Pink and Undecided: japanese restaurant

Foodgasm 10 : Edo Kaiten Sushi

Hi, dears ^^...

Still on vacation here, still no time to write a new blog post haha. Currently in Penang, Malaysia (i update my Instagram pretty much daily so please follow me if you're interested to see what i'm up to! My user id is @mgirl83 !) and been having too much fun (and food!!!), having our very late breakfast right now and going to a museum next (we love museums!!!), in the meantime... Please enjoy this post and TTYS!

Here we go again with another restaurant review. Yes, it's still backdated (from last October hahaha) and that's precisely why i try to write these food-related posts faster, coz i have lots of them to do so i better clear up the old ones!

Back then this place was very new (of course, it's more than half a year old now, so definitely no longer new hahaha).

Photo taken from Edo Kaiten Sushi's Facebook Page

I couldn't snap the front of the place's picture myself because when we went there, it was raining! We drove to the parking lot at the back straight away and went in through the back door so i didn't even went in through this front door!

The only thing i managed to snap outside was this spot at the back haha.

I'm pretty sure i get the "it" pic for my restaurant reviews now, hunny looking through menu books!


The place's actually not too small, but it's slightly cramped IMO. The good thing about it is that you'd most probably would still get a seat even though they've lots of guests!

Combination of cool looking bar and conveyor sushi. I am not one for Japanese but i LOVE sushi (probably the only reason i didn't balk when hunny suggested us to try out this place, it's called Edo Kaiten SUSHI so it gotta serve sushi!!!) so getting a seat next to conveyor is a must! Thankfully there was an empty spot ^^

Hmmm, there's Samurai 1 and 2, i'm guessing those are their VIP sections?

Ambience wise, it was pretty nice. The place felt hip and cool, but still friendly and inviting (i do feel uncomfortable in some restaurant that exude this snobbish, "too exclusive" feeling).

They have bento menus

Teppanyakis and curry rice

Also various kinds of dons

Ramen

Udon

One more thing that turns out to be one of their staple and prided menu, sushi boat :


Photo source This photo of Edo Kaiten Sushi is courtesy of TripAdvisor

As you can see from the menu that i've snapped, their price's range's not too bad-i'd say it ranked somewhere in the middle compared to most Japanese restaurants. Not too cheap, but won't break the bank either-still quite reasonable. The sushi boat's quite pricey, but look at the amount of sushi they have in it! I'm sure it's worth the price haha. There were just the two of us that night and hunny's not even a big fan of sushi (he only likes inari sushi!) so of course we didn't order the boat. I did have quite a bit of their sushi from the conveyor and they're quite nice!

Totally forgot to snap all of the sushis >.<, but here's a pic of the fresh and addicting seaweed salad!

They also have a ready-to-eat takoyaki on the conveyor, it's actually quite nice but it would've been 10x nicer if they were warm!

Hunny ordered this... Okay, i can't remember anymore, but i'm pretty sure it's Tanin Don

The tanin don was not bad, but it's definitely nothing special either. We're honestly a bit underwhelmed when we saw how similar their menu to the local generic Japanese restaurant chain, Bentoya (which i am not a fan of, i dunno why my mum's quite fond of the place) and even the tanin don tasted pretty much the same as Bentoya's dons.

Maybe i had too high of an expectation, but it was a bit disappointing for us that their food's just like Bentoya's-the only good thing is : they have sushi (and real sushi too, not all some weird fusion ones which i don't like) and the sushi's pretty good!

In conclusion, i would say Edo Kaiten Sushi is a decent Japanese restaurant with affordable prices and very familar menu (LOL). I would still prefer to go to Edo Kaiten Sushi than Bentoya, at least i can have nice sushi here! But if you're expecting something more, then you might be up for a disappointment unless you're there for the Sushi Boat.

I personally have never been back yet, but i don't mind to-i would love to try out the sushi boat, who knows it might be able to change my feeling about the place?

Extra gratuitous selfie hihi

#Pink

11:03:00 AM
1 Comments

Foodgasm 03 : Marugame Udon

japanese noodle

Hellow hellow...

Happy weekend, my dears! I just had a super fun day *details coming on the next blog post!* and i hope you did too! Meanwhile, it's time for another food related post!

Food scenes in Surabaya has been quite fad-ish lately, the latest fad would've to be seafood (especially crabs) in Cajun style restaurants which has been popping up like mad-but not long before the "it" food was definitely Japanese noodles-be it ramen or udon.

It started with Ikkousha Ramen, which received such raves that we also got sucked into it *LOL*. I did refuse to succumb to lining like a mad person outside their branch in the West part of Indonesia and finally got to try it just after they opened a newer branch closer to home. My prediction? Severely overrated. Well, i must admit that i really am not a fan of Japanese noodles (or Japanese food in general, except sushi. Sushi is my true love...) in general, but even my ramen-loving hunny said it was overrated and wasn't worth the hype, so at least i am not alone in this!

Then the second craze came in the shape of Marugame Udon.

Went there when it was still quite new, see the crazy line there...

