Tasteritos

So what happens when two lovers with the same love for cupcakes separate? Well, in the case of Allysa Torey and Jennifer Appel, they made two rival shops! You may know Torey from her famous shop Magnolia, which is my favorite cupcake shop in New York. But then my friend introduced me to a new one, called Buttercup Bake Shop, which is Appel’s shop, and so I decided to give it a try.

There are definitely more variety in Buttercup Bake Shop compared to Magnolia, and the taste is more pop and modern (Magnolia’s cupcakes are very classy, since it focuses more in its vanilla, chocolate, and red velvet flavors). Its pop and modern because it has choices like strawberry shortcake and pumpkin - sort of reminds me of Crumbs (another one of New York’s finest cupcake shops).

I terms of price, Buttercup is definitely cheaper. I forgot exactly, but I think Buttercup’s cupcakes are $2.25 each and Magnolia’s are $3.25 each.

All in all, I guess you can’t really count on me to decide which one is better. Compared to Crumbs, I definitely like these two more. But if it’s just between the two, I still prefer Magnolia. I like it better because I feel like the texture of the cake is softer. The flavor is not too sweet and not too strong. But some people, like my friend Reem, prefers Buttercup better because SHE thinks that the texture is better. So I don’t know. I guess you better try it yourself. LOL.

This is Buttercup’s Red Velvet.

This is the Strawberry Shortcake.

Okay bye.

Indita

I know it’s near impossible to classify a certain restaurant as the best in any city, but Kinokawa surely is, in my opinion, at the very least one of the best in Jakarta. It is an understated Japanese restaurant located in the parking building of Menara Thamrin, serves a crowd of mainly Japanese expats living in Jakarta, and is well-known for its omakase, or a Japanese degustation set. The twist is that when you order the omakase set, you let the chef decide what he will serve you, and you only stop when you’ve had enough (I stayed til it was closing time. Total of 16 courses. True story). The theme for the omakase that night seemed to be seafood, with its main attraction being the torched tuna belly sushi (it was certainly the best dish out of all the others). An interesting dish though, was *waitforit* fish sperm. Yes. Sperm sac and all. It tastes a bit like cow brains, but.. mushi-er. And the sperm sac *shudders* was surprisingly..large.. in size O_O awkwaaard. I would probably enjoy it more if the waiter hadn’t told us what it was, though. 

Here are some pictures: 

Octopus meat and duck liver pate

Clams, enoki mushrooms, and watercress in seafood broth

Tuna belly sushi

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