Imperial Treasure La Mian Xiao Long Bao

Imperial Treasure La Mian Xiao Long Bao. Most patrons at this Shanghainese, less oil, less salt mainstay of healthy Chinese cooking in the region are often too busy noodling their Sunday afternoons away to realize the keel that makes up their food. Each satisfying bowl of la mian is made fresh to order, with flour steeped in native enigma sealed in with vegetable oil and water.

Furama Restaurant, Cafe and Wedding Gallery

Furama Restaurant, Cafe and Wedding Gallery. What happens when a local stalwart gets a makeover? It will look like everybody else and wish upon its lucky stars that people remember what made it interesting in the first place! Not that this establishment hasn’t made provisions: with so many weddings to cater for, how can anybody be allowed to forget? It’s also smart enough to retain every trace of its personal history: case in point, the menu remains as thick as a four-generation saga.

Imperial Treasure Kitchen

Imperial Treasure Kitchen. It’s not all about formula: the signboard, the cakery and the generic modern China interior may lure people like a magnet, what really seduces is the cuisine, which ventures beyond the same old roasts.

Gado-Gado Triguna

Gado-Gado Triguna. The winner of the best balance award — between sweetness, heat and nutty factor — to which is added not half, but one, boiled egg and fresh-tasting, if not too green, vegetables. A steal at Rp 6,000 a pop.

Wan Toe

Wan Toe. You’d think that filling in the shoes of Super Kitchen would be a tall order, but not so for cornershop restaurant Wan Toe (an ingenious take on one, two that stops just short of the point of release), which seems so together, so of one piece, it might have preceded its predecessor.

Y & Y

Y & Y. There is an empire straining out of the group behind Y Grill: you can taste it in Hodasaka-san’s teppanyaki and many things besides, but you can see it in Y and Y, officially the casual version of Y Grill, but out of which they have fashioned something rich and strange. The slightly disorienting parade of colour-coordinated clientele notwithstanding, this is indeed a space that somewhat succeeds in making hyper randomness works: from the glass elevator design of the kitchen where the chefs roasting pizza are like fish in an aquarium and the dining area outside, which is designed to feel like dining on a floating boat, complete with undulating water, to the glass counter displaying Wagyu of all grades and the otherwise modern cafeteria feel of the place.

Y! Grill

Y! Grill. It is a world, of course — of cool blacks and whites, silvers and chromes, a world that awaits as you step outside the elevator on the third floor, a room with a view of flickering tapers and city lights, neat and rectangular, almost like Lego.  

Zhuma Japanese

Zhuma Japanese. Senayan city shoppers who want slightly out of the way scene-free sushi will do well to head for Zhuma. Behind the dark etched glass-façade is a skinny dining room with burnished copper walls and mood lighting. Of course it’s not just about sushi, though you’ll find some savoury ones here: the spicy crunchy rolls combine salmon bits, green chilli padi and tempura crumbs, while the soft shell crab and unagi rolls, ubiquitous as they are, are surprisingly pleasant.

Umenadori

Umenadori. Yakitori is the operative word even if there are delights other than chicken that take equally to the grill; here, nasu (eggplant), salted and drenched in its own juice or doused in sweet teriyaki sauce, wagyu short ribs and aspara bacon (asparagus wrapped in bacon) are delightful. Parts of the chicken that are worth your while are teba and kawa — wings and chicken skin, and there’s the shiitake tsukune, shiitake mushroom stuffed with minced chicken (order it with sweet sauce — sublime!); less successful are the (typically overdone) white meat varieties shisomaki (rolled with ohba leaf) and sabi sasami (laced with wasabi mustard).

Samudra Shark's Fin

All of Samudra Shark’s Fin fare I’ve tasted is characterized by a clean, market freshness, and everything is big flavoured and tasty. It is the sort of restaurant that makes you feel safe and assured. Dim sum, which is available both a la carte as well as via the mobile trolleys that wander over to your table, is just fabulous. From ha kau to siew mai, steamed lotus paste bun to cheong fun, there is hardly any flavour out of place. 
 

Cengkeh D'Gallerie

Now, after one of the best restaurants in Central Java (but often forgotten) in the city has been moved to the south from the middle of the crater Pecenongan, what we said?

But first, let's see first what he had done. First, he has partnered with an art gallery, right in the heart of Kebayoran Baru, adding snacks in the menu list, and maintain-dish servings tepercayanya. Management are now dealt with the second generation, which guarantees (at least theoretically) a sharper vision and greater efficiency.

Sushi Kawana

It's a familiar sight on the side of the Little Tokyo here: tatami rooms buzzed with the chatter of the regulars who arrive with consistent frequency, while the jurumakan sit in front of the bench. Design the room away from the sparkling, bright lights, and menus are a bit wild. The owner / chef's wife, Mrs Kawana, with admirable lead phalanx of waiters who are adept and nimble, while the master sushi with her husband happily answer questions on the bench.

