Pipiltin Cocoa Boutique, Senopati, Jakarta

Who doesn’t love chocolate? I am pretty sure that almost everyone I know are fans of this particular food (or drinks) and Pipiltin Cocoa Boutique is automatically in the top list whenever I think about chocolate. Although I have visited the Barito outlet a couple of times, I have never written any review about it at all. And now, they are opening another outlet, still in South Jakarta, exactly in Senopati area (now that really makes you think that there is at least one new place opens in that area every friggin’ day!), and it is currently still in soft opening days at the moment.

The Door to Happiness!

The outlet in Senopati is located just across Svana Spa, occupying this medium-sized space, which is smaller than the main outlet in Barito. The displays of chocolates really made me out of control for a while because the creations shown are so damn pretty and cute!! With the motto of “We Make Chocolate From Scratch”, their chocolate products’ qualities are unquestionably good and there are so many selections from cakes, chocolate bars, macarons and many others. In short, it’s truly a heavenly place for chocolate lovers or sweet-tooths! FYI, they use local cocoa as the main ingredients of the products, so aren’t you proud to be Indonesians? XD

Seating area is not big but comfortable enough to spend hours doing chit-chat and enjoying some cakes and drinks. Not only chocolate-based drinks, there are also menu of coffee, tea, fruit tea, etc to accompany your chocolate ritual. Well, honestly, I can stay for hours in this kind of place, LOL!

Pate de Fruit Apricot IDR 10K, Gianduja IDR 12K, Dark 70% Salted Caramel IDR 15K
We got these little babies as samples (thank you!) and my favorite was the Apricot one.

Pate de fruit is literally translated as “fruit paste” and this one had the jelly texture, soft and chewy with strong, distinctive taste of apricot. It’s like, not everyday thing that I can eat apricot here in Indonesia, so it was kind of special. XD Although coated with granulated sugar, it wasn’t too sweet because well-balanced with the sour apricot fruit, very good indeed.
Gianduja is sweet chocolate that contains about 30% hazelnut paste, and as a fan of hazelnut, this was also another favorite of the day and I will take this as a reason to come back here.
The salted caramel chocolate plate was very nice, as they use 70% dark chocolate which is like, totally my favorite type of chocolate, nothing could go wrong with this. The salted caramel was not really prominent, though.

Iced Dark Cherry Tea IDR 35K
I expected something much better when I ordered this, but the result was just truly opposite. Rather than tasting like cherry tea, it was more into plum-syrup infused tea with bold sweetness. Actually I felt kinda bad to Mr. K because I picked this drink for him, but towards the end, it kind of grew on me and finishing it didn’t seem so difficult anymore. But still, not something I will recommend, period.

Eggless Chocolate Cake IDR 28K
For a cake made with no egg, this cake was absolutely good. Although it was still quite hard when served, probably because it was taken from the lower-temperature display, taste-wise, it was nice. The texture was kind of rich and creamy, the chocolate had enough sweetness and not too overwhelming.

Plants IDR 45K
When ordering it, I was hoping for something like chocolate soil from Hyde, but in fact, it was totally different. If you have been in Pipiltin Cocoa, you probably notice that in their Nature menu, the food are named by nature elements such as “branch”, “plants”, “earth”. But since the menu here in new outlet is somehow different from the main one, be prepared to find completely different things here. All the dessert menus available in the menu are served in jars, and although this was nothing representing plants in any way (IMHO), this was actually quite unique. A soft mousse-y kind of cake which is combination of chocolate, peanut crumbles, marshmallow which resembled more to whipped cream, mixed with orange peel or zest and hint of ginger, my first impression was not that good. The more I scooped, the more I understood the taste and it was actually pretty good and refreshing. Refreshing is not a word that I normally use to describe a chocolate dessert, but this one reminded me so much of “sekoteng”, LOL.

Chocolate Truffle Cake IDR 30K
In the first glance, this cake was very beautiful and properly layered with exact thickness. People say, don’t judge the book by its cover and I think it pretty much sums everything about the cake. Tried this and disliked it instantly. I thought nothing could ever go wrong with chocolate truffle cake, but this was a little weird with some kind of coconut taste in it. To make things worse, the coconut-like taste was accompanied with strange smell. Well, the others who tried this cake with me that time didn’t feel the same so it could be just me, but hey, maybe I was just unlucky!

Iced Dark & White Chocolate IDR 42K
A sip and I fell in love! This super rich chocolate drink made me feel engrossed in major choco feast instantly although I bet it would be even better served hot! And don’t you worry because you can choose it hot or cold, depends on your liking 🙂

Praline Japanese Green Tea & Peanut Butter IDR 12K each
If you are there and see all the cuties, I am sure you’ll find them irresistible. The pyramid-shape Praline chocolate is actually made with peanut butter and it was like super awesome! If you like peanut butter, then make sure that you don’t miss this one. On the right side, I had the Japanese Green Tea or matcha Praline, and although the matcha was quite strong, I wished they put more in it so it had certain bitterness which is the characteristic of matcha itself.

Pate Choux Iranian Pistachio IDR 22K
Pate choux is light pastry which we familiarly know here in shape of eclairs, puff pastry, etc. Here the texture was a bit too dry and hard for me, but the pistachio came to rescue. They use Iranian pistachio, which is quite amazing because nowadays many restaurants or bakeries only use pistachios that are cultivated in the Asia. I am not a pistachio’s expert so I didn’t really understand the difference and I also couldn’t differentiate the taste. The cake wasn’t the best of its kind but I kinda loved it. If you like pistachio, it will satisfy you 🙂

Macarons IDR 12K each
The red one is Raspberry Hibiscus, which was nicely sour and refreshing, with lovely fragrance from the hibiscus. The orange one was actually duo-toned and very pretty, yellowish lighting kind of ruined the photo, though. It was Lemon Passion, a combination of lemon and passion fruit that resulted in a strong citrusy flavor that is unforgettable. Although the macarons looked so tiny and crispy, they were actually quite good in texture, a bit too dry and crispy in my opinion, but overall they were still enjoyable.

Hot Chocolate with Salted Caramel IDR 40K
This choco drink was served in a round ceramic cup that looked so Zen and calming. The cup was actually pretty handy because it had another part inside so when you grab it, it didn’t feel hot although the drink was. The choco art was made into “yin-yang” shape, so cute! Taste-wise, it was DELICIOUS! I mean, hot chocolate with hint of saltiness from the salted caramel is probably not a new invention whatsoever, but here, the saltiness was quite prominent so even just a little sip, you can taste it right away. I totally recommend this!

And before we left the place, Mr. K spotted this chocolate liquid coming out from the tap behind the counter, falling into a metal strainer before going down to a tank under it. Didn’t take any chance to ask the staff but next time I sure will!