Everyone sure love great foods. And surely, everyone will keep searching for new places to indulge. As the demands get higher and more people insist on quality of the foods and ambiance, more eateries struggle to prove that theirs are the best. Surely it will cost a lot to make a good and memorable branding, but when it nails, flocks of people won't stop coming by.

Ichi Dough could somehow prove that they truly focus and make great effort on delivering overall dining experience. Just by looking at the interior, which is one-of-a-kind, we easily could build up a great first impression entering the property. Divided by 2 levels dining area, the venue offers quite a lot of space for visitors to dine-in. Usually if it is not very crowded, they would only open the first floor. But, please do always make sure to check whether the second floor is available, because there are more choices of how we enjoy the foods - whether it is lazing around big sofas/couches, the usual dining setup, or even on bar stools and tall tables. Going alone for a drink, you could sit on the barista seats, maybe?

On that evening, we choose the usual dining setup, but on the second floor, even though it is a smoking area, it was still quite worth it for the nice setup of country-ish rustic interior design. I really love how the staff area and toilet's doors are almost invisible if it was closed. The frameless doors camouflaged along the wooden wall - such a smart design!

Anyway, lets take a look at what we enjoyed that night. We ordered some tea which came out as a pretty nicely colored tea set. The tea was refreshing and flavorful. It was quite hard to find high quality tea with a bold taste/aroma - Ichi Dough somehow did a great job! The other beverage/drink we ordered was some kind of blended coffee with Oreo as the main highlight. Not too sweet, easily my new favorite drink.

Next order came up. It was a slider (mini burger) menu. At first, we opted for beef meat, but sadly it was unavailable that evening, so we went with the chicken instead. The sliders' meats were cooked with Japanese curry that was responsible for such an appetizing and authentic aroma. Even though the dish presentation was quite dull and monochromatic, the taste was the opposite! The tender and juicy chicken meat combined with the aromatic Japanese curry always left us wanting more. I could easily finish this single serving alone if I didn't have to share with the others!

Salad menus are usually underrated. With the usual dressings and fresh vegetables, it is hard to find a decent tasting salad. If your are still on a journey to search for a delicious salad, fear not - your search is over. Ichi Dough's Greeny Goody Salad is one of the BEST tasting salad I have ever eaten. Thumbs up to the chef for creating this beautiful, mesmerizing dish. I am in love with the vinaigrette they put together, it was addictive!

The vinaigrette acts as a great medium to elevate the freshness of the vegetable mixtures. With the additional slices of chicken fried with bread crumbs, the salad could be a full meal for one to eat as a dinner/lunch. The additional perfectly poached egg pretty much make this dish a WINNER for me personally. I would love to come back and eat the whole dish myself for sure.

Thinking that our dining experience would be as perfect as possible, I miscalculated a little. Please click *THIS* (a picture link) and compare it to what they served us! I have a high expectation of their mac and cheese, but I was disappointed. The mac and cheese was somehow bland and would be balanced by the black crouton pieces, but somehow the serving of the crouton was so little compared to what the picture from their website looks like.

That evening, I forgot why and how we ended up ordering fries even though there are a lot of other unique choices of menus. And after all the menus came out, we realized that most of what we ordered had fries as the side dish. We ended up too full eating fries - yes we could finish all the fries since they are perfectly cooked to the golden brown color and amazing crispness. This special fries menu, with cheese, mayo, chili sauce and somewhat Jalapeno slices as topping also did not disappoint.

Last, the biggest dish was out. The size of the dish was monstrous. The amount of the fries was also too generous! Surely we are having fries party that evening - the dish should be named Chips and Fish instead! The fish in my opinion was a bit overcooked and the fried layer was somehow chewy. What I really like from the dish was the condiments - fresh, and went pretty well with the fish we ate.

I really love eating here. Yes, there are some disappointments that made the dining experience less that perfect. But hey, it's "less than perfect', that means it's almost perfect. I would be coming back for sure, especially for the heavenly salad I discovered from that opportunity - and moreover the other menus I haven't tried back then.

