YOI Indonesian Fusion — Restaurant in Melbourne

• Update Oct 2022*

I recently revisited Yoi and had an another amazing experience. Visiting for lunch we tried the new limited edition rice burger, Soto betawi and the pandan sweet martabak filled with Nutella and cheese for dessert.

The highlight for me was the rice burger, which features seaweed encasing two deep fried rice patties, chicken, sambal mayo, cheese and cucumber. The rice patties were so crisp and delicious, it reminded me a little of a hash brown. The chicken was crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside working beautifully with the other fillings. I highly recommend trying it whilst it’s available.

The Soto betawi is a traditional Indonesian coconut beef soup that came served with rice. The beef was nice and tender whilst the soup lovely and fragrant.

I highly recommend trying the dessert at Yoi. Known for their martabak sweet stuffed pancakes I was excited to try the pandan variation. For fillings we opted for Nutella with cheese, although it sounds like an unlikely pairing the cheese nicely balanced the sweetness of the Nutella. This dish is perfect for sharing.

Overall I had another fantastic experience at Yoi. The service was great, the food was delicious and offers great value for money. I highly recommend checking them out.

• First review **

I recently had a lovely lunch at Yoi Indonesian Fusion located in the CBD. With an extensive menu it was hard to decide what to order. We opted for the nasi bungkus, squid ink salted egg noodles and tahu kriuk crispy (fried tofu) to share. For drinks we had the Kopi gula aren and Lotus Biscoff coffee.

This was my first time trying nasi bungkus which features rice wrapped in a banana leaf with salted squid rings cooked with red and green chillies, rendang and silver beet. I don’t have a high spice tolerance and found this provided plenty of heat for me. However if you prefer something spicier then you should opt for the nasi jinggo. Packed with plenty of flavour and traditionally eaten by locals with their hands, this is a great way to get a taste of Indonesian style street food.

A visit to Yoi wouldn’t be complete without trying some of their famous salted egg noodles. We opted for the squid ink salted egg noodles served with fried calamari. The salted egg flavour worked beautifully with the calamari, it was so good.

The crispy tofu was nice and crisp on the outside and soft and smooth on the inside. Whilst the drinks we ordered were very refreshing. The lotus Biscoff provided a nice touch of sweetness when blended into the coffee.

Overall I had a great experience at Yoi. The food was delicious and generously portioned making it perfect for sharing. It’s a great place to enjoy some Indonesian cuisine. Another thing I love about Yoi is the robot waiter that delivers your order to your table. Unfortunately I wasn’t served by the robot this time but I was still able to see it in action and it looked pretty cool. I give Yoi ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of 5. Thanks very much...

The authentic Indonesian feast that calls for you to use your hands to eat and experience the true flavours of the land @yoi.au

This amazing food joint has been creating and serving the most classic yet impossibly yummy Indonesian dishes, like mains, drinks, sides, appetisers, that are packed with bomb favours.

What we had:

Mie Goreng Salted Egg Chicken, exceptional noodles dish, that’s is subtly spicy enough to make you experience the true salty egg flavours of the fried chicken. Such a perfect and tasty dish, which is strongly recommended.

Nasi Jingoo, served with rice, spicy shredded chicken, fried coconut flakes, tempe, anchovies, sambal. A delectable yet a spicy Balinese street food, that’s absolutely flavoursome and fantastic despite of the heat.

Yoi Mie Goreng Sandwich, grilled sourdough filled with mie Goreng noodles, sambal mayo and corned beef. Such a filling sandwich that’s a one wholesome meal on its own. Truly flavourful and a must try for sure.

Yoi Nasi Bungkus, served with steamed rice, squid rings with red and green chilli, slow cooked beef rendang, and silver beef. The melt in the mouth beef rendang makes this entire dish immensely mind blowing and addictive. Even that silver beet and those salty yet tender squids with chilli are equally mouthwatering.

Nasi Jingoo and Nasi Bungkus, are served in a beautiful banana leaf, that depicts it’s traditional roots, as people can also enjoy these authentic rice dishes with their hands as well.

We also had, refreshing Cendol, coffee avocado and Hojicha latte. Although my personal favourite was the coffee avocado, it was so next level.

The best thing about this restaurant is that the prices of every item in their menu is within 20 bucks only, imagine, you can have a gala Indonesian feast at an affordable price. Also their service is superb and the staff are such polite and kind folks. So make a reservation today, @yoi.au to try their incredibly tasty and lovely menu, and who knows you might get...

YOI sparks JOI!

Indonesian-style food seems to be popping up all over Melbourne – and I’m here for it. There’s something very familiar about Indonesian food if you’ve had a lot of south east Asian food, but it does have its uniqueness with its element of sweetness within the savoury. Two Indonesian brothers have set up a new restaurant in Franklin Street. It’s in the perfect location for the unofficial ‘new’ Chinatown of Melbourne.

We got to try a few dishes. The dish I insisted I try was the salted egg chicken rice. I had this dish in Singapore and have been craving it in Australia ever since. YOI does a very good version and is a must try. It’s rich, saucy, smooth and crunchy. This will probably be my go to for my salted egg yolk fix.

I was a bit sceptical of how Indonesians do their beef rendang but it was delicious! Tender wagyu beef, tangy and flavourful on a bed of saucy ramen noodles. I was really impressed by this dish. The mie tek tek noodle dish was light and refreshing but had substance. I particularly liked the element of white pepper.

We were treated to two desserts, the Indonesian style pancakes with chocolate and cheese filling was very tasty. The pancake almost felt like a giant sweet crumpet. The other sweet we had was the kaya roti bakar. They make their own kaya jam and it shows – it was coconut jammy goodness.

Presentation wise, for all the dishes it’s definitely a step up from casual dining but you’re paying a very good price for these top quality meals. Servings were decent.

I had a quick glance of the quality of the dishes that the other patrons were eating and they looked just as pretty, just as tasty. Service was friendly and food came out quick. There were lots of satisfied eaters.

I couldn’t fault anything about this place. If you haven’t had Indonesian food before, this would be a great place to start. You won’t be disappointed.

I’ll...