Rakumen Japanese Noodle House

This time I’m writing about another chain by Waraku. Rakumen is a Japanese restaurant specialized in noodles, but they do serve rice bowls, too. Since this is a long overdue post, so when I tried eating there, they were having promotion of 30% discount for a la carte menu (ANZ credit card) or set menu for just Rp. 69.800,-/set, which include 1 bowl of ramen and 1 bowl of rice menu. However not all types of ramen or rice menu could be chosen, because they just gave us limited options for that promotion. This time we chose to try the set menu because we just wanted to try the flavors of different food.

When I looked around, I was thrilled to see how big their serving bowls are! And it just added curiosity of how the food tastes. The place is dominated by wood theme, accentuated by dimmed yellow lights, the atmosphere is warm and friendly like casual family restaurant.

As usual, appetizer is a must, so we ordered Waraku Salad, which tasted really, really nice, just like what I expected from Japanese salad. What I like about Japanese salad is it actually feels really fresh and light, maybe because I always prefer the Wafu dressing rather than Western dressings. The vegetables were fresh and well-cut, the boiled eggs complimented the whole flavor and they just poured enough dressing.

Waraku Salad – IDR 43.800

Onto our set menus, we ordered 3 sets, which like I mentioned before, contains of 1 ramen and 1 rice bowl each. The first set, we picked Yakiniku Don and Tempura Ramen. The bowls were not as big as the bowls of the usual bowls, pretty reasonable because we picked the promotion menu afterall. The yakiniku don was good, the beef tasted really nice, well-seasoned and not overcooked. The ramen was not disappointing, too. We were surprised of how small the portion was, though. The bowl was just like ordinary Japanese noodle bowls, but the ramen and soup only filled 1/3 of it. The ramen itself was very chewy, which I like. The soup was rich in flavor but I thought the color wasn’t very appealing. The tempura was served separately, which was clever, so I wouldn’t complain anything about it.

Yakiniku Don

Tempura Ramen

The second set we picked were Chicken Katsu Don and Katsu Curry Ramen. This would be the safest menu for any Japanese restaurants, but still, some places can’t manage it well. In here, though, I have to admit that their katsu are very well-made, crispy outside but so soft inside. I think the decision to pick this was probably the smartest decision that night. Yep, it’s that good. In the other hand, the curry ramen wasn’t that good. The curry was so light I could almost say I didn’t feel it. As the photo might already show, the curry wasn’t thick at all, even to the point of being watery, which was a shame. The taste wasn’t nice, either. But thanks God they served two big chunks of chicken cutlets to save that bowl!

Chicken Katsu Don

Katsu Curry Ramen

The third set was mine, so I carefully took my time to choose something that was unique and new. My first choice was the Beef Steak Don. And it was a good choice because the beef steak really gave different taste for a donburi. I thought it would be something sweet judging from the thick sauce over the meat, but I was wrong. The sauce was great, and the thinly-sliced fried garlic just made it perfect. Totally love it. The other one was the Cream Udon, which I picked only based on curiosity. It tasted like pasta with cream sauce, only the pasta was replaced by udon. It just felt so wrong. The seafood inside contributed the fishy-like taste, which just made it worse. Well, people always say “curiosity kills the cat”, so that was what I felt too. It wasn’t that bad but I just didn’t fancy it. Anyway, that was an experience!