Anyway, they were having a daily promotion while we visited their venue. We received a whopping 40% DISCOUNT on the foods we ordered for wearing Batik on Friday. Check out their promotions for different days on their Instagram account linked below!

ICHI DOUGH
Centrepoint Jl Timor Blk M 21-22, Medan, Indonesia

Everyday, 10 am -10 pm
+6261 805 108 73
Website | Instagram | E-mail

Lately, there are huge numbers of new restaurants/cafes emerging in Medan. An eatery with bakery and restaurant combined is re-surfacing - we could see Tip Top as one of the great examples. Some of these eateries do serve great baked goods and meals, yet there are some of them in which only excel in one of the categories.

One of the new venues that uses the concept I mentioned earlier is OO Pastries. Located on Jl. S. Parman, this restaurant must have gained a lot of exposures from traffics and passer-by. OO Pastries' building uses rustic/country feel to its facade - a very wide-spread exterior/interior trend lately.

Getting inside, we will face a whole different kind of ambience - little rustic, more artsy, especially with the presence of the randomly suspended lamps installation. Directly facing the entrance is the bakery/pastry area. We could see varieties of breads and cakes showed on the brightly lit cake display. Talking about the pastries, OO Pastries serves one of the best/well known cupcakes in town - Cotton Cheese Cupcakes.

After being seated, I could then see some connections between the rustic facade and the interior - repetition of the wood patterns outside could be seen on the walls and floors in one side of the dining area, which also has a nice lighting setup. The dining area is quite spacious and is very suitable for family and large groups.

Price-wise the foods are quite on the "expensive" mark, so our expectations and my expectation are quite high. For starters, we ordered a salad and fried chicken stripes. The salad we received had a generous portion of chicken meat. The dressing was nice, combined with the well-marinated chicken and freshly prepared vegetables, this menu was a good start indeed.

Another starter we ordered was chicken stripes. Surprisingly, this menu was one of the best we had that evening. I love how tender and savoury the stripes were. The tartar sauce complemented the chicken decently - sadly a portion was not enough to fulfil my likeness towards the amazing combination.

Moving to the main courses - first out was this curry fried rice. Looking at the presentation, the dish looks quite unattractive to be honest, thankfully, though, it tasted quite good and have an authentic feels of Indonesian curry. But again the portion seems a bit small for the price tag. I was expecting more on the meats, the rice, and the small slices of anything else in the rice that could make it a more fulfilling meal.

The next main dish was one of their recommendations (written on the menu). Generous portion of chicken fillet and fries at last. But taste-wise, it was on the edge of disappointment to be honest. I could not taste the marinara and the mozzarella topping on the (thankfully) well cooked chicken fillet, it tasted pretty bland overall. I needed to reach the chilli sauce to make it better tasting. Looking at the appearance of the dish also made me wonder a little about how the dish was supposed to be eaten. I should lift the whole fillet - put aside the fries to make place for the fillet -then I could slice it, otherwise, the fries would be all over the place. Somehow not a very effective plating, eh?

OO Pastries surely serves good quality pastries (the brand speaks its specialty). But to me personally, improvements needs to be made regarding the meals, especially if we are looking at the price tag they offer. Somehow, I expected more on the quality and portion of the foods they serve. Is it worth for another try? Sure for the pastries, but for the meals? I would love to hear from the others to convince me.

OO PASTRIES

Jl. S. Parman No. 308, Medan, Indonesia

Everyday, 9 am till late

+62 878 9218 1000

Website | Instagram | E-mail

Recently, I have decided to try cafes or restaurants that I have never been to. Usually, I would play it safe and went to eateries that I have always been to. This time, my place of choice would be Goedang Koffie. Based on its name, it would be best described as a place that mostly serve coffee, or if there were other choices, it would be small bites like toast or sandwiches or slices of cakes to go with coffee. Well, in reality, this cafe/restaurant only serve limited range of coffee with more choices on other kind of drinks and food.

