Tenko Mori

I have been away for a while.. and now that I am back in Sydney, couldn't wait to get to this new ramen shop inside Regent Place down George street in the city. 

After Mappen, Oiden.. and now Tenko Mori, another popular Japanese resto from Menya group, during busy hours you will encounter a long queue.

 Same self-serve ordering system as Mappen and Oiden, pick your ramen and soup base, grab your toppings (you can choose from fried tofu, tempura, kakuni, seaweed, tamago or potato salad), go to the cashier, find the seat and start enjoy your ramen, also don't forget to return your empty tray. 

I love their pork kakuni, it melts on your tongue and the taste is just soo... yummy, the broth is considered light tonkotsu yet satisfies my craving for tonkotsu soup and I just enjoy the perfectly cooked noodle slurp by slurp...

(Pork Kakuni in tonkotsu soup)

(Vegetable ramen in tonkotsu soup)

Also, love their milk tea... just tastes like my favorite KIRIN milk tea..

 If you go there, you'd notice another Japanese restaurant and cafe on the other corners, it's just became one of my favourite spots for Japanese eateries.

Tokyo Banana

A best friend just came back from Japan and got this signature gift of Japan, a box of Tokyo Banana

Tokyo Banana is a kind of sponge cake stuffed with banana flavoured custard, sweet and soft texture. This sweet reminds me of Banana in pyjamas from  Bread Top in Sydney, which has a fresh banana filling instead of banana custard. 

Thanks to my best friend I finally taste this famous 'omiyage' from Tokyo.. 

Japan's Tasty Secrets

I just noticed that I got this draft post since three years ago, not even remember how I stumbled upon this web nor why I left this post as draft for more than three years..

If you are curious enough about Japanese food and local dishes loved by the nation, you can download the Japan's Tasty Secrets here, you will find local favorites from every region in Japan.

Fuku Ramen

It's not a fancy ramen shop, just a small local shop specializing in ramen, located next to Maccas in Setiabudi, Bandung. There are only five ramen on the list, all comes in the same soup, you only can choose the meat either beef, chicken or spicy one and plus some side dishes like chicken karage. All prices are affordable as you can see from the menu picture

Visited this Fuku ramen with a friend, we ordered ramen with beef and special ramen wich comprises, both chicken and beef chashu, spicy ground chicken, half boiled egg topped with spring onion, mushroom and nori.

The soup is mild and quite tasty even you can't compare this to a tonkotsu broth, sorry for always comparing any ramen with a tonkotsu base since it's my favourite broth. The meat is just okay but the boiled egg taste a bit different with a hint of mirin (I assume) which I like. The overall taste is worth a shot for ramen lover looking for a local ramen in Bandung. 

On another note, there are some franchise ramen shops in Bandung but none of them worth coming back.. at least that's just my opinion. 

(Fuku Beef chashu ramen)

(Fuku special ramen with separate spicy ground chicken)

(Chicken karaage with mayo)

(All pictures taken using iPhone)

Sumiya Jakarta

I have read about this restaurant a while ago, as one of the best Japanese restaurants in Jakarta, an authentic Japanese restaurant with quality food and I made my way to this restaurant two weeks ago with a best friend. 

Once we entered through the noren, the service was a bit disappointing, not a service I would expect from a Japanese restaurant. We didn't get seated, waitresses were busy running around and did't even greet or smile at us,  we had to ask for a table only to get an unexpected snobby response, well... let's forget about their lack of attentiveness. 

Most of the guests are Japanese, so we thought the food must be good... well it is.

We ordered my favorite dish, a salmon teriyaki and a niku suki udon set which comprises udon, sashimi and salad, also I couldn't resist to try their maguro nigiri sushi. The salmon teriyaki was superb, as good as my favorite salmon teriyaki in Sydney and the maguro sushi was fresh, my friend also agreed that his udon set was worth the price. Their quality of food is excellent with a perfect balance of flavours. The price is above average but would love to go back there for their food, disregard the service. 

 (Niku suki udon)

(salad)

(Tuna sashimi)

 

 (Tuna nigiri sushi)

(Salmon teriyaki)

(free desert)

Address: STC Senayan, Ground floor unit 128

Jl. Asia Afrika Pintu IX, Jakarta

Phone: (021) 5793 1826

Tsurukamedou

Tsurukamedou, a Hakata style tonkotsu ramen chain in Japan opens the first branch in Jakarta last November. I have been waiting for couple of months before I made my trip to Jakarta this weekend, picked up by a best friend and went straight to their place in Taman Ratu - Greenville, Western of Jakarta. I am not able to give the exact direction since I am not really familiar with this neighborhood, but you will find this authentic ramen shop on the main street  packed with various kind of restaurants. 

The authentic looks of wooden interior, and as clean as you would expect from a Japanese restaurant with their great service, as well as the 'irrashaimase' greeting to get you seated with their warm hospitality and smiles. 