As a huge fan of noodles (ramen and udon included), hunny immediately dragged me to try out the newly (back then. It was during fasting period, around July) opened Surabaya branch (located in one of the oldest and most famous mall in Surabaya, Tunjungan Plaza), apparently he'd been eyeing the Jakarta's branch just a few weeks before in Bay Walk Mall-but we just had a huge dinner before that so he couldn't try it out just then. He mentioned to me that it has a cute food-courtish slash fast food joint serving style that resembles the current game i was addicted to in Ipad (Ramen Chain) XD! As a *AHEM!* good wife, i obliged-even though the thoughts of udon made me feel full immediately-not in a good way haha.

I have a slight obsession of fake food and their fakes look so real that it's even cuter in my eyes *weirdo alert :p*

The line was absolutely insane (i'd think that the craziness would've to die down by now? Kathy told me that when they first opened the line stretched all the way to the neighborhood Japanese restaurant (which is always almost empty FTL). Marugame Udon's management's smart enough to line the queue with queue ribbon and block any other entrance so everybody would have to queue nicely to be served and then get a seat. If the seat's all full, they'd stop serving so that nobody has a steaming bowl of udon and nowhere to seat. Kudos for that!

The menu is simple, there aren't too many choices to make you confused-everything is very straighforward. All of the menu's displayed at the board on top. Price wise it's quite normal, not too expensive but not exactly cheap either. I'd say their median price would be around IDR 50.000 (i hope i remember correctly). If you're not a fan of udon like me, don't worry! They also have rice bowls menu (YAY!) available

Yeah i just snap this to show you the situation i was in T.T, i really hate being in such close proximity with strangers >.<!

Can you see the line stretches out all the wayyyy there? it's not a straight queue either but with twists and turn *LOL*

On the far right side of the restaurant you'd see their chef cooking the udons with gigantic nets and running boiling water

Immediately cut and measured

Once you reach this part you can give them your order

And they'd start preparing it in front of their eyes

Adding toppings and sauces

Then you move to a section where they put extra side dishes (mostly deep dried @__@ couldn't be very healthy *LOL*. I have to be honest, i'm not the most health conscious person out there, i actually really love McD's chickens but if i have to be unhealthy then i'd do it with something i[m crazy about *McD* for sure haha) that you can choose and pick up yourself. There's also free take-as-much-as-you-want crispy crumbly deep fried flour that fell from the deep fried side dishes available

Baby Boy's default shocked face that he pulls up whenever i tried to take a pic of him now zzzz

The place is simply decorated, it has an old Japanese ambience that is simple but clean and attractive

Since it is more of a eat-then-leave kind of place, they have mostly wooden benches (to ensure fast turnover haha) but there are a few sofas as well. It was crazily packed because a lot of the Moslem patrons already got their food and seat but it was not time to break the fast yet. I guess they have to do this or else they wouldn't get a place to eat when the time comes!

Look at the charming brick wall and roof tile with the vintage looking painting (it's Fuji, i suppose?)

Now, the food. Again, as a non food-blogger with a memory of a hamster, i cannot for the life of me remember what is what so... I'm just gonna guess :p.

Hunny's curry udon, which is quite nice. I do like Japanese curries! Hunny said it was just okay, he prefers other versions (clear souped) than the curry one though

Baby Boy's Niku (?) Udon, which he totally LOVED. He actually almost finished the whole bowl (and left like, a strand before announcing that he was full *LOL*). It has a lighter type and savoury soup (which i find much better than most ramen's way-too-rich-for-my-tastebud ones) with generous serving of thinly sliced beef (which i actually love) and the udon itself-i'd say udon lovers would say that it's quite perfect! It has the right texture (chewy but not hard, i guess the right term would be al dente?) and bounciness to it

My beef bowl which i think was pretty yummy. Hunny said it was nice but couldn't beat his favorite beef bowl from Yoshinoya haha. I'd say their serving is pretty good (not tiny but also not crazy huge). With their generous serving of meat, i believe the value for money's pretty good

Deep fried soft-boiled egg. We rarely encounter perfectly soft-boiled egg in local Japanese restaurant (or any restaurant actually!) so we held out breath before we cut it open

And the runny egg yolk poured out! HMMM yummy! PASSED! LOL

My boys enjoying their ramens

Itadakimasu!

All and all our visit to Marugame Udon was quite pleasant, even though the queue was crazy long we didn't actually have to queue all that long, thanks to the servers' speediness! The ambience is friendly and inviting (even though the kid next to me kept on trying to pin me to my sit by shoving his baby chair towards me FML), the food is quite good and the price is not bad either.

Hunny is a new fan and he said he'd come back over and over again whenever he craves udon (we actually did go there again one time with KC, CL and AU, it was not as crazy as the first time but the queue was still longer than what you'd see in Surabaya normally!). Baby Boy LOVES his udon and said he'd love to eat it in repeat (but then again he is like that with every food that he likes, he'd ask for them over and over and over again for months on end and then he'd stop asking for it because he's gotten sick of it hahaha. Went through that with fried rice, rawon, soto, sushi and now bakso!).

As for me? Personally i wouldn't mind coming here again (but not too often), i quite enjoyed their rice bowls and i think their udon is quite nice for udons (like i said, i am not a fan)-but let's be honest. If i'd waste some calorie space, i'd do it for the actual noodles that i like (namely, Chinese ones hahahaha).

Still, it's a great Udon place and highly recommended for any Udon/Japanese rice bowl lovers, definitely worth a try!

Do you like udon? Have you ever tried Marugame Udon (if you're Indonesian)?

#Pink