Nakayoshi

nakayoshi, i saw it at the corner of my eye while driving home from jap school. its so quaint cause its a restaurant that open up in the middle of a residential lane just off jl senopati (quite famous road for restaurants). and me being from melbourne, just totally love off beaten quint restaurants cause thts usually the best places to go!





anyway they have a website and you can check it out, the prices are really quite cheap.

so today after class i decided to pop in and see whats going on in that restaurant that only seats 28



i ordered the gindara teriyaki set. for starters they had agedashi tofu. realising that its actually a fusion restaurant the agedashi tofu came in 4 round pieces(correct me if im wrong, im not such a fan of the tofu, but i thought it usually comes in 1 big square block?) but anyhow, the tofu tasted decent and i was quite looking forward to my main!

while waiting ive concluded that the chef is most probably indonesian and not japanese, when i went near the kitchen i heard indo not japanese being spoken. and the menu doesnt use japanese characters. plus they dont serve pork either...



so the main came with miso soup and salad. i was looking at the miso soup and realise how the tofu and seaweed was still very much intact rather than my rendition which usually have afew seaweed becoming too soggy or the tofu mushing up from the constant stirring! i thought what skill, but when i drank it.... it was cold, its a sin to drink miso soup cold! on hindsight there wasnt the requisite lid to keep the soup warm! WTF?

the teriyaki gindara, how was it? well i broke one of the biggest rules in my books, i ordered fish at a restaurant that doesnt specialise in fish/seafood. the gindara was not fresh, i had especially good and fresh grilled gindara at that japanese restaurant at plaza indonesia(sorry cant remember the name, but its near starbucks). the gindara at nakayoshi was not flaky, but it was mushy. just by handling it with my chopsticks i could see that the fish wont flake into slices like all good fresh cod fish would.

i had ogura ice cream for dessert, it tasted like this red bean ice cream stick (nyonya besar es lilin) that mummy-snob buys that is made in indonesia.

so hows the place? i guess i hve to come back and try the other non-fish dishes but its still quite blasphemous to serve the miso soup cold! usually i love small quaint offbeaten places even if the food isnt perfect (e.g. chiki, off smith street, melbourne - food is very simple but oh so good! one of the best miso soups EVER).

one thing i usually say is that, sometimes the chef isnt good enough to handle the workload and thus although he might cook a good meal if he has the time, he might not be able to reproduce the result during a restaurant service. however. this restaurant they had only 2 tables occupied including mine with the other one already had their mains served. so the chef only had to concentrate on my meal alone. pretty much a failure considering that the miso was cold... the gindara maybe i couldnt fault them since they dont have the turnover to have good fresh seafood.

the food is quite cheap although that was probably because i tot it was japanese who was cooking it. and its been quite awhile since ive been to kiyadon or sushi tei so i cant really compare.

http://www.nakayoshi-cipaku.com/
Nakayoshi
JL. Cipaku 2 /16, Keb Baru
Jakarta Selatan 12170
Indonesia
+62 (21) 7269751