Marutama Ramen : The Rise of Japanese Ramen

Ramen shop is everywhere now. But I do remember, Marutama Ramen as the pioneer of authentic ramen shop in Jakarta. Last week I made a visit to their outlet in EX - Plaza Indonesia. I love the ambience; private, calm, and earthy. Even located among other shops in the middle of the building, they still have interesting view, which is bowling alley. So don’t worry if you go alone, you still can watch people playing bowling and shout “wow” when they do strike. Never find a restaurant with this kind of view before. 

Boiled Gyoza was my first dish. Gyoza is Japanese dumpling. Available in two choices: pork and chicken. You also can choose how you want it to be cooked; boiled or fried. The gyoza came with special house made sauce, made from vinegar and soy sauce. Tasted a little strange to me. The vinegar was too strong, ruined the gyoza’s natural charm. Maybe next time I’ll ask them to serve the sauce separately. 

Boiled Gyoza

Second dish I tried was Tamago Ramen (IDR 66k). This is their new menu. Well, not literally new, but they just created a new package. Before, you could order Marutama Ramen with tamago (marinated half boiled egg). Now, because of a lot of request, they allow you to order Tamago Ramen, and get the exact dish. Fun fact: here you can have all you can eat noodle, as long as you still have the broth. Don’t worry, the ramen come in a big size. A little truth about the broth, it is chicken broth, made fresh everyday. The spoke person said they need 30 kilos of chicken bones and more than 5 hours to cook the delicious rich broth. This broth is used for all ramen and menu. They call it toripaitan. That’s what makes Marutama different with others. So if you don’t eat pork, you still can dine here and order chicken, because you are always allowed to choose chicken or pork for the topping. Not enough? You also may order for extra topping with extra charge too. Enough with the information. Now my turn to share my opinion. I loved it! The broth was so rich and thick with perfect amount of seasoning. It was the hero of the dish. The tamago was beautifully cooked. Need a whole night to marinate the egg before served to customer. The ramen itself was silky and perfectly boiled. I’m not surprised that it was a homemade ramen. Yes, they made the ramen in their main kitchen and distribute to all of their branches everyday.

Tamago Ramen - IDR 66K 

Tamago Ramen - IDR 66K 

Marutama is still one of my favorite ramen in Jakarta. What about yours? Tweet me. (@yummyfordummy) 

Marutama Ramen

EX- Plaza Indonesia 2^nd floor #20

P: 021‐316 0705

F: 021‐315 1874

Operation hours:

Sunday – Thursday : 11.30 am – 11.15 pm

Friday – Saturday : 11.30 am – 12.00 pm

Taiyo Sushi: Another Fusion (Rock 'n) Roll - Openrice Gathering / Food Tasting

If you happened to Pluit Putra Raya, you might notice a big sign written "Taiyo Sushi" on the left side. Once closed for a period, now it's re-open with new look. Even the changes weren't not far from the former, to be honest I prefer the old one. Well, who cares about it anyway. Let's go to the dishes. It's more important. :p

 I got the invitation from Openrice. So there were some of their staffs greeted me when I came in. 
First dish was Chawan Mushi (12K), which was a very appropriate appetizer, just exactly what I expected. The chawan mushi has nice texture and perfect seasoning. Loved it!

Chawan Mushi (12K IDR)

Taiyo Sushi Roll (52K). Half baked salmon with cucumber and crunchy inside. I forgot how they called the crunchy for sushi. Whatever it was, it definitely win my heart. Mayo and cheese on top went really well. Pssstt.. this one was my favorite.  

Taiyo Special Roll (52K IDR)

Tempura Maki Floss (22K) was a simpler roll. From the name, you might know what's in it. Yup, prawn tempura and floss. The prawn was perfectly cooked. I loved it too. Light and tasty. Let's call it as easy bites. 

Tempura Maki Floss (22K IDR)

Aburi Mozarella Roll (56K). As I googled it, aburi sushi means sushi whose fish on top that is torched by flame in a glimpse, so the fish is partly grilled and partly raw. I don't eat raw food, but aburi sushi was an exception. I loved the grilled-smell sensation. Aburi Mozarella Roll had kani inside, and chicken floss and tobiko as topping. The mayo was only for decoration; had no impact.

Aburi Mozarella Roll (56K IDR)

Unagi Salmon Special (54K). Tasted similar with Aburi Mozarella Roll and Taiyo Sushi Roll. Perhaps because they had similar ingredients. But the ingredients were too strong that the unagi was almost undetectable. 

