Editor's Rating

9.5
Food/Drink
7.5
Ambience
3
Service
Itacho Sushi is the newest establishment opening in the restaurants heaven, Grand Indonesia. A member of Taste of Japan Group along with several Japanese restaurant brands such as Itamae Sushi, Kushiyaki Sesson, and Jika Udon; Itacho Sushi started its very first outlet in Hong Kong. It has been quite well-known and nowadays, we can find the outlets in Japan, China, Sydney Australia, etc before they finally open one in Indonesia on February 26th, 2015.

Actually I planned to write about this place later when I have more material to write about (which you’ll know why soon!).

To be honest, based from my experience, I have love and hate feeling about this place.

I had never been in any of their outlets yet before, and since I couldn’t attend their Grand Opening invitation last time, I had been curious about this place ever since.

Itacho Sushi serves wide range of sushi and other Japanese food, and the prices are very affordable, in my opinion. What I like about the menu is that everything is priced by piece (unless stated otherwise), so we can try many things in one go. Price ranges from IDR 6,000 (Inari Sushi) to IDR 670,000 (Abalone with Guts Sashimi) for food, and IDR 0 (hot/cold ocha) to IDR 1,100,000 (Dassai 39 Sake).

I visited Itacho last Saturday, around 11.30AM and it was half-packed when I went in. The place is quite big but with all the partitions, it kinda makes the place looks crumpled. We were seated in the right wing from the entrance, and we got a table just in front of the kitchen. I couldn’t think of better position because, (okay, I cheated), I had read/heard some bad experiences about the service, so I THOUGHT by sitting near to the biggest staff movement area, I wouldn’t have to experience the same “bad service”.

 

 
So it was smooth in the beginning, after we were seated, the staff immediately brought the menu and the order sheet for us. Basically, the menu is numbered and we just need to write the number and quantity that we want. I took my sweet time choosing and writing my order and I wrote about 20+ types of dishes in the sheet. Rather than using different sheet, I only used one and wrote front and back on same paper. After handing the paper to a very busy looking male waiter, we waited with high expectation.

Waiting with the free-of-charge hot and cold ocha 🙂

 
After about less than 10 minutes, our order started coming. I thought, not bad! Especially because the place got more crowded since it was the peak hour of lunch time.

Crab & Crab Miso Warship Style IDR 22,000
I love warship (gunkan) style of sushi, and although this sounded so interesting, I was disappointed to see how “thin” it is. Keeping it aside, the taste was actually SUPERB. The crab miso had a distinctive taste of dried shrimp, it almost felt like a paste, in a good way. <3

 
Sweet Shrimp IDR 29,000
Once you go “amaebi” (sweet shrimp), the usual shrimp sushi will be nothing! At least that’s what I think. I love how the shrimp looks so beautifully presented effortlessly, and the sweetness was just great. I could even hear myself making the sound when eating because it was just so crunchy.

 
Salmon Hand Roll IDR 18,000
I simply LOVE this. I always love hand rolls and this one was so good I could cry. Everything about it was simply perfect for me: the crispy seaweed, the beautiful yummy vinegar-ed rice, and the soft, delicate, and fresh salmon put in a great way so I could have it until the bottom part. The salmon was crazily fresh as it was almost crunchy, the best! Hail Itacho for this.

 
Salmon Lobster Roll IDR 26,000
Another massive YUM-ness. The combination between the salmon and lobster was great, and everything about these rolls screamed fresh. Nothing fishy, just great.

 
Roasted Duck Breast Sushi IDR 22,000
This was one of the most beautiful looking nigiri sushi ever. The glistening duck fat and pinkish meat totally made me drooling like crazy. The duck breast was super delicious! Very soft and tender, I didn’t even expect something like that, LOL. I was amazed that it actually tasted so good with or without soy sauce.

 
Roasted Egg with Seaweed IDR 19,000
A beautifully-done roasted egg with balanced taste of sweet and savory, the seaweed just gave it another kick. A must order if you love tamagoyaki!

 
These 6 orders came almost in the same time, but after that, no more of our order actually came. We asked several waiters, waitresses, staffs in white uniforms, basically just every restaurant staff who walked to and from the kitchen, asking for our order. After waiting for approximately 40 minutes (seriously I didn’t know how I could be THAT patient that day), I stopped a waitress to check it. She came back (finally someone checked!) and showed me the order sheet.

My order sheet, which was supposedly written FRONT AND BACK, transformed into different one, now the FRONT page had vanished, no wonder my orders from the front page didn’t come at all!

But seriously, during the last 40 minutes, we had been asking more than 10 times to passing staffs and nobody even bothered to check. Damn!

Luckily, I went to another restaurant before Itacho and actually had some good food and desserts, so I wasn’t really that hungry (maybe that’s why I could be so patient). As I was already there, I decided to make an order again because I wanted to try more. By that time, it was too late for me to just leave, a part of me wanted to try more of their delicious creations, another part of me was so pissed I could kick my table down, LOL!

So, I carefully chose what I wanted (again) and this time, I chose the person I handed my order sheet to. There was these male staffs with white shirt, I assumed they have higher positions than the ones wearing black uniforms, so I handed my order to one of those.

Waiting and taking pictures of interesting stuffs!

 

 Raw Wasabi displayed on the counter

 
After waiting for another 15 minutes, I started asking the passing staffs again. Nobody ever came back for explanation. We literally asked for our orders like, once every 3 minutes or something. Even non paranoid person will definitely become one. I witnessed a table beside us which were occupied by a family (father, mother, and daughter) had the same case with us, but I guess they were luckier. After being idle for a while, the father called the waiter and asked about his order angrily. He even asked “Do you even make (it)?” and told the waiter to cancel the order if it didn’t come soon. Minutes later, it was served on his table.

After waiting for another 30 minutes (45 minutes in total), I called the staff who didn’t even wear uniform and seemed to be the person in charge. After explaining our situation, he came back with puzzled look on his face, saying that we had no order sheet for our table beside the first one. By that time, I was beyond furious but managed to keep calm because I thought that I should have known that earlier.

In the end, we had to waste our time and only 6 menu from our 30+ orders that were served to us. 2 of my order sheets vanished with no trace (I wonder though, did they eat them or just shove them to their a$$es? LOL!). I was there for 2 hours, and I had enough WTF/WTH moments to be shared for months. Like, seriously.

Not only that, just asking for tea refills can be real challenge there. At some point, we had to ask more than 5 times for a refill, and basically just asked every staffs who happened to pass by. The problem was that the staffs seem to be disorganized and there is no work delegation from what I observed. Most all of them looked busy but clueless as what to do, perhaps the training system is not too good.

Anyway.
This has been a long post, and I am sorry I have to vent it out because I was very disappointed. I still want to go back for the food, though, but maybe not soon. It’s such a pity that such a great name can be so unprofessional like this, but hopefully they will fix this condition soon.

Nonetheless, welcome to Indonesia and good luck, Itacho Sushi!

  
*All prices are subject to 10% government tax

 

Visited on: 7 March 2015
 
** The Food Escape team are not paid whatsoever for writing this post.
 
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ITACHO SUSHI INDONESIA
Grand Indonesia Shopping Town
Level 3A Sky Bridge Unit FD1-10
Jl. MH.Thamrin No.1
Central Jakarta 10310
Ph. +62 21 2358 1228
Opening Hours: 
Mon-Sun 11AM – 10PM