Gluttonous Maximus

The ramen last night gave me a very good night sleep and we woke up at around 9. It was a beautiful sunny Saturday morning marking my first and last day San Francisco. The fact that we had only one day gave my friend a serious headache in deciding where to bring us. We finally decided to go for brunch since we were quite hungry (Where did all the ramen and chirashi go?) and tasting local’s favourite always top my agenda. My friend gave us several choices amongst them a touristy place well know for its long queue. My other friend has this peculiar obsession on anything long-queueing and touristy, so there we went, to Mama’s.

We arrived at around 10.30 and he was right, the queue was veeeeery long (please note that the queue picture you see doesn’t represent the real thing because there’s still around 25 minutes queue INSIDE the restaurant). We had to snack on a very nice apple tart because we couldn’t stand the starve. We finally got seated around one-and-a-half-hour later at 12.00. 
 

The beautiful San Francisco

Their food was rated 25 by Zagat.Fyi, the highest rating Zagat ever given to a restaurant is 29 out of 30, Grant Achatz’s Alinea is one of them. Daniel and Jean Georges in Manhattan, NYC were both rated 26. So to be able to score a 25 for a non-fine dining establishment is not a bad achievement for Mama’s.

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Tired after a 20 hours flight. Overarching sleep deprivation. I felt totally nauseated. I was relieved when I got into my friend’s car, thinking of a very good night sleep in few minutes. It was already around 11.30 PM, what better than a good night sleep? A bowl of ramen. That’s exactly what my friend was thinking, instead of being a good host by bringing us straight to his place, he brought us to this late night venture to this place called Katana-Ya.

I was surprised when I see some people were queuing outside the place, yet I later found out it worths queuing in this sort of chilly night for one of the best bowl of ramen I’ve had in life.

Disclaimer: I’ve never tried Ippudo.

We finally got seated after around 30 minutes and were handed the menu. Ramens were at $8ish per portion and you get two choices of broth: miso and shoyu. But the interesting part is they offer these combos where you can pair your ramen or udon with basically one other main dish for less than $13.50 (my choice was the most expensive combo, for $13.50).

My friend’s shoyu based udon.
One of the better shoyu broths I’ve tasted.

Spicy tuna don
My friend chose this to pair his shoyu based udon. This was chopped tuna with some spicy paste sprinkled with scallion. I tried a bite and it was quite good, my friend enjoyed this much.
 

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Anytime I have a crave for italian food, I’d be frustrated. Why? Because I couldn’t find any decent italian restaurant here in Jakarta. And I’m not speaking of Mario Batali or Michael White’s quality, something half as good as Sfoglia would suffice. What’s so hard in doing a proper bolognaise sauce anyway? Why do restaurants choose to screw it with overly tomato ketchup-ing it? Enough of the rants, here’s a review of an oasis in Jakarta’s italian restaurant dessert I visited last year (pardon my glutton, I’ve been busy stuffing myself and have just remembered that I still have this blog, so yea, sorry for the hiatus). Toscana is its name by the way.

Initial impression about the place, elegant, shortly followed by a gasp upon looking at the menu prices. It was a pleasant gasp, as the price tag turned out to be very modest.

Bread basket, served with olive scented butter.
Nothing spectacular, by far Sopra’s bread basket is still the best in town.

Closer view on the butter.

Mushroom Cream Soup. Rp 16.000.
Textbook mushroom soup was solid. Clearly it was house-made and you can feel the nearly pureed mushroom chunks in the bottom of the bowl. It was creamy and bursting with mushroom umami flavor. Very very cheap and fulfilling.

Salad Caprese. Forgot the price (Rp 50k-ish probably).
I expected a burrata-like creaminess and this didn’t do. The mozzarella was bland, so was the seemingly like pesto dressing, and tomato. The sprinkled dried herbs didn’t help, altogether making this a very flat dish.

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If there’s love at the first sight, it might be mine on Tsukinofune. If there really was the resurrection stone, I would use that to revive this place.

They sourced their fishes from the same source that supply Kaihomaru, that’s why all their sashimis are spot on.

There still are many more photos from this place since I patronized this place regularly before it closed last December, stay tune!

There are some places you just need to drop by anytime you’re visiting a city, in NYC Brooklyn Bridge is one of them. But I’m not going to brag about that renowned landmark, instead, about a jewel below it.

Some foods doesn’t require educated palette to enjoy, pizza is one of them that any restaurant can’t hardly go wrong with. The marriage of chewy dough with creamy mozzarella and tangy tomato sauce is enough to satisfy most people. Variations are commonly known depend on preference and the pizza maker’s style. Thick, cheesy, thin, chewy, meaty, anything you want, sir. But this pizza I’m going to review is not just another pizza, this is the creme de la creme of all pizza.

Grimaldi’s can be found listed in almost all NYC where-to-eat magazines or websites. This place has been making pizzas since 70 years ago and the queue never changed ever since. It is said that they use custom coal-fired oven specially designed and made by request. They make sure of their mozarella’s freshness by counting on daily delivery, and this mozarella is not an ordinary mozarella you usually find in 7/11’s pizza, baby, I’ll write more on its taste below.

Nantucket Nectars Orange Juice. $2.

We went to Coney Island that whole day and didn’t drink that much liquid, when they told me this juice is in a 600ml serving, I ordered in a whim. A very good thirst quencher indeed :D

Margherita pizza. Or basically tomato and cheese. $12.

I was literally speechless upon chewing this ethereal goodness. The dough was PERFECT. It was chewy yet at the same time you get the crunchy exterior mouthfeel and redolence from the smoky coal-fired oven; the dough itself, already set Grimaldi’s apart from the other pizzeria I guess. The tomato sauce has the right piquancy, perfectly accentuating the dough’s perfectness without overwhelming it. The mozarella was very creamy, not burrata creaminess but the creamiest I’ve ever tasted on top of a pizza. The rich mozarella was complemented really well with the tomato’s tang.

Pizza with some hams? Didn’t take note on the menu. $12ish if I’m not mistaken, sorry didn’t keep the bill :P

Just the same goodness + streaky hams or bacons I forgot. Just indulge the photos, folks :D

The verdict:

This is undoubtedly my best pizza experience so far. Upon having lunch in one prominent pizza restaurant in Jakarta several days ago, I recalled the reminiscent of Grimaldi’s perfection, and the pizza I ate was nowhere close to Grimaldi’s. Anyone, if you happen to visit NYC, this is a must try, your perception on pizza will be forever changed, amen.

Grimaldi’s Pizzeria

http://www.grimaldisnyc.com/p-i-z-z-a#!__p-i-z-z-a/vstc3=b-directions

UNDER THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE

19 old Futton Street

Brooklyn, NY 11201