non-smoking areas. We could choose to sit everywhere we like since the place wasn’t all packed by patrons. But after walking to several corners, the temperature was the same, warm. And I wore a knitted-jacket there. Imagine that! 😀
We eventually sat the in the smoking area, since the lighting was better there. We ordered an appetizer, a dessert and a drink. We had just dined in at Bebek Bengil before our visit here.
Funnily, Hyde seemed to be not really ready to open for the day. A lot of things we wanted to order were either sold out or not ready. It’s just around 1 o’clock at noon. 🙁 3 of the 5 choices of desserts were unavailable, and the entire mocktails was a goner due to the ice unavailability (apparently, a lot of cafes have this same issue during the holiday season). Oh did I mention that I visited this place post-Idul Fitri?
To shorten up, here are what we had for the day.
# Chicken Bites (IDR 45 k)
Well, this one is a regular deep-fried breaded chicken, with some corn flavour seasoning. The sauce to accompany the chicken, is honey mustard. It’s a very regular starter actually, except that they seasoned it with roasted corn seasoning to add the kick. But for me, this certainly didn’t really impress me. I initially wanted the “Baked Stuffed Mushroom”, but it was sadly unavailable.
# Flavored Latte – Caramel (IDR 30 k)
As I said it before, all mocktails were not available, thus I ended up with a regular drink. Flavored Latte, which I can always find it somewhere else. Nothing is extraordinary though, except for the serving portion which was quite generous as they served in a pretty big glass.
# Banana & Milk Jam Crumble (IDR 45 k)
Desserts, well, not many to choose. I know that the chocolate soil is recommended by friends and it certainly seems like the signature dessert here. But the idea of this dessert is not entirely new, and I found it rather uninviting to me, so I decided to choose Banana & Milk Jam Crumble (which was at first not available, then I alternatively chose the Earl Grey Tea Cremeux which was sold out, and I carried on to pick the Sesame Cannelloni, Mascarpone & Berries, which was said to be available and several minutes later turned out to be unavailable and eventually, the Banana & Milk Jam Crumble magically appeared to be available).
It was served in a regular-looking plating. I had expected the taste to be as boring as the appearance, but boy, I was wrong. This dessert was delicious. It was actually a classic crumble dessert, but only it used cavendish banana and milk jam as the mains, then covered up with crumbling brown butter crumbles. 1 scoop of Salted Caramel ice cream accompanied the warm dessert, making it much more enjoyable on the tongue when the warm savoury crumbling baked banana clashed with the cold sweet and salty ice cream. It felt like dancing flavours and singing sensations. Love it!
Well, overall, our visit seemed to be pretty wrong in terms of the timing, especially I had this expectation for tasting unique stuffs here. Gladly, the dessert I tried was superb. The other 2 were not bad though. They were just very regular. I really believed it was a matter of bad timing and Hyde just wasn’t really in a complete shape. The waitress told us that bad flood happened to them the day before and the kitchen was half ready at the moment, so no blame at all. I might come back again when I have the time, maybe to try out some other stuffs.
Oh, since the place looks photogenic, I just decided to take a selfie. 😉
HYDE | JAKARTA
Jl. Taman Kemang I A No.8, Kemang, Jakarta
Phone: +6221-56103888
Facebook: HYDE Kemang
