Eats: Affordable Japanese set lunches at Boci-Boci

How we stumble across this Japanese restaurant is purely by chance. After our visit to Papaya Japanese grocer, Hubs and I decided to talk a walk around Blok M to explore and search for good Japanese restaurants. Who else to rely on but Google and a blind search term of "good Japanese restaurant in Blok M." A list came up but not Boci-Boci.

So we went looking for the first one that came up which was Ajihara if i'm not mistaken. We asked a security guard of the Golden Boutique Hotel exactly where is Ajihara. As he was pointing out to us where it is, he also mentioned that along the row of shops where we were, just two doorsteps away (if I'm not mistaken) from the hotel is Boci-Boci. He also mentioned that it is very popular among the Japanese.

We decided to take a gamble on this new lead and walked cautiously further down to look for Boci-Boci. When we were finally at what we think was Boci-Boci doorstep, there was no signage that indicate it was and it looked more like somebody's heavily tinted office. We looked back at the guard for confirmation. He just gestured us "Go on in, it's inside" Felt a bit like stepping into Alice's rabbit hole. LOL!

As we pushed open the glass door, the restaurant signboard appears. We approached the restaurant's hostess and was quickly ushered to a table. I reckoned we were still early, as it wasn't fully occupied. But the 3-4 tables that were occupied, they largely made up of Japanese clientele. We have come to the right place! :)

After taking our drinks order, we were presented the lunch menu below. The promotion was for Rp 79 000, we get to choose one of 6 types of rice, followed by our choice of 3 main dishes, which comes together with a bowl of miso soup and a plate of Japanese pickles. WOW!

There were 44 choices for our main. Definitely spoilt for choices!

And this was Hub's selection. Salmon sashimi, teppanyaki beef and grilled sanma with some dried-shrimp flavoured rice. The beef was tender and yummy! And the salmon were fresh too!

This was what i chose. Grilled sanma, agedashi tofu and tuna sashimi. Again, it was wholesome and yummy for the price we were paying!

In our miso soup, they had little clams too. Like it a lot, instead of just plain miso with cubes of tofu.

Hubs's friend and wife joined us as we were finishing up. The friend ordered a plate of gyoza for sharing and this was really good. The fillings were generous and the skin was thin. I liked it a lot!

I took a visit to the toilet and found the amenities provided to be very considerate for its customers. There were sanitary napkins provided (very thoughtful!) as well as cotton buds. Well, if you get an itchy ear halfway eating, you know where just to go! LOL!

Service was a bit slow. Personally I think they could beef up their service crew especially during peak hours. However, food quality wise vs the price that we paid, no complains because getting nice Japanese meal in Jakarta has been pretty much a miss. They are ok but the prices can get pretty steep. I guess in Boci-Boci, it's where both of them meet. :)

Papaya Japanese Grocer @ Jln Melawai, Blok M

I have heard so much of Blok M, specifically Jl. Melawai being the "Little Tokyo" of Jakarta. We decided to pop over for a look-see when I found out that a friend of Hubs was running a sample booth for Huon Salmon at Papaya, a Japanese grocer located at the corner of Jl. Melawai.

The moment I step into Papaya, I felt like I was in Japan. Everything is neatly displayed, fresh food items hygienically packed in white styrofoam and wrapped with cling film, and rows after rows of imported Japanese groceries and household items. And the place was packed in Japanese expats, stocking up their weekly groceries.

And little wonder, because the quality of the fresh food is really one of the better ones I've seen, besides Ranch Market in Pondok Indah and Lotte Mart in Gandaria City.

Papaya also has a selection of cooked Japanese food items and salad, which seems to be very popular with the local Japanese community.

And they have a bakery as well, which smell and look ABSOLUTELY DIVINE! When I saw the selection of breads and buns, I half-jokingly asked Hubs if I can load myself up with tonnes of antihistamines and oral prednisolone to keep my wheat allergy at bay to savour some of these wheat-y goodness.

And judging from the queue to pay for the bakery items, I reckon it would have been worth it! LOL!

Eats: Unforgettable Ni Hao @ Jl. KH Samanhudi

This is a super-duper overdue post. Although overdue, I still recall the nice stuffs that we had here. If I recall correctly, this is one of the restaurant which Hubs came with a friend and ordered too many soupy-based dishes. We repeated those dishes when we were here, but they are pretty yummy.

This is one of my favourite coz I'm such a sucker for chinese herb-based soups. This is live prawns cooked in herbal soup. The prawns were fresh and succulent. If I have to comment on something, it would be the soup, coz I think it's a tad too light for my taste. Otherwise it would have been perfect.

And here's a bit of demonstration by the waitress who prepared this dish for us at our table-side. Prawns goes into a tupperware, in goes some chinese wine, shake-shake shake and off them go in the boiling soup stock. After a couple of minutes, the waitress dished out the prawns onto a plate and the soup goes into a separate bowl for us.

This was Hub's favourite. Garoupa cooked in superior soup. Again, another yummy dish only so because the fish was fresh and the flesh was firm.

