Imperial Treasure La Mian Xiao Long Bao, Plaza Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia

December 20, 2015

Imperial Treasure Chinese restaurant is located in Plaza Indonesia offering a wide variety of Chinese dishes. Signature dishes such as La Mian and Xiao Long Bao is a huge hit for diners but overall, whether it may be their appetizers, seafood, soup or even their desserts, they are delicious with full of flavour allowing you to order dishes to share in the middle of the table with your families and friends.

Starting off with a soup is always nice, especially when it's corn soup. I've always loved corn and yes, so I do also love my corn soups. 'Sweet Corn Soup with Crab Meat' (IDR48rb - AUD$4.8) was warm, well balanced, well seasoned and the amount of crab meat was sufficient.

What I thought they could have done was that they could've added a bit more corn, or even mix in some creamed corn to have that strong corn texture in. The corn didn't seem whole as they seemed to have squashed it all making it lose its touch and actual corn juicyness.

'Kailan sauteed with Garlic' (IDR55rb - AUD$5.5) is a classic greens dish to have, a simple dish but full of kick from the strong garlic and of course, it's healthy too. I would have liked the garlic to have a stronger taste though but that didn't really bother me really. Another classic dish to have at a Chinese restaurant is 'Long Beans with minced pork'. If you're bored of your usual greens, this is always a great substitute to have.

'La Mian with Stewed Beef Brisket' (IDR52rb - AUD$5.2) is not your most classic dish, but it doesn't really take too much of the flavour of the original La Mian away. I usually prefer my La Mian dish to not have a too much overpowering soup such as let's say the spicy soups or the sweet and sour soup as I feel that it takes the La Mian broth and also does not allow me to really taste and enjoy the handmade noodle fully.

The stewed beef brisket was stewed well, soft and melts in your mouth but the only downside was there was a massive chunk of the fatty skin still attached which wasn't a nice thing to see and is also generally hard to fully chew so we just left it as is at the bottom of the bowl.

'Fried La Mian with Chicken' (IDR48rb - AUD$4.8) was okay but nothing special, it just reminded me of fried noodles but using La Mian noodles instead. The chicken pieces was marinated well along with the mushrooms, bean sprouts and cabbage but I just found that the whole dish just wasn't interesting as the taste and flavour was the same through out every bite.

'Deep Fried Bean Curd with Salt and Pepper' (IDR48rb - AUD$4.8) is always such a cute and pleasant dish to have when sharing amongst a group of people. Why? Because the crispy thin batter blends it so well with the soft fluffy texture of the bean curd. Be careful though, don't just bite through it so easily though, it is usually very hot when you do.

If you look to the right photo, that's a dish I would recommend if you like a strong flavoured black pepper beef dish. 'Sauteed Diced Beef with Black Pepper' (IDR85rb - $8.5) was thickly diced and a simple combination of just roughly cut onions just made it all work. The black pepper was just right, not too strong but also yet not too light.

'Kwe Ling Kao' (IDR26rb - AUD$2.6) is also another must try dessert if you would like to taste the authenticity, the heritage of Chinese traditional food. Not sure how I should explain this dessert but it's somewhat like herbal jelly. Another name for it is actually Turtle Jelly due to its jelly like texture and dark brown colour. It is actually made from the powdered plastron (bottom shell) of turtles combined with some herbal products especially China roots smilax which makes this dessert quite expensive in many Chinese restaurants.

'Taro Sago' (IDR30rb - AUD$3) is just your typical Sago dessert with sago jelly, some pieces of diced Taro and also coconut milk. Not as sweet as I thought it would be but the coconut milk allowed the softness of the sago jelly and the Taro to combine nicely together.

This dessert was the only one I wasn't sure of what the name was but one of the most interesting dessert after the Kwe Ling Gao jelly dessert. You would get the dish cut in half and when you eat it, you dip it into the plate of what seemed to be icing sugar and then just simply eat it.