Unagi Salmon Special (54K IDR)

Kare Pasta was their new menu. This dish contained fettucini and kare. The fettucini was overcooked for me. White sauce was a bit tasteless, but it's okay since kare was the hero of the dish. The Kare had pretty strong spices but still not sharp enough. 

Kare Pasta (45K IDR)

interior

Overall I loved the dishes. They had lovely unique taste that you'll only find in here. They kept the uniqueness so hard that almost all the sushi taste the same. That's so bad. 
I'll come back someday, anyway. :)


Taiyo Sushi
Jl. Pluit Putera Raya No.17, Jakarta
(021) 669-3675

Food Tasting: Umaku Alam Sutra

Heyho, Readers!

Even my owner was a bit busy with her life, thanks God she never forgets to fullfil me. :p

Well, this time we got invitation from Umaku Alam Sutra. 

Umaku is a Japanese restaurant which serves authentic Japanese cuisine with reasonable price. First opened at Duren Tiga, now they spread their wings into Alam Sutra. Yay! 

We had so much fun. A little chit chat and games that they'd prepared really widen my knowledge about Japanese cuisine. For example, I never knew that Tempura brought by Portuguese soldier to Japan, only Southern Japan people eats rice, etc. 

Hot Ocha (5K) will never go wrong. 

 Karai Ramen (35K). Thick hot and spicy broth with slices of beef and noris completed a big bowl of ramen. I could say it was very very spicy. I didn't dare to eat them too much. :p
They said, this ramen is origin from Hokkaido. Because the temperature is quiet cold there, so people love to eat something spicy to warm their body. 

Salmon Yakimeshi (33K). The rice was a bit sticky, just fit well with my likely. The seasoning was perfect. They put small pieces of salmon into the fried rice. I could say Japaneses fried rice is more likely into Hongkong fried rice ( not Indonesian), so it tasted salty and savory, without any hint of sweet. 

Sashimi Mariowase Jyo (44K). Hmm.. as I told you in previous posts, I don't eat raw food, include sashimi. :D
Some of my fellows said it wasn't fresh, but the other said it was fine. So I can't say anything, I didn't even try.

Spider Roll (37K). Not much I could say about this dish. The unagi didn't smell fishy,

Tempura Moriawase (35K). It was still hot when it came up. The sauce was nice, went well with the fries.

Sake Kabutoyaki (26K). This was Salmon's head, smeared with sake and other seasonings. First I heard, I didn't expect much from this dish. But surprisingly, it tasted so good! A little bit sweet, salty and savory, combined well in bite. I have to say, this really kicked my buds. :)

Some Robatayaki, which consisted of 1 piece each. 

I forgot its name, but I do believe it tasted so good that I wouldn't erase this part from my post. The fire-sprayed salmon was super great. It felt like melted when it touch my tongue. Whoah! Can I call this as mouthgasm? :p

Volcano Roll (35K)

Inari Sushi. Yup, different from usual. They put seaweed and roe fish, and mix them with the rice. What a lovely! :))

Salmon Grilled Cheese (27K). Grated cheese on the top of sushi? Challenge accepted. Lol
Tasted very fusion, as it also had mayo between the rice and cheese. So, with the dominan of mayo and cheese, I guess you now the taste already.

The very generous owners gave us these cute souvenirs. Thank you. :))

Overall, I loved it. Small, neat, unique, and decent place. Good food with affordable price. What else can I ask? :)


Umaku Alam Sutera
Ruko ASTC (Alam Sutera Town Center) Blok 10E No 9
(ruko seberang flavor bliss)
Alam Sutera, Tangerang
Phone: (021) 943811633
http://twitter.com/umaku_alsut

Mr. Curry PIM 2

Call me reckless blogger, cause I am. Lol. Apparently I've just realised that I haven't posted this post.  

Mr.Curry has opened their new branch at PIM 2 last December 2011. Located near Pasta de Waraku. 

Not just new place, they also offer new menu. 

The ambience was exactly the same with Mr. Curry GI. Yeah, that's their signature. 

Salmon Carpaccio. It looked very fresh. I could smell a hint of sesame oil in it. I love clear salad. The lettuce was crunchy, proved that it was fresh. The salmon also not fishy. Nice! 

Korokoro Tofu. I looooooved this. It was simply just deep fried silk tofu. But it was soft and nice. They spread some seasoning to give it some tastes. 

