Taichan Japanese Restaurant, Plaza Senayan, Jakarta

Everyone surely has comfort food that they will eat no matter when or how, there are basically some times when we really need that certain food and it has to be that. Well, I probably don’t make sense with my sentence, but well, I am sure you all understand what I mean. There is a particular Japanese restaurant, a small and not-so-fancy one, squeezed in just beside the large outlet of Din Tai Fung. Located on the same floor with the spacious and full of choices food court, one can miss this place so easily. However, for the frequent visitors, Taichan has become one of the easiest choice for a quick Japanese food fix, especially the ramen. Interestingly, the ramen are available in 2 sizes option, so with additional minimum IDR 11K, we’ll get bigger portion. Now that’s what I call “taking care of customers”, LOL!

Note: All our orders were the plus size version or what they call “M” size, so please take notice if you order regular (S) one, it won’t look like these! XD

Shoyu Ramen (M) IDR 54K
The shoyu ramen was nice and refreshing, although a bit too sweet for my liking. Nevertheless, it is still the safest choice beside shio (salt) ramen.

Taichan Ramen (M) IDR 53K
This signature ramen dish uses miso as the soup base and it tasted amazing. The salty miso dominated the whole bowl, and because there were lots of vegetables and chicken cuts, the miso was nicely absorbed and created a very tasty and delicious bowl of ramen.

Gyu Aona Ramen (M) IDR 69K
This one was quite similar to Shoyu Ramen as it used the same soup base, but with richer broth because of additional chunks of beef and fresh vegetables. I think this was totally worth the price, look at those meat!

Stamina Ramen (M) IDR 69K
This is also very similar to the above, with additional carrot and other vegetables slices, and also garlic. When I tried the soup, the taste and aroma of garlic were overwhelming, but surprisingly didn’t overkill anything.

Honestly, I think rather than Japanese ramen, these looked and tasted more like Chinese noodle bowls with Japanese touch. The noodle type that is used here is my favorite kind for ramen, so I really like it. For the size, the regular one (or S) is already quite big so if you like, I recommend to order M size for sharing, it can feed 1-3 person in my opinion. Yes, it is THAT big!

Onigiri IDR 15K
It was pretty decent but the rice broke down easily so I had trouble eating that with hands. The fillings were not much, and almost had no taste. Frankly speaking, I don’t even remember what the filling was.. @__@

Gyoza IDR 30K
A must-try when you come here. The gyoza is one of the best in Jakarta, well, it’s my personal taste, but it is REALLY good and I think really similar to the gyoza in Japan.

Chicken Katsu Set IDR 61K
Didn’t try this one, but the set looked attractive and fulfilling, no? The katsu also looked very decent with nice size (some restaurants serve really thin, small cuts, really…!).