Foodgams 01 : Steak Hotel by Holycow!

Hellowww :D...

We've been doing some restaurant reviews for quite a bit and since i've been going to try out (mostly) new restaurants so much lately i decided that anything food/drink related deserves their own series, and i call them the Foodgasm :D! Now, let me remind you that i am NOT a food blogger, i am not even a foodie (i don't try new food and i only like very limited kind of food haha, very picky) so i'll mostly just introduce the place and share what i think about their ambience, service, price and food and hopefully help you to decide whether or not you'd want to try out that place too.

The very first place for the Foodgasm series is Steak Hotel by Holycow!

Before we start though, i have to apologize for the photos' quality! Hunny didn't bring his camera and i wasn't too sure i wanted to review the place so i just brought my pinko (which is getting worse *LOL*, it's kinda ancient for a gadget i guess. It does fine in well-lit places especially on daylight, and it's actually better for close up pictures than NX 300!), the place is quite dimly lighted and it was at night so... Very blurry and out of focus pictures T.T. It looked fine on the camera's screen but as i start resizing it for this blog post i realized how blurry they are zzz!

About Holycow!, i heard about this steak house chain like a few years ago via Twitter (yes, they became big from word-of-mouth) but their branches were still located in Jakarta only. I think the power of buzzers is definitely quite strong, with so many celebrities and Twitterbritties raving about Holycow! i always wanted to come and try out their steak (i am a huge meat lover!). And they also cooperate with some pastry place and they were one of the first that had rainbow cakes (i was OBSESSED with rainbow cakes for a while!) so whenever i googled for rainbow cakes in Indonesia, Holycow! would always pop out, making me even more eager to try it out.

For one reasons or another (i think mostly because Jakarta's traffic's driving me crazy so i mostly just go to MKG and some other malls on repeat whenever i am there, and also sheer laziness to get info about the location >.<) i ended up never going although we go to Jakarta at least once a year, but suddenly i saw an old friend posted pics of her family having bday dinner at Holycow! that's located in Surabaya! Super excited to hear that Holycow! now has a branch in Indonesia that we immediately made a plan to go! It was on June actually, on a rare date night since my Baby Boy was in Jakarta with his grandparents that we went there for the first time.

Steak Hotel by Holycow!'s first Surabaya branch is located in a Ruko (rumah toko or literally house store, it's a slim but tall building that can be used for both a house or a store/office), (address : Kompleks Ruko Plaza Graha Famili B3 & B5, Jl. Yono Soewoyo Surabaya) on the West part of Surabaya, where all the hip and happening places are (zzz, the other side of Surabaya from where we live) so it's actually not very big. I think one of their characteristic is always having their restaurants in a ruko?

The bartending/cashier area. Our cameras are the worst to capture neon signs! Yes, NX-300 too!

The first floor is very very simply styled, there's a red container box looking thingy at the right (most probably their kitchen?) that swamped up the space so there isn't a LOT of tables in that floor. Holycow! was very very new and Surabaya people are definitely super kiasu that we flock to the newest places like piranhas on a fresh piece of meat *LOL*, Holycow! is already very famous (from Twitter and IG, like i said) so it's even worse. It was SUPER packed when we went there! There were a huge group of people standing around waiting for a table to be vacant. I had to wait for a long time for people to start being seated so i could snap that picture of the first floor above.

That's the red container box looking space i mentioned earlier

This picture is taken to show you how crowded the waiting area was!

Thankfully most of the other patrons are in big groups while there were just the two of us so we managed to be seated quite fast on the second floor, yay!

At first they tried to sit us at the open space, smoking area

It was a really hot night and people were smoking so i insisted on sitting indoor

Thankfully there's a small empty table and we just had to ask their employee to move a chair to that table so we could seat there

Again, the decor is very simple and clean

But with more interesting elements like the greeneries they put on the ceiling

Say hi to my hunny bunny!

I apologize for the very blurry menu pics T.T but at least you'll get an idea of the kind of food they're serving (MEAT, of course) and their price range

I would say that their price's very affordable, especially for imported beef! I guess that's why their decor is super simplistic and in rukos, they're introducing the concept of affordable steak houses

Kid's menu

The history of Holycow!

I find it super cute that they call their branches TKP or Tempat Karnivora Pesta (meaning : Place for Carnivore to Party haha)

Their most popular menu! WOW 400gr of steak? 200 is already big! And super cheap too! Hunny wanted to try the 400g one but since it was very popular, it's sold out already!

They're pretty good with the marketing ploys, offering many kinds of freebies!

Coz cam-whoring is a must

Snapped this candid pic while waiting for our steaks

Again, i am not a food blogger, i don't even remember the names of the steaks that we ordered! It was tenderloin i think

And mine. If i remember correctly, mine was imported and hunny's was local? I dunno...

I had REALLY high expectations for their steaks after years of hearing nothing but praises via social media and sadly we were really disappointed *LOL*. The steaks was tough (we did ask for medium you know so it shouldn't be so tough), not very savory and the sauce (pepper sauce) was WEIRD. What's even worse was the menu clearly stated that the side dish was (other than all the sold out potatoes so we had no choice other than french fries) sauteed spinach, but what came out was actually... sauteed kale. LOL. WTF. Hunny's a fan of sauteed spinach and asked for double portion in exchange for the french fries (which ended up being the nicest thing on the plate LOL) so he was really annoyed about that.

Later on i was informed by my relative in Jakarta that out of all Holycow! branches in Jakarta, only 2 are actually really nice (if i remember correctly that'd be Gading and... errrrr... i can't remember the other one, Kemang? I should think so, it being the original place and all) while the other branches are total rubbish. Well, sadly this Surabaya branch fell into the second category (hey, don't sue me for speaking the truth!). I planned to actually try the places my relative recommended when we were in Jakarta, but we didn't have enough time *LOL*.

I am very particular with my steaks (only a handful of restaurants passed my approval) so it might be pretty nice for other people (since it's still quite packed, i heard?)? I dunno. We did overheard other guests commenting negatively about their steaks though so...

Still, it's a very affordable steak house for those who are tight on budget (and it's still 5x better than the likes of Steak Kampung, although the price's also at least 3x of those places) and i guess it's worth a try. 

Personally we won't be coming back to this branch of Holycow! (i heard that it's a franchise so it's possible that if another branch opens it'd have a different quality than this one) though... 

Have you ever tried Hollycow!'s steak? How did you like them?

Leaving you with that day's OOTD, which i will talk more in future post... Probably a year from now LOLOLOL

#Pink