Kushiya Monogatari 串家物語, Aeon Mall BSD City, Tangerang

Kushiya Monogatari 串家物語 is a popular chain from Osaka, Japan, which offers All-You-Can Eat kushiage (literally means “fried skewers”), with Do-It-Yourself (DIY) cooking method.

The very first outlet in Indonesia has been operating in the newly-opened Aeon Mall BSD City since 30th May 2015. Brought by the new F&B group named FUJIO MSP, Kushiya Monogatari offers experience where customers can fry their own selection of foods in skewers in the fryers installed in each tables. Interesting!

Kushiya Monogatari keeps three keywords to describe the wholesome experience: People, Tradition, and Recreation. The restaurant brings a unique combination of traditional Japanese meals and modern buffet style in the culinary recreation concept.

The first outlet in Aeon Mall itself is quite spacious (approximately 200 sqm area) which is capable to serve up to 110 people in one round. The interior concept is derived from legendary Japanese matsuri (festival) and the solemn city of Kyoto; which is clearly visible from the Matsuri artwork “Happy Dance”, traditional Kyoto-style home, touched with modern facade that envelopes the exterior part of the area.

The buffet stations are located in the center of the restaurant, where we can choose the skewers, side dishes, dessert, and so on.

Here’s how the deep fryer on the table looks like. The cover/lid is very helpful especially when we fry ingredients that contain lots of water (e.g. squid, shrimp etc) to avoid popping oil everywhere.

Skewers including meat, seafood, fish cakes, even vegetables are available. I was told that the favorites are Taiyaki skewer (with red bean filling), followed by Takoyaki. While the other skewers seem pretty standard, I think these two are MUST TRY when you are here.

Beside the kushiage as main attraction, in the buffet stations we can also find some kinds of salad, fruits, jellies and juices. In other station, there is also rice and miso soup included in the AYCE.

For the heavier “side dishes”, there were fritters, croquettes, chicken karaage, and hot pasta. I tried everything, and I think they were just okay but nothing special about them.

I must state here I really, really love the variety of dressing/sauce, though. They serve tonkatsu sauce, Worcestershire, Yuzu Shoyu, and Mayonnaise for accompanying our kushiage eating experience. While in the other station, we could see pots serving kinds of dressing from Onion to Thousand Island, but unfortunately they were empty that time. I didn’t know about these pots but I think the dressings were meant to be used for salad?

And…. an AYCE buffet is incomplete without the dessert station!

I was surprise to see that there is a chocolate fondue fountain, but it’s always nice to attract any customers from all ages. More on this later.

Okay, so let’s begin our kushiage journey!

On each table, we can see the instruction which is WORTH READING, because that’s how we can successfully do our DIY kushiage cooking. Frying time is different for each ingredients so it’s recommended to follow the exact time to get the best result.

As suggested, put the skewers into the tempura batter then dip it into breadcrumbs before putting them into the deep fryer. The most interesting part is to be creative and be free about what you like, some skewers don’t even need the batter and breadcrumbs, you can just fry them just like that, such as taiyaki, takoyaki, etc.

Love the sizzling sound when the skewers were put inside the hot oil, and watching how the food turned color into golden brown.

Although many skewers were nice, my favorite was the taiyaki. The frying time should be 2 minutes but I let mine longer in the fryer (3 minutes) and I got darker brown color with extra crisp. Love the red bean fillings which were given generously and this totally lifted my mood that night. Thanks, taiyaki! XD

Didn’t get to try the fondue because it was already very late and we decided to skip that for now. But I think the fondue was simple yet beautiful addition to the AYCE buffet. <3

Ice cream lovers, don’t worry because there is soft ice cream machine ready to bring you a flavor of Matcha, Vanilla, or mix! YUM.

All the buffet area serves total of 50 selections, which are priced at IDR 128,000++/person for adults (weekdays) and IDR 148,000++/person (weekends), while children below 10 years old enjoy rate of IDR 98,000++/person.

In the nutshell, the skewers selection was good but I expected something more Japanese in term of variety. If you like fried stuffs, this is definitely not to miss. Service was excellent as the staffs were very polite, friendly and helpful. Price is very affordable and reasonable for an AYCE like this. I think this is a unique experience and this is the first time we have DIY frying method on our table like this in Indonesia, so it’s worth to try.

Last but not least, thank you for having us and wishing Kushiya Monogatari the best of luck!

*All prices are subject to 5% service charge & 10% government tax

*The Food Escape team are not paid whatsoever for writing this post.

** This review is written based on our visit on 29 May 2015.

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KUSHIYA MONOGATARI
Aeon Mall BSD City
GF (Ground Floor) Unit 19 – 21
Jl. BSD Raya Utama
BSD City, Tangerang
Ph.: +62 21 2916 8236

Opening Hours:
Mon-Sun 10AM – 10PM

Price:
Adult                          
– IDR 128,000++/person for 90 minutes (weekday)
– IDR 148,000++/person for 70 minutes (weekend)

Child (under 10 years old)
– IDR 98,000++/child (all days)