 

j
 

Assorted Mushroom Omurice. It was so creamy and buttery. Actually it was delicious, but I got myself nausea when ate it too much. :(

Chicken Katsu Curry Rice. Actually it was pretty good. The chicken was moist and tender. You can choose the curry, they had some variants. 

Here are the best part of the dishes which made my day delightful. A Dash of Fruit Splash (top) and Matcha Karamba (bottom). I loved the matcha! Yeah, I'm not a big fan of greentea, but this one was different. The ice cream was light and not too sweet. Then dorayaki was soft and cute (see the heart shape). The  honey toast was me-love-it-completely. 

Mr. Curry, Japanese Curry & Sweet House
Pondok Indah Mall 2
Restaurant Row, Level 3
Jl. Metro Pondok Indah, Jakarta
Ph: +6221 75920666
http://www.ismayagroup.com/mrcurry
http://www.facebook.com/iloveMrCurry

Go! Curry

Curry. Curry. Curry. Many things could come up in curry. Chicken, beef, pork, seafood, or anything. 

Go! Curry is one of tenants that has curry as their main menu. They serve many kind of curry; Japanese, Indian, Thai, etc. I'm not sure what kind of other curry, but they have many mascotts representing where the curries come from. 

After opened their first outlet at Cilandak Town Square, now they had opened at Pacific Place too. Go! Curry bring the new concept, that eating curry not always be troublesome. So they offer a simple and modern ambience to their customer. 

To order here, there are 3 steps you have to do. 

First, choose the curry. They have (approximately) 5 kinds of curry. 

Second, choose your meat. Chicken, seafood, beef, pork, lamb. Your call. :)

Third, choose your rice. Long grain, cilantro rice, butter rice. 

Voila!And finally, Happy eating! :D

Chicken Katsu with Rogan Josh Curry and Cilantro Rice (56K).
Rogan Josh is the curry with high tense of spiciness. Even the waitress warned me when I ordered one. This is their specialities. 
Well, it's hot. Just as I expected. :)
The chicken katsu was nice, crunchy outside, and juicy inside. The chicken cutlet wasn't too thick, and not too thin either. The curry was not thick. Good for me, so I didn't feel full easily. ;p
The rice has good fragrant, I loved it. 

Zesty Cheese Chicken with Brown Curry and Long Grain Rice (56K).
Zesty chicken was cube cuts of chicken. Same as the katsu, the chicken was juicy and nice. First they grilled it first than put it into the curry. So we could smell the smoked chicken. Oh, I loved it. 
Brown curry is Japanese curry. This curry wasn't spicy. Smell like Japanese curry (of course it was). To be honest I prefer Rogan Josh. It had something special that I rarely could find anywhere else. 
The long grain rice was just okay. It's just plain rice. :)

Butter Naan (19K).
They only had few choices for naan. Actually I wanted a sweet one, but apparently thay didn't have any. So I tried this. Naan is kind of bread. Click here to find out more about naan. this naan remind me of prata. But naan is thicker and drier. 
Anyway, the taste was just so so. It even tasted plain. I thought it would go well with the curry. So bad this dish didn't come with curry. :(




Cilandak Town Square, 1st Floor Unit C127
Pacific Place Jakarta, 4th floor Unit 4-01
http://go-curry.com/

Hakata Ikkousha

Heyho Readers! Who loves ramen? Me! Me! Me! 

As a big fan of ramen, it is a must to me to try the most happening ramen in Jakarta nowadays: Hakata Ikkousha! After the big hit of Ramen 38 spreaded throughout Jakarta and being calmed down already lately, now it's time for Ikkousha to be the next kicking point. 

Located in Muara Karang Raya, which is a food-crowded-place, Ikkousha has never been lack of customer. There's always a bunch of people queuing in the line waiting for their turn to taste the famous dishes. The place really reminds us of Japanese food stall, which is narrow and compact.

Dominated with wooden interior, they also have open kitchen where we could see the chefs working. 

As I saw some of the pictures hanging there, Ikkousha is based in Japan, and brought here by Japanese. 

This is their signature ramen.  Available with chicken and pork (38K).  I chose pork one. You know what makes Ikkousha different with another ramen? Their broth. As I overheard, it needed two days of cooking to make a perfect broth. The broth was not too thick but very taste and rich.
The portion was quiet big, enough to full my feast, but I was still like wanting more more and more. ;p
So bad there was only 1 pork slice served on the top. 

Tan Tan Ramen (46K). Just the same with the ramen, but it was a bit more spicy. You could see from the color, it looks more red-orange-ish. I thought they put some additional spicy broth. Oh, and tan tan ramen had half-cooked egg! Yippie! I was extremely in love. lol.

