Breakfast at Hermes Cafe: Arabica Espresso, Hot Tea, Pancakes, Black Rice Porridge, Mie Caluk, and More

My family and I staying at Hermes Palace Hotel in Banda Aceh for two days. Our trip to the city is not for vacation but for taking my daughter to a pediatric dentist. Since Banda Aceh is the second home for me as I was studying at Medical School for seven years in this city. And I’ve seen the city is much developing after reconstruction due to tsunami 2004. Banda Aceh has become one of the cleanest and innovative cities in Indonesia. We could also find many modern and fascinating buildings, such as Tsunami Museum, Offices, Mosques and star hotels including Hermes Palace Hotel.

During our perfect hospitality at Hermes Palace Hotel, we also have our great breakfast there. The restaurant serves local, Indonesian and international cuisines for the breakfast. It’s sure they have to serves different dishes as Hermes Palace is a five-star hotel.

I tasted different dishes for my breakfast, but it must include coffee as a drink. I need a cup of coffee in the morning if I don’t to have headache for the whole day. I think I am a coffee addict already.

Arabica Espresso and Mie Caluk

I was excited to find an automatic espresso machine, Merol in the restaurant. I made a cup of espresso by myself. Using automatic espresso machine is pretty easy. Just press a button (there is black cup as a sign for the button). No need to press other buttons as they have been adjusted by restaurant staff. The the extract of coffee is getting out from the machine into our cup.

However, the espresso from automatic machine is not as thick as it from manual machine. The amount of roasted beans is limited about 8 g if we use automatic machine but we may use more by manual espresso machine. My favorite manual machine is Simonelli.

After making the espresso, I went to Aceh Corner stand for taking some mie caluk. Mie Caluk is a traditional Aceh noodle dish. The dish is commonly found in traditional markets, but I really appreciate that the five-star hotel serves this traditional dish in their modern restaurant.

Let’s look closer at the mie caluk corner. There are yellow noodle, sauce, celery, fried onions and krupuk. Krupuk is a deep fried cracker made from starch and other ingredients. Its color is various, and this one is pink.

The thick spicy sauce is made of many ingredients, but must include ground peanuts. Other ingredients include shallot, garlic, lemongrass and citrus leaf, coconut milk, salt, sugar. All these different ingredients are mixed with ground peanuts.

The look of mie caluk is a bit similar to spaghetti. But, sure it’s not spaghetti. Yeah, spaghetti is from Italy, which is a thin, solid and cylindrical pasta made of milled wheat but mie caluk is made of rice flour.

I used to eat spaghetti in Italy, when I visited Milan a few years back. I enjoyed it at Gotto Rosso Ristorante in Galeria Vittorio Emanuelle. Of course, it’s so much different taste to mie caluk.

Beside mie caluk, I also enjoyed pancakes with honey. I am bit dissatisfied of pancake presentation.

They are thin and small. But, it’s okay since I know many variations of pancake in other places in the world.

Hot Tea and Black Rice Porridge

On the second day, I tried to taste black rice porridge. Sure, it’s not rye. Yeah, if I heard the word of rye, I remember Agatha Christie’s novel, A Pocket Full of Rye. It’s a detective novel to find a murder.

An autopsy reveals the cause of death was poisoning by taxine, a toxic alkaloid obtained from the yew tree, and that Fortescue ingested it with his breakfast, while a search of his clothing reveals a quantity of rye in his jacket pocket.Wikipedia

Hm, a cup of hot tea and a bowl of black rice Porridge was my menu for breakfast. The porridge was a bit sticky and sweet.

The black rice porridge is commonly added with coconut milk. But, I didn’t find any at the table that time. That’s okay, so I just enjoyed it.

You know, my daughter loved to eat chicken noodle for her breakfast. That looked so tasty.

Overall, we enjoyed so much our breakfast at Hermes Cafe. They also serve fried rice, white rice, some breads, salad, jamu, cereal, and many more. I didn’t taste all of them. I just only need a cup of coffee and some of snacks.