And this is what I meant as the unforgettable dish. When it was first served up, I was peering at them quizzically and wondered aloud  "are those endless strips of pork belly fats?" Well apparently they were mushrooms. But the Chef had cleverly soaked/soften/stewed/braised/pressure-cooked (I don't know) them in such a way that they are soft-to-the-bite and almost almost melt in my mouth. Almost like a vegetarian stewed pork-belly if there's such a thing. Really amazing.

****
Ni Hao Restaurant
Jl. KH. Samanhudi No. 57, Jakarta

Eats: Finally! Decent curry meehoon @ Tabona

Being in Jakarta certainly brings back memories of student days in Glasgow - absolute delight when we find food that's similar in taste to KL, can't complain when we have nothing to compare against and it's the next best thing. LOL!

And so Hubs delightfully texted me when he and my friend's husband (then fiance) went to somewhere in Pluit to try this curry meehoon that's pretty similar to what we have in KL. I managed to try this couple of weeks ago.

I've since found out that this particular street i.e. Jl Pluit Sakti Raya is one of the places to go to for Medanese Chinese food. According to friend's husband, the original outlet is in Medan and this is the Jakarta branch that is managed by the brother. You can choose to have your curry with either meehoon or rice, and we chose meehoon.

The curry was slightly runny but flavourful. Each bowl is served up with a chicken drumstick, few pieces of gizzard and a potato. And of course, being away from home, this is really the next best thing. I was almost disappointed when I finished slurping up the curry. If it had just been me and Hubs, my powers of persuasion would have convinced him to order another bowl to share! :)

Trying out Blue Bird Group Apps

I finally tried out the Blue Bird apps today, to order a taxi for a friend and myself for our little excursion to Plaza Grand Indonesia, with a little bit of hints from Hubs. Hubs had to take a taxi to work this morning and decided to order a Blue Bird last night. When he got into the taxi this morning, he messaged me that the apps worked fine and told me to try it out.

The apps only work if you have a local Indonesian number and they inform you as well, once you have downloaded the apps. There were a few preliminary steps that I had to go through, which involves setting up my account with them, key in my mobile number to which they sent a verification code to and I'm ready to go.

As you can see at the bottom left hand corner, there's an "Order" icon to order my taxi. Once I keyed in the necessary address, date and time of pick-up, a confirmation notice was sent instantaneously to my phone.  When I pressed the "Tracking" icon, I saw my order status as "In The Queue"

Just about half an hour before pick-up time, another notification (below) was sent to my phone, informing that the taxi and its ID has been dispatched.

As you can see below, the status has changed to "On The Way" and a little car icon has appeared next to the designated pick-up location. 

At about 15 minutes to 11am, I went down to the lobby but didn't see my taxi. I called Hubs to cross-check what he did this morning, and he told me to ask the lobby receptionist if my taxi has arrived. A phone call to the security post revealed that my taxi has arrived and was waiting outside. Finally, taxi came into the compound and we got into the taxi alright! And oh yeah, I also saw that the ID of the taxi was also visibly pasted on the dashboard above the glove compartment so that passengers can cross-check that they got into the correct taxi. Awesome!

Eats: Say that again? Fook Yew?!

I gotta acknowledge this. The Ismaya group really have some pretty interesting ideas for concept-based F&B outlets. And Fook Yew is one of them. Vocally, Fook Yew sounds quite offending, especially if one were to say it with a British accent, but heck! it sure does make you do a double take and look at this restaurant with curiosity. Well this cat got slain and went to check it out.

Menu-wise, it's a bit of a mix and match. I can't really make out what is it. There's no theme here - some Cantonese, some Shanghainese and with a little bit of bubble tea thrown into the mix to throw one off the tracks. I ordered the stir-fry hor fun with beef in XO sauce, as well as Shanghainese "Sheng Jian Man Tou".

The stir-fry hor fun is surprisingly good. Got "wok hei" which literally means "spirit of the wok" which is the essence of Chinese stir-fry. And on the theme of throwing one of the tracks, it came served up in American Chinese take-out box. LOL!

I didn't care much for this i.e. the Shanghainese "Sheng Jian Man Tou." To start off with, I've stop eating wheat-based food due to my allergy, but I ordered this anyway to find out what is this about. I only ate the fillings without the wheaty bun bits. So can't really comment if the texture of the buns were up to mark. But so far my experience of Chinese food in Jakarta tells me that they still cannot grasp texture really nice bun pastries like the ones you can get in KL, Singapore or Hong Kong. Perhaps it was my choice of fillings as well, which was crab meat and some tomato-based sauce. Maybe it would have been better if it was a meat-based fillings.

Decor-wise, Fook Yew is a very visually attractive restaurant. A mix of modern and old, very well played out by the colours and the many decorative pieces found in the restaurant. Maybe that's the idea behind Fook Yew, IMHO. Just an eclectic mix that doesn't make sense.

A pair of his and hers cheong-sam salt and pepper shaker, set on a table top made of tiles.

Surely this reminds you of "Raise The Red Lattern" that made Gong Li an international fame. 

With visual statement like this on its feature wall, one can't help but to really look at Fook Yew which means "Luck" and "Friendship"

Chinese cooking philosophies?! Your guess is as good as mine... LOL!

And perhaps the most interesting of all...