Foodgasm 04 : Seafood City - Bandar Djakarta

12:28:00 AM

Hi hi, anyone hungry now?

If you are and you love seafood, i must apologize in advance ah, because i am about to show you some yummy seafoods :D.

First, about the place. If you ever been to Jakarta then i think you must've heard about Bandar Djakarta (now they also have a branch in Surabaya but i've never been) before. It's a seafood restaurant with a market-like concept where you go and choose your own, live fish/clams/lobsters/whatever else that live in the sea and edible :p. I've been to the Ancol branch plenty of times, since our apartment in Jakarta is located in Ancol and is literally in front of Taman Impian Jaya Ancol where the restaurant's located but not after we started this blog (and i only venture to food related blogging even more recently!) so i never mentioned it.

Last time we went to Jakarta in July, however, when we went to the new Bay Walk Mall, we spotted their new branch that's super interesting looking since it's basically afloat (okay, there are poles so not float per se, but underneath the restaurant is the sea directly) and my mum decided we should dine there.

We chose a seat closer to the back so we can see the sea surrounding us

To be completely honest with you, my first impression was not that great. It was totally packed and there were not too many options for us to sit in. The spot that we finally got on reeked of trash smell! It was very bad (maybe it was the coconut rotting away? There were a pile of coconuts at the side of the bar that's directly beside or table's row), fortunately it was worse for the table that's directly situated beside the bar than ours (that's the furthest table on that row from the bar) so... If you breathe shallowly and think of pleasant things, you can overlook the smell (a little). LOL.

That's the table where the smell was worst, i don't understand how that lady seemed to be totally unfazed by it...

Hut style with open spaces

Look a bit like we're in a yacht or something from this angle haha

Our table. This is a bad picture (Baby Boy wasn't even looking at the camera) but it's the only pic i have so... It'll have to do!

There was no roof right above our table (i hope they have a removable ones for rainy season!) so this was the view that you'd see if you look up :D

Now for the "fish market", i was too embarrassed to bring my camera and act all touristy, but i did have my mini Ipad with me so i snapped some pics anyway haha (with a tablet i can pretend to be holding it because i was browsing instead of taking pics :p).

Lobsters (not recommended due to the crazy price tag haha)

Wiggly wiggly fishie

I'm always scared of live crabs (although i LOVE them cooked hahahaha, my fave seafood is def crabs), especially when Baby Boy's (now ex) nanny got clipped by a crab while shopping for it *pale*

I'm a total crap for choosing anything food related so i steer clear from that role and let my mum did her usual job *LOL*. Now, for the yummy part, our food :

Kerak telor

No, kerak telor (direct translation of the name would be "egg's crusts" LOL) is not a seafood, but it's a very traditionally Betawi so it's everywhere in Jakarta. Hunny is a HUGE fan so he always buy one wherever he spotted them-there's a kerak telor stall (there were a few other stalls too, can't remember what though) in Bandar Djakarta but you have to pay in cash and separately although, i think it's a consignment or something...

Deep fried breaded octopus. We only chose one octopus (coz Baby Boy wanted one) and it didn't look very big-but once fried it became quite a lot!

Some grilled fish (not a fan of fishes and cannot remember most fishes' name except carp haha)

I do love prawns (or is it shrimps? I can never differentiate between the two) and my fave cooking style is simply being boiled like this ^^

A HUGE clam! This is just the meat of ONE clam! Both hunny (the foodie) and me (the picky eater) cannot for the life of us remember the name though. I love clams but i didn't like this scary, huge one. It tasted more like an abalone than clams, and i hate abalone!

A steamed fish (the fishes are mostly for my dad who's watching his diet closely due to health problems and don't eat most seafood other than fishes)

Overall the seafood is pretty great, they're fresh and the cooking is pretty good too. Price wise, it was not super cheap but it was quite affordable (spent around IDR 650.000 for everything, if i remember correctly)-except for the scary priced lobsters! The ambiance is actually very nice-with amazing view if you choose the open spaced side-but for the disgusting rotting trash smell. I hope Bandar Djakarta would take notice and start improving on that part! After all it makes an experience that could be rated 8/10 became 6/10 because i had to refrain from taking deep breaths haha.

I am done with the restaurant review, but i still have a lot of thing (okay, mostly pictures la) to share with you hehe. This was out first time to Bay Walk Mall, and i was pleasantly surprised because they have such a different concept than other malls in Jakarta (or Indonesia). We didn't have a mall that emphasize on the beautiful nature surrounding it before and Bay Walk Mall definitely changed that.

It's located beside the sea and on every level there are big patios where you can hang out and snap pictures or just take in the beautiful scenery. Outside, they even built an extra space for you to take a seat, watch the sea and cam-whore with your family and friends. We, naturally, snapped a lot of pictures there.

The seats overlooking the sea where you can sit and relax

The nanny even managed to take a candid pic of us cam-whoring hahaha

And more pics inside the mall itself. They were having a Porroro exhibition and show so there were loads and loads Porroro decorations throughout the mall!

Loving the huge LCD ball!

Hmmm yea, the rest of this entry is basically pictures of my Baby Boy in various spots in Bay Walk Mall :p. If you have a kid you'd understand *sorry*

What i don't understand is parents who took 2500 pics of their kid in the same spot and pose while there were others waiting to do the same thing. Yep, that happened here. So inconsiderate PFFFFTTTTT