Marutama Ra-Men Plaza Indonesia / EX Jakarta Review

Marutama Ramen, or written Marutama Ra-Men, located on EX Plaza Indonesia Jakarta, 2nd floor just right across EX XXI. I completely forgot what it was before Marutama. The place located above the bowling arena so if you're seated near the window then you can see people playing bowling.

Arrived there quite early on Saturday evening so the place wasn't really packed. Got seated near the window. There are only 4 choices of ramen which surprised me, since the other ramen place has many choices. But Marutama only offers chicken/pork, vegetables, seafood, and something I forget. For rice menu they offer Japanese Fried Rice and Curry Rice, also many interesting choices of side dish. Anyway it's Google-able and they have official website as well :)

The waitress that handle seating allocation and taking order is the same person O_o And she took it without taking notes. I was worried that she might get the orders wrong but thankfully she didn't.

First came table was empty there's only a small bowl of fried garlic and sesame. Then she gave us chopstick. Which in the back of the chopstick is a customer review. But no pencil provided and I didn't bring any so I didn't fill in.

A very useless picture of chopstick hahaha sorry :|

Cold Ocha's served in Coca Cola glass? This glass was said a collector's item. It was sold in 5 different colors in Singapore and each day only sold one color. ...And in here they just freely provide in the restaurant. Mystery.. for me, at least. Choosing Ocha of course because it has refill :D Don't even bother to look at other drink menu lol :|

Yummy Yaki Gyoza as side dish!!!!!! The dip was weird though, or unique? Tastes sour, salty, spicy.. Undetectable haha.. But the gyoza is perfect! You can choose to have pork gyoza or chicken gyoza. This one is pork. Much better than Sanpachi has.

-Marutama Ramen-

Yes. The name is Marutama Ramen! The very first of 4 choices of ramen. A very soft handmade noodle with seaweed, and 2 slices of pork. (WHY 2?? Lol) The broth has very strong taste of egg? I don't know man it was good! I personally like the noodle and bf likes the broth. He ordered the spicy one, while I had the non-spicy one but he said it's not spicy at all :| I believe him because our spicy level is the same. I just chose to not have the spicy because I wanna taste the original taste.

It also seems that you can add additional topping into your ramen or even had additional noodles. Official Twitter of Marutama usually give away codes for free Tamago (egg) but when I requested one before I came, the admin said they only distributed the code from Monday to Friday. (I requested on Friday late night) so I didn't have it -_- non sense. But however that's their rules. Also if you share your picture while eating there you'll get free Ice Dorayaki! :)

 

For me one word best described Marutama is Authentic :)

I guess it's the nearest ramen in Indonesia that's quite close to those we had in Japan. But I haven't tasted the famous Hakata though ;p

I didn't have dessert because we're in hurry to watch Battleship. Which by the way super awesome and I would like to give rating 11/10. Only 3 movies in this year so far that gets me teary and feel all awesome inside. They are: Battleship, The Hunger Games, and Man on the Ledge. You just can't beat combination of good action with good humor and good love story (couples or family).

Have nice food and nice movie!

Ramen 38 / Sanpachi Ramen

Probably 38 is read as Sanpachi in Japanese language I don't know lol.

Few weeks ago I had a date with my bf. We're going to watch The Rise of the Planet of the Apes (this is seriously a complicated title) in Blitz Megaplex Central Park. While waiting for him to finish work, I went for lunch alone at Ramen 38 in Central Park. I don't know why but this branch isn't listed in Ramen 38's official website -> Ramen Sanpachi Official Website.

This is my first time in here and kind of sad since I ate alone. I noticed that people looked at me in a weird way :p Never mind though. As the night before I already browsed through the website for people's review on the internet, I decided to order Set Menu 38 Teishoku (pronounced as Sanpachi Teishoku). It consists of 3 pieces of Gyoza (you may choose Pork or Chicken), 1 Mini Chanan (Japanese Fried Rice), Zasai (Salty Pumpkin Salad) and Ramen of your choice. I chose Mabo Men.

This picture has been edited since the original is ultra bright red. I gotta lower down the saturation causing the pic turns into almost black and white. Sorry :(
On the top left is the Zasai. I didn't get to eat them all since it's super salty and I don't really understand how to eat it. Bottom left is the delicious Japanese Fried Rice. Tastes like fried rice of course :p I happen to eat Japanese Fried Rice few times in another restaurant and they taste almost the same. The good part of Sanpachi's fried rice is they put lots of ingredients inside. Chicken, peas, scrambled eggs, and few other veggies. The Gyoza hasn't arrived yet since I ordered the pork one and they cooked it separately so no need to worry for those who don't eat pork :)

Close view of my Mabo Men. Yummy! They don't use Udon as the noodle. Instead they use handmade traditional noodle I used to eat back in my hometown. It was covered at first but then you mix it until the noodle shows up. The menu said it's spicy beef. I don't taste any spicy feeling at all. I ordered small bowl and added with rice and Gyoza, I feel super full. It's not so special though this ramen. Many says the popular one is Jigoku Ramen. I'm gonna come back for that ;)

Here comes the Gyoza! They put the sauce on the table, plus the chili powder, salt, pepper, and many other additional spice. You can mix up on your own. I was tempted to pour the chili but since this is my first time I don't wanna ruin the original taste ;)

The waitresses here are very kind and helpful. They keep smiling and when you call them, they stop what they do and ask what to help you. The kindest employees I've ever met in restaurant is in here. I drank Cold Ocha (and though that's quite pricy when you compared to the free Ocha from Sushi Tei lol), and they refilled your glass when they pass you and saw the glass is empty.

After you done with your meal, they're gonna lift up your tray and give you free complimentary Jello. I got the lychee flavor :)

For those who interested to try here, it's located on GF level Central Park in the middle of Java Kitchen and Takigawa. I was really lost and so hard to find this place because of lack information on the internet -_- I even literally counted the block number lol.

Thanks for reading. Have a good day! :)