Naka Nakaya 中中家 Tokyo Dining, STC Senayan, Jakarta

Naka Nakaya Tokyo Dining is a Japanese restaurant located inside the STC (Senayan Trade Center) building, and it’s fair to categorize this place into our hidden gems list. Although the nearby shopping malls like Plaza Senayan, Senayan City, or even FX Sudirman easily attract crowds, I bet many of the frequent visitors of those malls have never been to STC yet. Some don’t even know that STC exists in the first place.

STC Senayan is not really a cool place to visit if you are not into certain hobbies like airsoft (guns), jewelry, timepieces or crafts. And I have been there only a couple of times to accompany Mr. K looking for his desired stuffs and of course, to EAT!

There are several decent restaurants/cafes inside (beside McD, err.. XD) and this time we’ll share to you about one of the authentic Japanese restaurants in STC Senayan that is a reason for you to visit this building!

Naka Nakaya is located on the LG floor of STC, just opposite to the main lobby. Getting inside, you’ll be amazed by how Japanese this place is, with minimal lighting and typical partition between tables in some sections. There is also an open kitchen separated with only glass window showing the grilling process. The photos here were taken during my visit on a Friday night, 90% tables were occupied by Japanese people and it was almost full house. Now this makes you curious, no?

Complimentary edamame was served on our table as soon as we made our order. And just like some *real* Japanese restaurants in Jakarta, the hot/cold ocha are served freely with unlimited refills.

Or sashimi rice bowl, is definitely something we can’t miss. We love how everything looks (and tastes) so fresh. The rice was good but I wish they put more vinegar to make it more towards sushi rice instead of regular one. The rice and sashimi were topped with oba leaf, mentaiko, shoga, wasabi, and seaweed. Lovely!

Recommended by the waitress, I couldn’t agree more that it is one of their signature dishes. The curry rice is served on a hot pan plate (be careful touching the handle though) complete with fukujinzuke (pickles that are usually added into curry) in separated container. The pan doesn’t look big, it’s more like a size of personal pan pizza, but the portion is actually quite big.

I especially love the view of melting cheese on top of the curry which looks cute. When I digged in, I was surprised to see that the inside part of the curry is actually NOT regular rice, but Japanese fried rice. It tasted very good with a nice aroma from the fried rice and the curry is actually quite thick and strong. This dish is totally RECOMMENDED!

The set comes with a main and 3 sides, which are a small bowl of oden, pickles, and miso soup. The rice portion is somehow bigger than other Japanese restaurant I have been to. The chicken teriyaki is served on another hot pan plate on top of bed of bean sprouts. I love how my main course is teriyaki and teppanyaki combo in some ways. XD The chicken teriyaki was wonderfully cooked, and I like the ginger-y teriyaki sauce very much!

Naka Nakaya has a thick menu book and the selection is amazing. They even have oden (Japanese hotpot) menu which I got to try some in my chicken teriyaki set menu. The oden was decent and better than the other ones I have ever tried in some Japanese restaurants here in Jakarta. Not only the soup was tasty and rich in flavor, the ingredients also absorbed the flavor quite well.

And a late dinner in authentic Japanese restaurants is never complete without ordering one or two grilled skewers!

This was my first time trying Naka Nakaya’s yakitori so I had big expectation since the other food are very authentic and promising. Uniquely, the yakitori prices are quite cheap here, while in other restaurants usually the price is for 1 stick, here for the chicken parts, it’s only IDR 30,000 for 5 pcs of same menu.

I picked momo (thigh) and sunagimo (gizzards), and I was shocked to see what I got. Okay I shouldn’t have expected big chunks as the prices are quite cheap for 5 sticks, but come on. See the picture below and you might understand why.

While the thigh was (barely) okay, the gizzard was a definite nightmare. They were grilled into mummies and it took great effort to bite, let alone munching it. To cut the long story short, this was the most horrifying chicken gizzard on sticks that I have ever eaten so far, LOL.

After my not-so-good yakitori experience, luckily we were complimented with coffee jelly, not bad at all!

Naka Nakaya Tokyo Dining is another authentic Japanese restaurant in Jakarta that is worth visiting. If you happen to be around the area, why don’t you stop by? 😉