Gyoza. The gyoza was nice. Tasty and juicy. 

Chicken Karaage. Came in 5 pieces, and pretty big if compared to common karaage. Anyway. it tasted juicy, and crunchy outside. They spread peeper and salt on the top, and everything went well to me. 

Fried gyoza. just the same with the gyoza, but this one is the deep fried one. I prefer the other one. Although the crunchy skin was nice. :)




Hakata Ikkousha 
Jl. Muara Karang Raya No.85
North Jakarta
ph. +62 21 66600255
fx. +62 21 66670588

Kado ++

Grand Indonesia is one of food heavens in Jakarta. They have a lot good tenant. Kado++ is one of the new comer there. Actually first opened at Intercontinental Hotel, now Kado++ spread its wing into mall. Lets see how good it is.

Tori Don (54K). It was rice with scrambled egg, minced pork, and chicken. Tasted pretty good. The rice was perfectly cooked that time. The scrambled egg was tasteless. And the chicken was nice, tender, smells good. Minced pork was just okay.  

Tsukune Zousui (35K). Basically it's Japanese risotto. Different with modern risotto that served by common bistro lately, this Japanese risotto tasted much purer. Salty and creamy. But I didn't like the the texture. The rice was sticky, in a bad way. And I couldn't feel the meat. :(
Anyway, it was successfully full my empty tummy. Tommy's happy now. :p

Taiyaki Angko (22K). You must be know Korean fish ice cream. Yeah, it is so good! Nah, this Taiyaki  is the mini version, but without the ice cream. So it's like the crepes shaped like a fish. Angko means red bean. I chose Taiyaki Angko, so my fish crepes came with red bean paste filling. Nyum! 
The read bean paste was sweet. It was exactly the same taste with Korean fish ice cream without ice cream. So bad it made me craving for ice cream. It would taste much better with ice cream. :p

Overall, I'm not too satisfies, since they only had few variant of dishes. And the menu book was already bad enough for a such pretty high end restaurant. The taste of dishes was also just so so. 
They should make some improvement I think. :)




Kado++
Grand Indonesia West Mall Lvl. 3A
(021) 23581871

Buka Bareng Blogger - Katsusei (Grand Indonesia Ramadhan Rhapsody)

I often went to malls and found Katsusei signboard. To be honest, I was pretty curious to come in. But there's always reason not to. As I know, Katsusei is the first restaurant in Jakarta that give you a different experience of katsu dining. They have special spice. Fortunately, this Ramadhan month, Grand Indonesia came up with series of events called Ramadhan Rhapsody. The event itself is held from 6th August to 6th Sept 2011,with a lot of special events like Ramadhan Fashion Week (14 designers showed their latest collection), Bedug Special Show (I heard there were 32 cool drummers from bands played 14 drums together), Ramadhan Kids Activity, A Musical Show: The desert dream - A journey to Middle East Secret, Middle East Dance, Ramadhan Food Festival and sweepstakes for G-Shopper Rewards.

Grand Indonesia also held 3 bloggers break fasting dinners, in Tairyo, Katsusei and Jun Njan. Can't you imagine, 3 different oriental foods in a row. Wooh!

Fortunately, I got the Katsusei one. As I always eager to try their cutlets, so I was so happy. :)

First I came, we took picture in front of main entrance (there was a kinda backdrop to take pictures), then we got a seat and they serve this sweet warm tea. Well, actually this was for break fasting, so our stomach didn't shock before we eat solid food. Anyway, I am not an expert in tea. So I wouldn't say anything about the tea. For me, it tasted nice. Not too aqueous and not too thick.

This was our menu that day. I was so excited! :D

Katsusei is so Japanese. They don't provide tajil. But for us, (as it was a break fasting dinner), they made it!! Wohooo! They're so kind, right? :))

The tajil contained banana, jackfruit, and palm seeds. Combined with coconut milk and palm sugar. Slurp!

Left- Mr. Adhi Tawakal (PR of Grand Indonesia) and Manager of Katsusei. They talked about the history of katsu. Cool!

While listening to the talks, we got edamame. The edamame was cold. But pretty good to tickle our appetite.

Look! First I saw this, I was very curious what it is and function.

Meet Ms. Nuniek! She's representative from Fimela.com (partner of Grand Indonesia in this event). She was so smart and friendly.

