[LIFESTYLE] : Christmas Lunch at Gastromaquia

Hello gorgeous, been a few days since my last post, so how is It going? Hopefully everything fine, and the Christmas holiday preparation is going well! Christmas is around the corner, I’m sure these days our schedule are filled up with Christmas dinner or lunch, isn’t it? 

I wanna share my experience having Christmas lunch, together with my friend, Marisa at Gastromaquia. This Spanish restaurant prepare special Christmas menu each year, and this year, thanks to Clozette Indonesia, they gave my friend and I an opportunity to try their special menu. 

We Christians celebrate Christmas as our Savior’s birth, on December 25th. It’s always rousingly and has a lot of fun. Each of us celebrate it differently. Some celebrate it with fasting, giving and sharing to those who needs, or maybe had some quality Time with friends and family. Me myself, usually spare some time to have lunch or dinner with close friends and family, just to reminds us how lucky we are to have each other. 

Gastromaquia is a famous Spanish restaurant in South Jakarta. It even located across the famous CEO of MNC Group, Harry Tanoesoedibjo. The location itself was in the middle of residence which means pretty hard to find (well this is my first time here and kinda bit confused with the location, even though I’m using Waze but the connection always have problem, I’m using telkomsel by the way) fortunately my handsome brother have a great instinct on the road, so he helped me found this restaurant. 

For the building, we can say they have a good one (but not the best, of courseee they’re selling food not buildings lol) and the place is “instagrammable” so yeah I’m excited to go inside! They have a very unique interior designs (which I love it so much), full of kitchen stuff like spoon and fork. Even I didn’t realized it at first since it looks too pretty, I thought it was a special interior but then when I noticed it turns out that they’re cultery. Another fun fact, this restaurant is more famous for events like birthday party and bridal shower. When we’re there, there’s a bridal shower (i wish it was mine but unfortunately it wasn’t mine , pathetic) and we met kak Cyndaadissa (one of clozetetcrew and she’s our friend x I love her cuteness. She’s very humble and kind, well kinda shock met her there and the one who’s going to have the bridal shower is her friend! 

Move on to the menu, they prepare a lot of choices for Christmas set. Three choices of Appetizer, three choices of main menu, and two choices of dessert. Special homemade Christmas drink, and add IDR 75k++ for house wine. For all those above, we only need to pay IDR 275k++ or around IDR 325.000 net, super affordable, right? Since there are two of us, we decided to order different menus to get more insight from this restaurant. FYI, they’re well-known for the homemade stuff here.

Appetizer

Gambas al ajillo (garlic butter prawn), made of fresh prawn, garlic, butter, olive oil, and fresh tomato. The prawn itself was super fresh (which I love it so much), added with fresh tomato make them the best combination. Everything here was so fresh, I even eat the garnish lol.

Iberico ham & rocket salad (contains pork). It taste super fresh, the leaves are kinda bitter feels like they’re using olive oil. The ham and pork were delicious, doesn’t feel fishy at all. Less fat I guess, make them a good combination. 

Over those two menus I tried, I choose gambas al ajillo better. 

Main menu

Pan fried salmon served with asparagus risotto ; what catch my eyes first were the foam on the plate. I was kidding with ica if the foam was from some kind of rice stew or something, then we ended up asking the waitress the origin of the foam out of curiosity. Then the waitress said, it was from risotto stew, wow pretty close! The thing we loved from this menu is creamy feels, and the foam itself. The pan fried salmon was a bit fishy (it was no big deal for me because I love both cooked salmon and salmon sashimi, but for you who hate those raw stuff might be reconsidering this menu before ordering it. If you dare enough to try, well it’s gonna be worth to try. Even my friend, ica, she doesn’t like salmon but ended up liking this dish. The risotto taste perfect (not overcooked) and the asparagus is also delicious. 

Home made pasta with chanterelle mushroom in creamy sauce served in parmesan wheel; super unique way of cooking! They took the warm fettuccini to the cheese wheel, cook them there (and of course get the perfect melted cheese taste, right from the cheese wheel, I love it and enjoyed watching it being cooked). They prepared eggplant and the taste was perfect, I can say. It taste more of cheese rather than eggplant, not overcooked and not too crispy. The good thing is, even though this dish was cooked on cheese wheel but the taste is not too cheezy (cmon this one’s Christmas dish, not some kind of boy trying to get you ok) wkwk and a bit bitter taste from the cheese, I guess. The taste was also perfect, but I can taste the oil a bit too much. Still tolerable amount of oil, but above those two dishes I prefer the risotto. 

Dessert

Caramel cheese cake ; it looks like a standard cheese cake served in a good way of plating, with some different sauce. I love the taste of cheese cake (moist soft and good cheese taste) but I want more of the sauce. The brown one, taste perfect (it was some kind of chocolate I guess) but the amount was too little :( 

Pannacotta with raspberry sauce ; this one is perfect. Simple actually, the original taste of pannacotta, with garnish of raspberry sauce on the top. The softness I can feel while cutting it, I love it so much. The sweetness was perfect, not too sweet.

Above those two desserts, I choose pannacotta for sure!

Christmas mocktail

Made from apple juice, lime, and some other ingredients. This one’s very special, said the uncle, because the apple syrup was homemade specially by Gastromaquia. The taste was surely refreshing and perfect for Christmas occasion! 

As we’re curious with the house wine, we ordered two different kind, both white wine and red wine. The white wine stay cold longer than red wine (i don’t know if it’s just my feeling or real lol). The white wine taste ok, and I love it (normal taste of wine) while the red one taste more of alcohol a lot than the white wine. I love both (well my alcohol tolerance is pretty high) but since it’s lunch I’d prefer the white one. As for dinner, red house wine here would be perfect. 

I guess that’s all for my review, thankyou so much for Gastromaquia for having me, Clozetteid for giving us the opportunity, and of course my beloved friend Marisa for having lunch with me. See you on my next post, and enjoy your Christmas lunch/dinner time! Hihi