Just another restaurant encountering while I was in Bandung. We found this restaurant named Giggle Box by chance and just immediately itched to go in. And there we went. I fell in love at the first sight with the interior and what surprised me even more was the price. I was like, “IDR 20k for steak, for real?”. I had Fish and Chips, anyway, but I sliced a little bit of the steak my brother and boyfriend had. The taste is not too far from the expensive ones. So it was a really good-giggly day. We had fun at Giggle Box! I think I need a lot of these kind of places in town. We all need them, don’t we?

When opting for favourite eating-out places, some people might just take the food into their account and don’t care about the place itself. While some other might prefer good ambiance only, the food-taste follows after which is often compromisable if the place itself is already pleasing. However, there are people who want both come into one package. I am one of them – the third group. I rate a restaurant satisfying only if it meets both criteria, nice place and nice food (and suitable/reasonable price comes third). Last weekend in Bandung, though specifically meant to make a visit to family of boyfriend’s side, I’m glad that boyfriend and I managed to sneak some time off to nice restaurants. We arrived at two places that absolutely met the said criteria, Hummingbird Eatery and Vanilla Kitchen.

Hummingbird eatery, Jalan Progo No. 14 – Bandung

No, it isn’t branch of Hummingbird Bakery London I once wrote about. Unlike that famous one in London, which appeared to be the heaven of sweet-tooth mankind, this one in Bandung doesn’t sell cupcakes. Not even a single in the dessert/snacks menu. It is a proper restaurant serving foods of many kinds, ranging from Indonesian dishes to International ones, main course to light course, and steak to pasta/rice. Well, I did love the food I ordered, but I was honestly more fixated to the “think out of the box” interior details. Most of them are recycled stuff, such as the tranformation of used bottle racks into a unique chair (they added cushion on top of the racks so we could sit on it). Who could’ve expected?! It’s either I’m too lacking creativity or the designers are too brilliant. Hopefully, the former wasn’t the case. I loved every details of the interior, especially those troupe of birdcages found at the centre wall (last in above pictures).

Vanilla Kitchen, Jalan Cimanuk No. 11 – Bandung.

This restaurant is within easy reach from Hummingbird Eatery. They dig vintage interior and ambiance. The wooden interior totally got me and for a few first seconds reminded me of Urban Outfitters’. Each piece of the interior seemed to be carefully chosen. They even had wooden vintage bookshelves! I don’t know about you but to me, bookshelves adds up to a perfect-taste interior design. After a few scans to the surrounding, it really came as a surprise that I had identical chair in my house 15 years back when I was a tiny girl. Old days! and I tell you what, I could literally spend hours (or even get lost about the time) in this place, eating and chatting continuously. I was that certain, as it was very much comfy and homely. For the food, I tried out the Smoked Beef Aglio Olio and was about to make another order (same dish) if I forgot that I still needed to finish Chocolate Lava Cake for dessert. Tummy was beyond happy.

Everytime I leave this city, I always feel like I want to come back again immediately. Well obviously, it’s boyfriend’s hometown. However, the existence of those kind of places did successfully double my excitements! Bandung leads in splendid culinary treats. True! This is good, you know, this emerging new business. So can’t wait to explore more on next visits.