It’s exciting to see how Jakarta evolves into serious culinary destination of Southeast Asia day by day. No matter how unfriendly it is towards its citizens or even tourists, for this sake, one must not get carried away with its decaying urban scenes or its biggest forte – the unbearable congestions. Because at the end of the day, we always get to choose how to seal the day in a better way and for that, LIN Artisan Ice Cream proudly presents the first liquid nitrogen ice cream in Jakarta!

Despite its location in Kemang, LIN may prove to be elusive for everyone to find. Jalan Taman Kemang is the street opposite of the Kemang Mansion apartment and also serves as an alternate entry to Lippo Kemang Mall. The mall actually causes daily bottleneck traffic on the intersection of the apartment and that means, finding LIN becomes easier. Additionally, I think we’re going to witness the emergence of more restaurants on this street in the near future.

Designed the way people like it nowadays – industrial-style with nice wooden furniture, whitewashed bricks, and enough space to move around. In addition to the cozy air-conditioned indoor area, the smoking section is also provided outside and suitable for backpacking foreigners who seek refreshments after a long day of walking around the city like I saw that night.

Well, LIN is indeed a good place to stay for your ice cream while most people may prefer to have it as takeaways at other ice cream parlors. It’s also fun to see the process at how they lovingly squeeze the lemon and grate the skin or extract the essence from the vanilla sticks before the mixing process. The liquid nitrogen is then infused through a pipe and they will have to check and mix every time until it reaches the desired texture of the ice cream. From here, you will witness magic as this process can freeze a liquid in just around 2-3 minutes. It’s also fun to see the process as the whole serving station is clouded with cold smoke as a result from the infusion.

My first ice cream that night came from the strawberry faction. It reached the desirable characteristics of an ice cream empowered with small chunks of the fruit itself and the grainy texture of a strawberry. However, LIN made it a tad too sweet although it was still forgivable due to the acidic nature of the fruit. The best among them all that night came from vanilla ice cream elegantly made into affogato on a cup filled with a shot of espresso. Again, I don’t have any objection with the sweetness since the acidic/bitter taste of the coffee helped to balance it.

Unfortunately it didn’t work for the passion fruit ice cream. Although it retained a good texture but the sugar was very overpowering and it broke my heart to see myself for not being able to finish a scoop of freshly made ice cream.

Like coffee nowadays, we as customers need to always involve ourselves in the process in order to get what we expected. However, it is also necessary for LIN to always fine-tune the flavor in daily basis as well to counter the fluctuating taste from the fruit. It’s like when this day we got ourselves a sweet orange but tomorrow, it might be a tad too sour. Therefore it is imperative for LIN to also communicate with what the customer expects from the ice cream. As a pioneer, it would be a huge advantage for LIN as the first liquid nitrogen ice cream parlor to set a good standard and beat the usual pre-mixed ice cream hegemony.

To sum it all up, I am actually looking forward to have a cozy place to spend my day around Kemang for a decent coffee, a good ice cream, solid snacks, warm service and of course, fast internet connection. Let us have faith that LIN will be able to achieve these in no time and not waiting until another competitor arrives.

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LIN ARTISAN ICE CREAM

Halal-friendly

Unsuitable for vegetarians

Address: Jalan Taman Kemang I no. 6, Jakarta – Indonesia

Opening hours: Everyday, 11 am – 11 pm

RSVP: +62.21.7179.4393

Spend: IDR 40,000 – IDR 75,000 / person

Website: http://www.linicecream.com/

Twitter: @linicecream