The restaurant is located on a small road near one of the popular campus in Medan, which is not that hard to find. The feel inside the cafe was nice - some rustic/country ambience with touches of unique decorations. We got a seating area with an interesting ceiling. The ceiling is decorated with books hanged randomly along with wooden rulers and lamp bulbs. Overall, the rooms (there are numbers of section inside the eatery) gives too much warm lighting that made most of the food snaps looks the same. One thing that I am still confused is that I do not find any correlation between the restaurant name and everything inside except some pictures of huge coffee beans in the entrance area. Well, the place doesn't really matter, it is what they serve that matters.

I am not really a beverage person, I love to drink plain water to go along with anything I eat, so, unless there is a super special beverage that drive people mad and queue for that, I wouldn't try most of the beverage other than tea, coffee, smoothies, or juice (wait, but isn't that most of the cafe only serve those? forget it). Goedang Koffie provides great amount of beverage choices to choose from, most of them are OK - no complaints at all.

Let's move to the main subject - food. This cafe/restaurant serves variety of dishes which are always found in all-round-cafe. Small bites, western/eastern appetisers, main course of well-known dishes such as pasta, rice, noodles, steaks, etc - a safe (but turns out dangerous) decision most of Medan cafe/restaurant use. By this preference, most of the dishes those kind of restaurant provide would not stand out and finally becoming average and sometimes boring. Thankfully, Goedang Koffie do make some of their dishes good and likeable for me.

Let's start with appetisers/small bites. We ordered Crispy Chicken Thai - small fillets of chicken, fries, served with Thai sauce. The sauce was good, it went pretty well with the perfectly fried and crispy chicken along with the nicely done fries. This dish would give a good start of a meal.

Another appetiser we ordered was chicken wings - which is one of the new menus on the list. Thinking that how perfectly cooked the other chicken was - didn't guarantee that other chicken dish would be as good. Well, by judging how tender the meat was, it was also cooked perfectly, but taste-wise, I have ever had better chicken wings - it could be how the seasoning that was not really going well with my taste bud.

That evening, we decided to try most of the menu variety - and one of them was pasta. We went with Alfredo-style and fettuccine as our favourite choice of pasta. It tasted quite good, creamy and savoury. We dived into it and finished it pretty quickly and it could be one of our favourite dishes of the night.

Chicken is always the easiest and safest choice when we are faced with meats and steaks. The chicken fillet we received was good. Despite the very standard presentation of the dish, it tasted quite nice. The mushroom sauce paired decently with the generous portion of the chicken. Our tummies were satisfied!

We also ordered a very widely found Indonesian dish, which is fried rice. Indonesia's fried rice is ranked as one of the best-tasting dishes in the world. Making a fried rice good is actually an easy task. To make it exceptional, it requires luck or great skills preparing it. Our fried rice came out almost exceptional - far beyond "good". I loved how the "cabe hijau" as the main seasoning elevate the fried rice quality. It was also not too spicy that I could enjoy it comfortably. Moreover, the not-overcooked fried egg and well-seasoned traditionally fried chicken breast also brought the fried rice as a whole dish that satisfied me that evening.

A very authentic dish, usually found in Binjai, with its noodle's crunchiness and savoury sauce also didn't fail to impress me. Even though the dish didn't fit everyone's taste, the noodle and the sauce, for me, was good enough.

There are pizzas to choose from their menu if you are interested, sadly, I forgot to try their Calzone pizza. I ordered the pizza which have the most diverse toppings. I expected it to be good, but to be honest, I was a bit disappointed. First of all, the pizza smelled really inviting (which was good!), but when it got into my tongue, it felt bland. I could not taste anything in particular in contrast of how diverse the toppings were - it could be because it was too diverse that nothing stood out. Other things were how wet the pizza was and how the toppings could not held up that made it a messy situation having this particular dish.

Our experience that night, in particular, was GOOD, no less. I, myself, enjoyed the food that I would go back again. There are several dishes that could be improved, but, then, there are some dishes that turns out quite memorable and would be recommended. I do look forward having another chance to visit this cafe in the future, you should, too.

GOEDANG KOFFIE
Jl. Mahoni No. 5, Medan, Indonesia
Everyday, 10.00 - 24.00
+62 818 438 468 / +62 61 453 2822