Officially back to the blogosphere after a few weeks of hiatus! The past two weeks has been extremely busy for travels and I was barely in Jakarta during the period. Two weeks of non-stop flying to Singapore, Jogjakarta and Bali, all for the sake of pleasure and a bit of work, but now I am sitting at my desk looking at my laptop, typing this post and realizing I am a bit stressed out with the list of works that I have to finish before flying back to another destination in a few weeks, so short to say, these two weeks will be the busiest time of the month, literally.
I have been waiting to write this post for quite some time, and long story short I am. A couple of weeks ago, I went to this newly opened Italian restaurant in Townsquare Cilandak called Second Home and this has gotten quite a buzz lately from my foodie friends claiming that their food was good, well keep on reading before I got the reviews.
Second Home is locating what used to be the home of Chicken and Egg (which unfortunately had to close down), something about the overall vibe of the interior that is still "Chicken and Egg": moody, dimmed, intimate and homey with a slight touch of sophisticated, wood application and dark loving colors. They occupy three seating areas with an outdoor area dedicated for smoking guests, an indoor area with a bar at a side, and a semi-outdoor area in front.
I mentioned how Second Home is an Italian restaurant so you can expect good and delicate range of authentic Italian cuisine (like mostly pasta and pizzas) here. Now I want to emphasize on the "authentic", they hire a real Italian chef who is highly experienced in Italian cuisine to develop their menus and based on my experience, the food that I had really had that "authentic" characteristic to it, but then again, what is "authentic Italian cuisine" really taste like? Keep reading.
Price range of the food starts around IDR 70k-300k
Ravioli Spinach Gorgonzolla - IDR 88kWhen you're faced with Italian cuisine, it has this strong emotional and physical relationship with cheese and you can dump it. I have told you guys so many times how I am not a big fan of cheese but this one was weird in the most fascinating way, scent wise, Gorgonzolla are typically the stronger kind of cheese but this dish had such delicate scent to it that I was more eager to sample rather than avoiding it and after that first scoop, it was simply delicious. The spinach filling was seasoned nicely, coated in this perfectly firm ravioli skin
(by the way all the pastas here are home made) and the Gorgonzolla cream sauce complimented the whole thing nice and evenly!
Spaghetti Meatball - 88k Another simple yet delicious pasta, now I am going to start diving to the "authenticity" part of their food. Authentic Italian cuisine is all about fresh produce, fresh ingredients, simplicity and flavor, and flavor wise, because I carry this Indonesian palate of mine everywhere I go, the overall impression that I got from having authentic Italian food is that they mainly taste lighter than the stronger and richer flavor of Indonesian food (our herbs ftw!), even most Italian restaurants that actually open here choose to Indonesian-ized the flavor so that it matches our palate, but I don't think that's the case with Second Home and I appreciate that. A lot.
You don't have to taste "Indonesian" to be liked and I highly appreciate how they are serious about serving authentic Italian cuisine here realizing there will be fans or dislikers.
The spaghetti was perfectly cooked and
al-dente, the tomato sauce was very fresh and the highlight has got to be (yet again) fresh and tasty beef meatballs!
Crazy Cow - IDR 295k Their pizzas are not the cheapest, that's one thing, most of the ingredients used here are imported straight from Italia as local products did not cross their standard. Talk about reputation to uphold.
Since the opening, their Crazy Cow pizza has been the best selling menus here, it's a 30 cm pizza topped with tomato sauce, imported fresh mozarella, beef steak wagyu, cherry tomato and here's the twist: french fries! Visual wise, I found this pretty simple but very tempting in the same time, especially since I am a sucker for french fries got me thinking "bitch this better be good!".
Guess what? Even after the french fries I still think of this pizza as the "healthier" type of pizza, well first you're basically eating a thin crusted pizza with delicious mozarella + tomato sauce + cherry tomatoes and beef and
to me they are healthy. Gotta give it to the fresh ingredient for this natural and delicious flavor they create, this kind of pizza is not too heavy for lunch and perfect for sharing.
Pisa Pizza - IDR 278k Now this is my ultimate favorite-favorite! Ingredient wise, it has every single thing that I like: mozarella cheese, salmon, shrimp and Ikura. This was the saltier type of pizza (thanks to the naturally salty seafood and Ikura) and the freshness of the seafood matches very well with the more neutral cream and mozarella cheese all on top of the crispy thin crust pizza. PERFECT!
Lost for words, this is so good.
Tiramisu - IDR 85kIt probably doesn't get more Italian than Tiramisu for dessert but that's exactly what I did. Second Home's take on Tiramisu was very good. It was more to the creamier side than the wetter one like Gaia's. The sweetness of the Ricotta cheese, cake, rum and chocolate was delicate and it was indeed a sweet closure to the lunch. Had great time!
Dem layers!
The South has so many good Italian restaurants that a West-North kid like me got jealous of. Based on my experience having their food, the quality, performance and service made Second Home deserving your consideration when you're trying to find good and AUTHENTIC Italian cuisine in the South! Hey, congratulazioni for the opening and the best of luck <3.
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Second Home Italian Restaurant
Townsquare Cilandak
Jl. T.B. Simatupang Kav. 17
Cilandak, Jakarta Selatan 12430
021 - 7592 0253
Opening hours: 10 AM-12 AM
Average spending for two: IDR 300k
Dresscode: none
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Map for Second Home
