food review : hakkata ikkousha

we have tried this one before, but since i liked tong-tong better, we never went back again. but yesterday, my husband was craving for warm and soupy noodles, so we went there again since tong-tong hasn't opened yet. here in hakkata ikkousha you had to wait for them to seat you. on our first visit, matthew was still a newborn, maybe just a month or two, and we had no babysitter at that time, so they let us wait inside. and even we got the bigger table. and the owner arranged for our food to come out one by one, since one must took care of the baby while the other ate. that's a pretty considerate owner! we were impressed. but the food didn't impress us much. it was too salty for our taste.

yesterday, since the ramen selection was more than our first visit, we had more option to choose. my husband tried their pork tam-tam ramen, and i tried their pork light ramen. i now noticed the difference between tong-tong and hakkata. in tong-tong, the soup was clear and only seasoned with salt or shoyu. but in hakkata, the soup was a stock of pork, that's why it was salty. my husband also ordered pork ribs. the ramen was still salty, but it was okay. i still prefer tong-tong though. the ribs was okay, but nuri's was way better. hahaha.. probably because i was too accustomed to western's ribs.

the menu was mostly consisted with ramen, and other noodles, and ribs and fried food like tempura. the don choice was limited also. and there was no sashimi or other raw food, which was weird for japanese restaurant. ah well, my husband said that they were real. back in japanese, he saw some ramen like ones from hakkata, so probably if they said we're the 3rd branch from japan, it'd probably true.

sooo.. if you wanted to try cooked japanese food, hakkata was a good place to go. but for me, stil tong-tong numero uno for ramen!

That's my pork ramen light.

That's the pork tam-tam ramen.

And that's the pork ribs

*update* couple days ago my husband suddenly craved for ramen, and we ate there again. this time i ate the pork shoyu ramen. according to the explanation, it was similar to tong-tong's chasiu wangtangmen. but minus the wang tang aka dumpling. the difference between those two was the soup. tong-tong's soup was clear and all was shoyu plus water. while hakkata ikkousha's was a mix between stock, probably pork, shoyu and water. no wonder it was saltier than tong-tong's. oh, and by the way, i started to like hakkata ikkousha, but tong-tong still win my heart.

food review: bentoya

okay.. it's time to review japanese food again. for those who never tried japanese food, i suggested to try at bentoya. for me, it was friendly to indonesian's taste. and they had a pretty good food variation to offer, from bento, don, fried rice and noodles (in japanese term, yakimeshi and yakiramen/udon), and sushi-sashimi. they also had snow ice! let's review on by one.

bento: this was a complete package and a subtle one to try on your first japanese food trial. it was a lunch box consisted with rice, choice of your meat fried or grilled, and some side dish like salad. since the spices only in the meat, it was a pretty good start to try japanese. and most indonesian loved fried foods, so that's why i recommended bento.

fried rice/noodles : if you wanted a little bit more, probably fried rice/ noodles was the best choice. you got to taste the spices more, and find out about japanese style-fried rice/noodles. it might look like indonesian's fried rice/noodles, but trust me, they used their own soy sauce, so it tasted different.

ramen/udon soup: if you didn't like non soupy food, probably you would like to try their ramen/udon soup. personally, i never tried them, so i couldn't say anything about them. but my mom did, and she didn't like it. she liked tong-tong's ramen more. so.. try at your own risk.

don: this was another version of rice dish. it was rice cooked together with meat, egg and onions. i liked their chicken katsu don and chicken teriyaki don. my brother often ordered their tempura don. it just a matter of meat choice. for me, their katsu don was a comfort food for me. it was warm and satisfying.. yumm.. but if you didn't like onion too much, you could ask them to spare the onion. sometimes i did that too...

sushi and sashimi : well, sashimi wouldn't differ much from any other japanese restaurant, just in cutting process. but for sushi, bentoya sushi were totally indonesian-modified sushi. and i prefer their sushi before the last one. so, right now, i disliked their sushi. but for a beginner, they would find their sushi suitable for their taste. my recommendation: tokyo dome and superball. they still tasted the same from the first. but for other sushi, they've already changed.

okay... i think that's all. the other food was fried food, so i didn't need to review them.

food review : beef gourmet

steak lovers.. prepare yourself. i have eaten in stevan meat shop for 2-3 times, so i decided to persuade my husband to try beef gourmet. as beef gourmet was already there before stevan, and so many people said that their steaks was yummy, so i wanted to make sure myself.

like stevan, the restaurant had a small supermarket inside, especially for meat, poultry, seafood, and the other food products. the minimarket was bigger and more complete than stevan's, so if you only wanted to buy some meat and didn't want to eat there, i suggested you go there instead of stevan. they had more choices to picked from. and as for the restaurant, they were side by side with the minimarket, and it was decorated with pictures mostly from musical department, not only international musicians, but also some domestic musicians.

at stevan, i didn't order anything beside steak, but at beef gourmet, i tried their pasta carbonara. sorry i didn't take any picture because my son was running around and already starving when they served the pasta. it was a decent portion of pasta, with salad on the side and a pretty big garlic bread. my son loved their garlic bread. but i hated the salad. it tasted like raw vegetables. their dressings didn't help much. my husband ordered their rib eye steak. i forgot which kind.. , again. sorry.. but the meat was juicier at stevan's. perhaps because they cooked it on hot stone back in stevan, but they didn't have that option at beef gourmet. and the meat was a little bit salty for my taste.

if i wanted some pasta and other dishes, i would like to go back to beef gourmet, but for steak, i would definitely go back to stevan.
https://foursquare.com/v/beef-gourmet/4f78549ae4b0948937489467

series review : elementary

this was another series that i found interesting to watch. since i had to wait for my ordinary series' new season to come, i decided to look for a new series. the other was person of interest, which i had blogged earlier. and this one was elementary. it was a new take for sherlock holmes.

holmes was still a british man in this series, but with previous drug addict history. that's why, he was accompanied by his famous companion, dr.watson. but here's the spin, the dr.watson was not a man, but a lady doctor. and she was a doctor, but now she worked as sober companion. hence, she could be holmes' companion due to her work as a sober companion thanks to holmes' father. together they consulted by the NYPD force, whose captain was a friend of holmes back in the scotland yard days. they solved homicide and many other mysteries with holmes ability to deduct things from surroundings. i was watching it as an ordinary detective series, that's why i was surprised they even dragged along irene adler and the notorious M aka moriarty along in this series. adler was holmes' girlfriend who was killed by moriarty. the plot didn't seem to change much from the ordinary series. but who would know? i just watched half of it. but it was a pretty interesting series to watch. especially if you like murder case and eccentric primary role like holmes. oh, i didn't recognize the main actor that played holmes, but i did know lucy liu who played joan watson.. how exciting!

series review : person of interest

i was pretty bored lately.. and my series were still in waiting for their new season.. so i browsed to find a new interesting series. and then i found two that caught my eye, one was person of interest, and the other was elementary. i've just read person of interest only, so i didn't know anything yet about the later. and so far, i liked what i saw.

person of interest was a story about a former CIA agent and a geek who built a machine that could find terorist attack gonnabe. but the machine couldn't differentiate between a small crime and a big crime. so when a crime was about to happen, the machine would produce a number, a social number from the person who would be conflicted in a case. whether it was the victim's or the perpetrator's, the machine didn't know. so the geek teamed up with the former CIA agent to hunt down whoever got their number coming out from the machine.

and a lot happened. and so far i liked what i saw. it got me addicted to watch it. it was something new, the ideas, and no overrated drama. it was real life story, probably even real, but we didn't know it. i hoped the second season would be as interesting as the first.