Chef Erwin from Toranomon (Katsusei sister brand in Ilham Putra Wicaksana) was about to share his knowledge to us about wagyu. I was soooooo excited. I thought I'm gonna be smarter after this dinner. lol

Word "wagyu" come from "wa" which means Japan and "gyu" means beef. Literally, wagyu means Japanese beef. First developed in Japan, but nowadays, usually the cow bred in Australia, USA, and New Zealand. What makes them different from another beef is the cow is live to relax. Seriously, I even got jealous with their life.lol. The only eat, drink (sometimes beer), and got massages. No working. That's why their meat is flexible, tender, and fatty. They got massage in order to balancing their fat through all over their body. Maybe my owners must get one, so their fat not only settled on me (their tummy). lol.

These are some part of wagyu. Wagyu is the recommended menu in Toranomon. As wagyu is a good quality of beef, they don't need extreme spice for seasoning. Hey, their gave us some tips. To decrease the smell of beef, you just need to put sesame, black pepper, and salt.

Eating time!! I was so happy. muahahaha. First appertizer was Chawan Mushi. I loved it. It was sooooooooo soft. They put prawn and mushroom in it. Felt like I found treasures while digging the egg. lol.

Agedashi Tofu. I believe they made the tofu with special recipe. It was so good! The tofu was so soft and tasted savory. The sauce also nice, not too strong, but that's why i like it.

Look. This was the wagyu shown before. Now they had turned to be grill wagyu and ready to be eaten. Yeah!

Wagyu beef has 12 grade. And this one was 9 grade. Damn! So good! Now I could say another beef is not good just because I had tasted this. FYI, this 9 grade wagyu costs about 600K IDR per kilo. Hmmm...

Original Udon. To be honest, I love the texture. Not too chewy, so suitable for us whose getting tired after work whole day. Unfortunately, the broth was too salty for me. :(

Anyway, I was pretty amazed at their boiled egg. The yolk's texture was very very soft and tender. I believe they have a trick. :)

In Indonesia, we called it 'ulekan'. Wahahaha. This is like bowl and a wood, the function is to destrot the sesame. As written above, sesame is one of powerful seasoning. You'll found the purpose of this sesame later.

This was a special sauce for katsu. Only available in Katsusei. According to the manager, there's no other restaurant has this sauce. I was very curious how it tasted.

Katsu Platter. You may not find this dish on menu. All of these dishes were exclusively adjusted for us in this event. So the other dishes has been decreased in size, so we could tried a lot of dishes. This katsu wasn't get anything decreased, but we got chicken, beef, scallop and shrimp in one plate! Yuhuuu. Just for fun, I'd like to make a list from the one I love the most to the least: Chicken, scallop, shrimp, beef.

Maybe beef wasn't made to be fried. It's better to be grilled. The beef was a bit hard and tasteless. :|

The chicken was very good. Savory and juicy. Especially when I dip it into the sauce. Wooow!

The scallop was also nice.

I usually love shrimp, but I don't know, maybe because I ate it for the latest one, so I got already full. As all of these cutlets had the same ingredients for the fried dough, they tasted almost the same. The difference is only the texture of the meat.

Overall, I love these cutlets. Just the portion, after all the appetizers and udon, was too much for me.

They called it Houjicha. It was tea. Tasted a bit bitter. They said, it was useful to dispose the fat (from the former fried cutlets).

Olala! Dessert time. Hey, I love their mango pudding. I wish I could take it home too. :p

Tasted so fluffy and a bit sour, brought refreshment to my full tummy. The fla was not help anything I guess. The pudding was good enough to stand alone. :p

Macha Ice Cream. I don't like green tea. But this macha wasn't smell like green tea. It's more light. Not only in smell, but also in taste. Not too sweet, but still creamy. Love this.

And we also got goodie bag. Wohoo!

In the goodie bag, there's some vouchers from some tenants in Grand Indonesia. Me super happy. hihi :))

You may see, there were BlackCurrant, Smooch, Kamikaze, Ilham Perdana Wicaksana (could be use in Toranomon and Katsusei), Soup Spoon, and also we got Katsusei's loyalty card! *big grin*

Cute gimmick! When we first come, they asked us to took pict. In the end of agenda, we got our pict in tumblr and mini bag. Uber cute! Actually there's a place where we could slide the photo in. Plus, the printed out our photo and put it in a kinda envelope that could stand (there's the sustainer), so we could put it on the table. hihi.

Big thanks to Grand Indonesia, Katsusei, Fimela.com, and Multiply for the invitation.

I was super happy and enjoy the event. :)