HOKKAIDO IZAKAYA — Restaurant in Jakarta

This is one of me and my friend's favorite Japanese restaurant before Pandemic. After more than 1 year, my friend decided to go there for a special occasion. Since we're trying to avoid the crowds, we booked a table at 10:30. We get the buffet menu and wrote the items that we want to order in a piece of paper and gave it to the waiters.

After around 10 minutes wait, our first order came. We ordered Harami and Sashimi 5 kinds. Waiter told us that they ran out of Salmon Belly, and we are ok with that. Overall we saw/tasted a bit of a downgrade compared to before the Pandemic (ex. The Harami doesn't come with hot stone anymore, and for each of the same dish on a different plate can taste different)

We waited for more than 20 minutes and our order is nowhere to be seen, so we ask the waiters for it. And since the buffet time is 90 minutes, we decided to submit our 3rd and 4th orders.

In 10 - 15 minutes, foods are coming, but it came in a randomized order. Ice creams are coming (from the 4th order) but items from 2nd order is still missing. Then we asked the waiter why they sent out the ice creams when they know that there's other items that is yet to come? In which they said that different cook process different orders. . .

At the end of the 90 minutes, waiter said that all our orders are served. And we're confused since there's still several items that haven't been served. Waiters then said "when there's the same items in each order (piece of paper), they will combine the item into 1 plate. . .

If different cook process different order, how come they can combine the item? And the portion of 1 and 5 is clearly the same?! 🤨🤔 And they say some of the items are not available. . . And they just told us now. . .

The waiters than challenge us by saying, "so you want us to send out maximum number or portions?" And we said "we want you to give us the portion of whatever we orders"

After 15-20 minutes, nothing comes so we thought, let's just take the ice creams out and finish our lunch. Suddenly the waiters give out mountains of Harami and Buta on 5 plates, together with all the ice creams. . . To make matters worse, the Harami was very hard and the Buta was charcoal burnt. . .

I know this is a difficult time, but the quality of the food and the services is definitely need lots and lots of improvement. . . It was a 5 stars restaurant but now it's just 2 stars, I hope their management can...

This was my first and last time eating at this restaurant. You wanna have the concept of "buffet/AYCE" but the portion of each food is gigantic. None of the servers told us how big the portion of each food is, which is ridiculous. So we ended up starting with ordering many different type of food because it's buffet, the portion should be small enough so we can try every menu. So shocked when they came in like full meal portion. The worst of all? The food was just okay, not tasty at all. The best food that we ordered was actually the salmon sashimi lol. We were not allowed to NOT finish the food, otherwise there would be extra charge. And what worse? The rice bowl that came in a big bowl was filled 90% with white rice + tiny bit of fish and other condiments which tasted awful. We were asked to finish at least half of the rice, and we ordered like 2 bowl of rice bowl (which we did not expect to be this big and full of rice). Then when we finished half of the rice on each bowl and asked one of the servers to take the bowl because obviously we were so full at this point. He said "Daritadi saya perhatikan makanannya ga dihabiskan mba" with a really serious demeanor (nada ngomongnya kayak ngelabrak orang wow). So I told him nicely with smile "Yah ga ada yg ngasih tau kalo porsinya gede2 gini mas hehe maaf ya". You know dia jawab apa? "Kan bisa cek social media kita kak seperti instagram untuk liat2 fotonya" WTFF???? I did not even check restaurants on social media bruh. Like did you expect everyone a social media savvy???? VERY BAD ATTITUDE as a server. We ended up getting changed extra because we couldn't finish one portion of sushi and mashed potatoes with a charge of 224k+. Never coming back...

Update. July 2024

Spontaneously came here on Sunday at 1 pm. I was surprised people kept coming even if it had passed lunch time. This time was a bit disappointing because it took a while (1 hour) to serve the food. I do understand as they’re very busy and I can tell they were trying their best to serve the food as fast as they could. We ordered:

Maguro Yam Natto 9/10 Love the combination of this appetizer

Unagi don 8/10 Perfectly cooked but took them too long to serve this menu (about 1 hour - lunch time weekend)

Pork Katsu set 6/10 The pork was dry, not juicy at all. Maybe because it was on weekend and they were very packed

I will try to avoid peak hours next time.

—— Nov 2023 One of my favorite Japanese restaurants! They always serve high quality food with great taste as well. I have tried a few of their lunch menus (mostly their beef and sashimi) and they never fail to amaze me. I keep craving for more and more. Staffs’ attitude is good and polite. Parking space also great.

Butadon 9/10 Very juicy, well-balanced and quite big portions

Fresh Maguro sashimi Set 9.5/10 (298K) Fresh, perfect size and combination. Just wishing that they could give me more minced tuna and chutoro

Oysters 8/10 (99K on happy hour weekdays 3-5 pm) don’t forget to try their oyster! They serve the oyster with soy, garlic oil and also tabasco. I love them all! But the best taste for me is, with garlic oil mixed with tabasco.

Sashimi platter 10/10 Very fresh! Especially the otoro, it’s really melted in my mouth

beef uni 8/10 What a high grade of Uni / sea urchin and beef!

Soba set 7.5/10 Taste good yet not special

Will be back soon and try...