D'Ocean

To d 'or not to d'? Whatever your political beliefs, D'Ocean familiar ocean. So, everything reasonable excuse, including the blue excess and an awkward location.

One side of this restaurant feels like Wakamama blue-glass front wall, the long benches minimalist, geometric-shaped lamps, and the other side as if imported from Chinatown, with a wall that was almost filled with row upon row of photo images of quasi-celebrity customers.

Imperial Cakery & Dim Sum

Imperial Cakery & Dim Sum. A recent addition to the burgeoning genre of casual stylish Pan-Asian dim sum and noodle bar genre, Imperial Cakery’s dim sum is nothing to write home about save a rather exceptional fried lo mei kei — very moist, with a lovely charred outside — and chicken feet in black bean sauce. But the noodles, increasingly a tired genus, are unexpectedly exciting: try the Hong Kong-style noodles with beef brisket, the crispy noodles coated in dry prawn roes, and, even better, the braised crispy noodles with stewed eggplant and beef, which is crunchy, sweetish, with a surprising depth of flavour. Also at Ground Floor, Setiabudi One Building, Jl. H.R. Rasuna Said Kav. 62, Jakarta Pusat.

Padang Bistro

Padang Bistro. For all its modern lines, aesthetically pleasing lighting and clean, white-toned interior that’s slightly reminiscent of Penang Bistro, there is still a distinct Padang tenor to this whole establishment: it’s all in the stacks of food on display behind glass counters and the long benches (the milky matte tabletops notwithstanding). Modernity also comes in the guise of hospitality — the minute you are seated, you will be offered tea and a small bowl of beef rib soup — and quality control: dishes tend to be freshly made so as to avoid re-heating. Unfortunately, this means that by 8pm, they are usually out of firm favourites such as ayam pop and the divine ayam panggang (grilled chicken), both made of local (kampung) chicken.

Bebek Goreng Surabaya (Surabaya Fried Duck)

Bebek Goreng Surabaya. Here’s where you’ll find arguably the leading house of bebek goreng (deep fried duck), though opinion divides sharply and elicits such murderous passions. Begor, affectionate term for bebek goreng, here, is deep-fried Surabaya-style, and there is no need to look elsewhere (there is a Chinese food menu).

Nasi Uduk Joko Putra

Nasi Uduk Joko Putra. Here is where immensely popular nasi uduk stops the traffic from 5.30pm onwards. Some people also swear by the bebek goreng (deep-fried duck) though others find it too tender to be authentic. Opinion divides on the merit of the sambal, which to me is far too diluted and has that pungent, unpleasant fishy aroma.

Bakmi Aheng Indonesia

Bakmi Aheng

Bakmi Aheng Indonesia. This is as warung (Indonesian small family-run eatery-styled) as it gets — two plastic tables and a makeshift cooking station, the sort that would be washed away by the slightest flooding — but none of the noodles in this famous noodle alley can trump this one: superfine, aromatic Hong Kong style noodles sprinkled with minced pork that wring maximum flavour from a wonderfully rich stock, at only Rp 12,000 a bowl. Often the stench from the nearby gutter can be a serious impediment to pleasurable eating, but the noodles will outlive — in my memory at least — the place that gave them birth.

Ikan Bakar Duta Makassar (Fish Fuel Duta Makassar)

Ikan Bakar Duta Makassar

Ikan Bakar Duta Makassar (Fish Fuel Duta Makassar). Tebet has much to be grateful: this basic, laid-back, two-storey semi-permanent restaurant, with its once bustling, productive kitchen that made light of churning out dish after tasty dish with lightning speed to an adoring clientele, as well as the H. Mamink Daeng Tata empire next door and around the area, has done much to reinforce the area’s reputation as a Makassar cuisine stronghold. The world is ever more plural now, and the clientele has subsequently dwindled, but the food still merits a look: the fried rice with crabmeat comes slightly burned on top, which is the way regulars prefer it, and the squid in butter sauce is agreeably savoury. Best is the no-holds-barred stir-fried convolvulus in oyster and spicy black bean sauce, still every inch as palatable as it was five, six years ago.

Bebek Bengil (Dirty duck) from Indonesia

Bebek Bengil (Dirty duck)

Bebek Bengil (Dirty duck). There was always a confidence about Bebek Bengil that was ahead of its time; now, after six years, it still has that air about it, even as it no longer helms the regional Indonesian cuisine movement, and dirty duck doesn’t cut it out anymore as far as profanities go. Their deep-fried duck, a house pride, may not be as spectacular as it once was, and countless better versions have taken the edge off its Nasi Bali (Balinese style rice with mixed dishes),