GIA RESTAURANT & BAR

Hey Hey! My final exam is coming up and I haven't prepared for it..nooo! Anyone else is facing exams too? Well, I wish you all good luck! Let's put aside about exams for now and talk about this new Italian restaurant at Sampoerna Strategic Square! I first found out about this place from an Instagram post, as usual, and after a little bit of research, I found a picture of it's interior and was starstruck! Located on the lobby, they go by the name GIA and is a fine dining restaurant, which suits it's interior! What kinda disturbed me was how the staffs kind of suggest (insist) that we make a reservation first. Now, I'd totally understand if the reason is because the place is fully booked but the truth is it's almost empty! Maybe it's because they're a fine dining restaurant?

The restaurant is divided into 2 sections, though I don't know why, I'm just gonna make a wild guess and say that it's for privacy purposes. Really sorry that I'm unable to show you a clear view of the divided sections, since they DON'T ALLOW any type of interior photographs here, with any kind of device! That was a huge minus point for me but thankfully I was able to sneak a few shots before they told us about it, so you can still get a little sneak peeks of the gorgeous interior!

Patterned ceramics adorn all of the tables, at least I think it's ceramic? Guess it's expected for a member of Ismaya Group, they're practically famous for their amazing concepts! Anyways, if you're familiar with Bibliotheque Bar, I'm sorry to say that they're no longer there and is replaced by GIA.

Glad that they, at least, allowed me to take shots of the foods!

WELCOME BREAD

Starting with a gorgeous welcoming bread and right about that time, I was confident that the foods would be good. This unique bread tasted surprisingly good! The black side is parmesan garlic and the white (or yellow) one is black olive. Be sure to enjoy it while it's warm for the perfect taste!

ICE LEMON TEA

My trusty beverage of all times!

PANCETTA IDR 175K

Crispy pork belly, chickpea puree, red onion jam, roasted baby potatoes.

Here they have 2 pork belly menus, the other one is called Maiale, which is a grilled pork belly but I decided to go with the crispy one. It was really worth the price cause the size is really generous as you can see from the photo, though it was a bit hard to cut through it and the crispy skin's just the BOMB! Pork has never seem to fail me!

These are the side dishes; baby potatoes, chickpea puree, and red onion sauce. All of the side dishes're okay except for the red onion jam, which I'd suggest to leave it out unless you like strong onion flavors!

CANNOLI SICILIANI IDR 55K

Ricotta cream, hazelnut gelato, popcorn.

Didn't really expect that the ricotta cream will be this overwhelming! Fyi, ricotta is a type of Italian cheese from sheep milk. This was literally ricotta cream wrapped in a crepe and it was too much, the crepe's a little bit too crispy for my liking as well! The chopped peanuts and chocolate on each end of the ricotta cream didn't help much either. The only thing I can tolerate here is just the hazelnut ice cream!

VALRHONA CHOCOLATE SYMPHONY IDR 85K

Drizzle EVOO dash of salt 65% gelato, 75% tart, 85% mousse.

So there's 3 types of EVOO chocolate usage here and if I'm not mistaken, EVOO chocolate is chocolate infused with certified Extra Virgin Olive Oil, the percentage probably indicates how much EVOO was infused. First is the gelato; I personally think it was way too thick, maybe if they could tone it down a little bit, that'll be perfect! Next is the tart; topped with caramel popcorn to balance out the bitterness of that thick melted chocolate. Be warned that it is very VERY bitter! 

Last is the mousse; the black chocolate that looked like a tombstone tasted the same as the melted chocolate on the tart, a little bit bitter even! You can find red velvet crumble below the mousse for texture variant. Out of all the 3 types of chocolate, my favorite was the tart!

Upon arrival, you'll see this table of drinks, a real eye-catcher, whereas the table I sat at was behind that glass, which separates the 2 section. There's also an outdoor (which I didn't not get to take photo of)! I do hope that they fix that policy soon!

Gia Restaurant & Bar

Sampoerna Strategic Square

South Tower, Ground Floor Unit 7- 8

Jl. Jend. Sudirman Kav. 45 - 46

Jakarta Selatan 12930
021-57953300

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