During the holy month of Ramadhan, Intercontinental Jakarta MidPlaza does celebrate the special event by presenting its own unique theme, Ramadhan Pasar Senggol. By the name of the theme itself, Rasa Restaurant comes strong with its down to earth approach. Knowing that Indonesia has its own lovely culture, Rasa Restaurant brings the best out of it. In terms of variety for the food and desserts, Rasa Restaurant still excels and serves extensively from Japanese, Indonesian, to Middle Eastern cuisine.
When I entered Rasa Restaurant, the place came across as a more private venue without its loud chattering voices from patrons. Though the area itself might not be as spacious as other hotel restaurants, I do think that Rasa Restaurant has established itself humbly in a different league. The clean and white decoration brings out the character of elegance well and the use of wood panelling and earthy decoration does a great impact in showing its Indonesian root without sacrificing its chic and elegant vibe. Hat off for the designer.
Rasa Restaurant is proud for its open-kitchen stations where patrons can freely see the live action of the chefs. It serves as an open-commitment from the restaurant to ensure patrons for their food quality and hygiene. For the fun part itself, this live-cooking situation can be seen as an attraction to raise patrons’ appetite. Well, I personally agree as for me, live cooking can really draw out my appetite and curiosity about the end result.
Since I was half an hour late, most of the invitees had started the breakfasting feast. Without hesitation, I did start taking the food I wanted once I got a seat on the long table.
Well I started easy with the Noodle Bar. The noodle bar itself has plenty of choices starting from the choices of noodle, the meaty and vegetables components and soup selection. The soup itself has 3 choices and I picked myself the chicken-based ramen broth. The result was lovely! I really enjoyed the broth and it really shone with its lovely chicken flavour.
Salad Bar. As tempting and fresh as it looks, I was not in the mood for some veggie. But they did look very fresh and there were a lot of condiments to go with the veggies.
Going next, I helped myself at the Sushi Bar. I picked some of the delicious nigiri and sushi rolls. As beautiful as it looks, the sushi rolls were not that great and I preferred the nigiri much better. The slices of salmon and tuna were fresh and I personally loved them. I even ordered the salmon and tuna sashimi separately for myself.
When it came to the Indonesian Station, I just couldn’t resist having some. I especially loved the Cakalang with its sexy sambal melinjo. Big love for the sambal melinjo as I could easily eat the sambal without any other main ingredients.
From the Arabic Station, I did try some and I honestly was not very into it. There was only one that I could appreciate in this corner, and it was . I do also think they could bring more choices of Arabic cuisine to the station as the cuisine is pretty popular in this holy month.
The Meat Station looked real lovely. I bet you will want to dive there and have them all stuffed in your stomach. Well, that sounds so wrong!
The Seafood Station looked fairly tempting as well, with prawns, clams and all others to pick. Simply fresh goodness.
Another thing that distinguishes Rasa Restaurant from other hotel restaurants is the Outdoor Grill Hut. In this station, all good smoky things (mostly seafood) happen. I laid my eyes on the Beef Chorizo and Veal Sausage. I was pretty excited with it and I quickly ordered myself a couple of them. The fish, squids and prawns did certainly look inviting. The situation here almost felt like Jimbaran beach situation with all the crazy good grilled seafood.
Sweet closure is always what people expect when they have a hotel buffet. In Rasa Restaurant, there is a corner where all sweet things are created. I call it the Sweet Station. There’s Es Campur, Indonesian traditional cakes, brownies, western style cakes, crepes, martabak (Indonesian pancake) and plenty of others with lots of sweet choices of sauce from vanilla, chocolate to passion fruit sauce. It’s definitely a paradise on its own.
Natasha, Aaron and I were really excited about this particular corner where we could actually order what we had in mind. We decided to have some crepes with banana and nutella filling, extra some marshmallows (melted marshmallows!), with extra white chocolate sauce and a nice scoop of vanilla Ice Cream. The taste? It was superb! I could have eaten 10 similar crepes if I didn’t remember my own sugar level!
There’s also a Gerobak where you can have Soto with Koya which seemed pretty nice. Since I was so full, I decided to skip it.
To sum up, the breakfasting night went excellently and we ended up all happy and sugar high. Well, it is always fun to have some fun companies that share the same passion. We all do love food and we love venturing any kind of food. After all, the point of writing a blog does actually come back to story telling or sharing about our own experience and opinion. And for the three of us (and plenty of other food enthusiasts) did just that night and following it up on the blog so that we can simply share the honest dining experience we had.
Well, for your breakfasting idea, you can always visit Rasa Restaurant and enjoy the sumptuous buffet with friends, family and colleagues. Reservation is highly recommended especially for group dining. You can contact Rasa Restaurant with phone information as below.
Oh, if you have dined in Rasa Restaurant recently, please share your experience and opinion here on the blog. Different opinions are always welcome! After all, the experience we both have at the same venue can always be different and by sharing, we can understand more about the experience. 🙂
RASA RESTAURANT | JAKARTA
2nd Floor, InterContinental Jakarta MidPlaza
Jalan Jendral Sudirman Kav. 10-11, Jakarta, 10220
Phone: +6221-2510888 ext: 6605
Email: rasa@icmidplaza.com
Website: www.jakarta.intercontinental.com
OPERATIONAL HOURS: 05.30 am – 11.00 pm
Breakfast Buffet : 05.30 am – 10.30 am
Lunch Buffet : 11.30 am – 03.00 pm
Dinner : 06.00 pm – 11.00 pm
Sunday Brunch : 11.30 am – 03.00 pm
Dress Code : Smart Casual (no slippers allowed)