We came for an early dinner, ordered Tonkotsu ramen and Tori shisen ramen and we got all we expected from a dense broth of tonkotsu to the super tender charsu, the pure rich taste of an authentic Japanese ramen!  My tonkotsu ramen served with slices of charsu, half a tamago, bamboo shoot and nori, while the tori shisen comes in a little bit spicy red broth and topped with bean sprout. 

This is the best ramen in town, or even the best in this country perhaps... 

 (Tonkotsu ramen)

(Tori shisen ramen)

I couldn't find their web but found their facebook page Tsurukamedou 

MAQUI'S Kobe

MAQUI'S Kobe, a Japanese sweet store originated from Kobe, Japan. From chocolate to pudding, cake to mini pie, all their sweets look so tempting. I walked past  one of their stores in Jakarta a while ago but did n't get a chance to buy anything from their shop but lucky me last week got one box of five mine pies brought by a family. The soft texture and melt-on-your-tongue filling will make you go back to their shop and try the rest of the flavours. I got the almond, chocolate and cream cheese which is my favorite one and definitely will go the their shops on my next trip to Jakarta. 

You can find their stall shop at Grand Indoesia,  Plaza Senayan oir Senayan City. 

The Coffee Legend

I happened to visit Ho Chi Minh City last month and treat myself some of the best coffees in the world. Vietnam known as the world's second-largest producer of coffee behind Brasil, that gives enough reason for its government to protect their domestic coffee producers by banning some famous coffee business from opening their shop in this country, but this policy ends soon as Starbucks will open its first shop in Vietnam soon.

My trip was a short one yet I managed to try the three most famous coffees in Vietnam: Trung Ngu Yen, Highlands coffee and Vinacafe. Trung Ngu Yen coffee is the most internationally famous Vietnamese brand for coffee while Highlands and Vinacafe are more 'local'. You will easily find Highlands cafe at almost every corner of the city but barely find a shop of Vinacafe. I did visit Trung Ngu Yen and Highlands cafe and bought some Vinacafe instant packaging in a supermarket. 

 (The famous Trung Ngu Yen coffee served in Vietnamese style)

(Cappuccino from Trung Ngu Yen) 

(The favorite black coffee and iced coffee with milk at Highlands cafe)

For me, personally, the highlands iced coffee is the best one...

Bokeh

My first post in this new year, been busy and didn't post anything over the past couple months.

This morning I read an interesting article on Peta Pixel about 'How do you pronounce bokeh' by Michael Zhang:

The term “bokeh” is often used in the world of photography to describe the quality of the out-of-focus blur in photographs. Do you know how it’s pronounced?

The term comes from the Japanese word “boke” (暈け/ボケ), which translates to “blur”, “haze”, or “fuzziness”. It made its way into English-speaking world back in 1997 after Photo Techniques editor Mike Johnston (who now writes at The Online Photographer) included three articles on the topic for the March/April 1997 issue of the magazine.

In the articles, Johnston changed the spelling from “boke” to “bokeh” to make the pronunciation of the word more intutive, lest people pronounce it like “poke” with a ‘b’. Johnston writes,

[It was] one of the few issues of that magazine that sold out. My own contribution was…er, a letter. I decided that people too readily mispronounced “boke,” so I added an “h” to the word in our articles, and voilá, “bokeh” was born.

Actually, to be precise, what I had noticed was not just that people mispronounced the word as it was commonly spelled, but that they had a tendency to ridicule it, making lame jokes about it as if it rhymed with “smoke” or “toke” or “joke.” Actually, even spelled boke, it is properly pronounced with bo as in bone and ke as in Kenneth, with equal stress on either syllable.

Here is one of my shots with bokeh effect..

Ootoya

Ootoya with their tagline 'authentic home cooked Japanese food', they do look like an authentic one, felt like authentic with wooden dining room and the food taste authentic too. They started with one restaurant in front of Ikebukuro station in Tokyo in 1958, now they have more than 280 outlets across Asia. 

(Ootoya Japanese restaurant at Plaza Indonesia Jakarta)

Visited the one at Plaza Indonesia Jakarta lunch as first customer of the day,then we saw some Japanese patronages after us makes a convincing proof that the restaurant is a real deal. We picked Tori Kurozu, Ponzu Burger, Sumi Tei and we are all agreed with the fresh Ocha with ice for our drink.

 (Tori Kurozu)

The Tori Kurozu, a mixture of deep fried chicken and some vegies in sweet and sour kurozu (a kind dark vinegar) sauce, the sauce is a perfect blend with the balance of sweet and sour taste.

(Tori Kurozu set) 

(Sumi Tei)

 I am not a big fan of beef but this charcoal grilled beef has an irresistable looks

(Ponzu burger)

Charcoal grilled hamburger steak with grated radish and ponzu plum sauce, the tender hamburger steak speak for itself

(Ocha with ice)

For ocha lovers, the ocha option is really worth it, not only because you can have free top ups but it is the best ocha in town!

We were all agreed that the dishes are real treat.

More variety in the tuna and salmon sashimi or nigiri sushi would be great.