
Om Nom Dessert Bar – The Alice in Wonderland of all desserts. Just recently I went with my Mom to meet fellow Indonesian and the Head Chef of Om Nom, Christy Tania. As fans of Masterchef and anything food-related, we were keen on trying the signature dishes mentioned on the show. Christy has appeared as a guest chef a few times and we hear she’s at the bar most days of the week. So why not pay her a visit Mom asks. It was a Tuesday evening and Christy was sitting in front of her MacBook (designing a new menu perhaps?). She greets us warmly and Mom instantly speaks Indonesian with her.
My Mom and Christy mainly exchange their experiences as chefs with one another, both agreeing and labelling the job as “stressful but rewarding”. Mom loves dining out at various places and meeting the Head Chefs when she gets the chance. Earlier this year when we were in Indonesia we visited Fukuro and a week later, Ristorante de Valentino. When Ryo (owner of Fukuro) found out mom was a chef he knew that she was his biggest critic of the night – he constantly came back to our table to check up on us, and he didn’t do that to any other table. Chef Marco of Valentino did the exact same, why? Because as Mom says, another chef’s opinion on their food matters more than any regular customer dining that night. Christy didn’t have to check up on us, Mom loves dessert and we knew the desserts we ordered would exceed our expectations.

Chocola Terrarium
The first dessert we ordered was the one in the large glass casing. A huge favorite on the menu, it has cinnamon sugared churros, chocolate ‘gravel’, pistachio and chocolate sponge, chocolate icecream, valhrona manjari mousse and milk foam. I loved the softness of the churros, I’ve only ever eaten churros with a crunchy texture in Melbourne and in LA so tasting this was a little unusual but still tasted pleasant nonetheless! The glass case holds the structure of the dessert and gets taken off as soon as it reaches your table. I thought it was more for show but guess not.

Raspberry Field
I’m sure many Melburnians have seen this mushroom dessert all over Instagram and Facebook last year. I know I did. I hated ruining this awesome plate of food though. It looks relatively simple but there’s different elements and textures that kinda get you confused but you can’t stop eating it because it’s a weirdly good combination. The mushrooms are made of raspberry and lychee sorbets with a baked meringue base. Surrounding it is raspberry panna cotta, rosewater pearls and white chocolate.
I like Om Nom bar because I find it has a nice ambient atmosphere and is a good spot to relax and have a decent talk with a friend or a fancy meeting with a client, seriously. It’s really casual. But taking photos is bothersome given that you’re in a situation where there’s extremely low lighting in the room. I was the only one who awkwardly used a flash on my phone to take these photos, ah well despite the lame looks I got from the waiters, I’m pretty proud of how it turned out.