MOJO Kitchen & Bar, Senopati

MOJO Kitchen & Bar has been around for quite some time now, and it is just still as hip as last year when it was first opened for public. Located at a very strategic and most popular trendy restaurants area, it quickly becomes one of favorite hang-out spots for Jakarta’s youngsters. The restaurant is not that big, but the interior is superbly designed resulting in a very cozy and relaxing place.

During my last visit, it was a cloudy afternoon, but thanks to the glass ceiling, we still managed to get some good pictures with the help of natural daylight. Personally, I love ALL their wall decors and the table sets. Nuances of wood really fulfills the room and it creates homey and warm atmosphere right away. The area is divided into smoking and non-smoking area, but bad news for non-smokers, the area is quite limited and they’re not really separated, anyway. But again, this is also a bar so it’s difficult to avoid smokers.

Later we learned from one of the waiters that this place is owned by Korean, hence the Korean-inspired menu. The food they serve is basically Western food with Korean fusion, very unique. We couldn’t resist!

For appetizer, we had this amazing, wonderful, delicious crispy pork belly puffs which instantly became our favorite that day! The pork belly is so smooth and soft, eating them was so effortless it was soooo enjoyable. The pork was very crispy and tasty, I didn’t even need the maple butter to enjoy it. Would come back just for another taste of this savory dish!

It is one of the recommended menus from MOJO (according to the waiters in charge), and was easily my pick because: I love chipotle and I am a big fan of cilantro. However, it was not as good as I expected. The chicken was actually great, very soft and tender, the sauce was kicking enough for me, but the rice was a bit disappointing. I couldn’t taste the cilantro, texture was too soft and it was just not my favorite.

This was mister’s order and I think we were all startled a bit when it was brought to our table. The appearance didn’t look like authentic quesadillas, but we thought maybe it was made like that for the sake of originality. The horror started when we had our first bites, then we realized this was NOT quesadillas. Well, it wasn’t bad, but weird. I LOVEEE Korean BBQ, but not in my quesadillas. Just no, thank you. 

This burritos plate was quite nice and filling. Again, it’s a modified version of the authentic burritos, but it wasn’t bad at all. I personally love the olive tomato rice because it was very moist and aromatic, like some Greek rice dishes that is cooked for hours so the herbs are very well-absorbed. They also have a Korean version of the burritos, maybe I should try someday.

For dessert, we had the churros and I have to admit that I love them to the bits! The churros were fat in shape, generously sprinkled with cinnamon powder (?) and sugar, sooo yummy. The bad part is they were not fully cooked so we could still taste the dough inside, but maybe it was just ours because the shapes were too thick. Nonetheless, they were still very enjoyable and delicious!

Okay, so there was a little incident during our short visit. Apparently, mister found a piece of packaging plastic inside his quesadillas, and called up a waiter to inform him about it. He didn’t mean anything, just telling him about it so it won’t happen again to other guests. Then the waiter deeply apologized and we were cool. Sometimes later, after we finished our dessert, another waiter brought us 3 cups of Baileys ice creams as complimentary dessert stating their apology for the incident. We were surprised by their gestures but respected their initiatives to please us as the guests. We didn’t even say we are food bloggers (we never did unless asked), so this was a very big plus point.

And as if everything they did wasn’t enough, when I was asking for the bill, the chef actually came out and greeted us face to face. I was like, WOW. This restaurant has seriously great management system and very good training, perhaps. She apologized again and we just told her we had no bad meaning, just informed them so it wouldn’t happen again. 

We really enjoyed the visit in MOJO, definitely will come back even just to enjoy some drinks and chill out!