Hi, suddenly an urge to write hit me so hard and here I am writing a new post. Yay. This time I’ll give a diary-like review for a food I have just eaten about 3 hours ago at a Japanese restaurant. Pardon my ugly grammar, I have yet to master English Language, I’m no native, so bear with me for some while.
So today I went to one of few authentic Japanese Restaurants in my internship building, Summitmas I building, and it’s called Hougetsu. I went there with my also Internee and college friend, and we were standing outside the restaurant for quite a while to staaared at the menu book, and I could say that we were kind of awkward, well it might be only me. I was feeling so awkward that time. I don't remember I've once went to a restaurant without older people in the past, and this time I went there by myself and my friend. How could it not be awkward. (haha)
Then we just went in, and the automatic sliding door that made of wood was welcoming us. Oh, okay, easy peasy, Desi. It’s just a door. At that time, I haven’t deciding on what I would eat there. We went in, and like usual, the receptionist asked us, “For how many people?” And my friend answered, “For two.” The receptionist brought us in and let us sat on a table with two chairs.
My first thought when I walked in was I don’t dislike the environment, and at that time, about 11:40 AM, the restaurant was not really packed, just a few Japanese people and some foreign people there. We sat at the table that is located at the furthest corner in the room. I chose the chair that facing the fully transparent sliding kind of window, the scenery was giving calming atmosphere; some trees besides a big ornamental stones fountains. I was offered some tea and chose a cup of warm tea, the tea aroma is so familiar, I think it’s Sariwangi tea. In addition to the tea, the restaurant offered two warm clothes, since the room is kind of warm, I don’t think I need to get any warmer than that, I wiped my hands real quick, and put it back to its wooden plate.
The next thing was I and my friend ordered some foods. The price is quite understandable, all the items are so expensive for me though. I ordered one of the most less pricey menu, I don’t remember the menu name though. It was called Motto Healthy something. At this point, I almost completely forgotten the menu name. That time I was thinking that this menu is the cheapest on the list, 80.000 IDR food was never a cheap of a food for me though, and I kind of wondered what would a healthy menu appeared as, it might be some random salads with mayo, or some warm rice with random sautéed vegetables. All I could imagined was some supposed to be healthy foods but not at all healthy in the process of making. Just like another “healthy” products from another restaurants. My friend ordered a chicken teriyaki set rice. At first, we would like to ordered a menu set and split the bill, but there were no menu set so we couldn’t do our plan. Also, it would look so awkward and pitiful to eat a menu set and split the bill, it would appeared as if we are so poor but we forced ourselves to eat out at a supposedly pricey Japanese Restaurant.
We spend quite a time to wait for the foods to came out, mine was simpler, so it’s out first. The first time I looked at my food, oh, I could be the healthiest girl in the world by eating this. Why don’t I thought so? You know, the food is the very definitive of healthy food. It was containing ALL BOILED VEGETABLES. Um, it could be boiled or steamed though, and I couldn’t tell them apart. Oh in my menu set, there was also a small plate of sauce, some orange sauce and I had no idea what sauce was it, even until now. I had a big complain about cutlery though, why the hell they give me a pair of wooden chopsticks? Don’t they know that wooden chopsticks are not good for man’s health? Urgh.
I don’t eat my food right away since I don’t feel all that hungry that time, instead I waited for my friend’s food that came out about 20 minutes more. When I was waiting for mine and my friend’s food, at first I was playing my gadget, since I still haven’t gotten used to the environment of the restaurant, but I put back my gadget, it’s never a right thing to play your gadget when you’re with your friends, family, or even acquaintances. It’s not a good habit to ignored your accompanies just to stared at some lifeless technology. So I stared at the outside scenery instead. We chatted a lot, the soothing environment was kind of improving my (pre-period) mood so that I didn’t turn into some assholes. We chatted about random things, the awkward environment, the Sariwangi tea, photos on her Instagram, things like that. And then her food finally came out.
Unlike mine, her 40.000 IDR more expensive food was more humanly, well it was to be expected. It’s more expensive after all. It consisted of a bowl of rice, a bowl of soup, tiny plate of pickles, tiny plate of brown-ish square-cut chicken breast meat and chayote, tiny plate of dessert consisted of small pieces of jelly, pudding, and tiny bit of strawberry for garnish, aaaand the main food, teriyaki chicken. Though it looked good but not grand.
It’s finally time to eat. Let’s eat~
Eh, I described my friend’s food in detail, but how about mine. I need to described my food before I forgot about them completely, so my healthy lunch consisted of one big plate of vegetables, three pieces of local tofu, and some enoki mushrooms. Those vegetables were negi, uh, green onions, medium length cut green onions to be exact, two big onion rings, two pieces of kabocha, kabocha is Japanese pumpkin, it tasted neutral, I don’t really taste anything to be honest, then a small piece of Chinese cabbage (sawi, duh-_-), Oh, oh! And one piece of eggplant. All of them were either steamed or boiled. And I still have no clue as to what is that orange saucy thingy, it tasted sour, and it contained some grated thingy, maybe grated daikon, I don’t know. Maybe I was supposed to dip my veggies into that sour thingy so I did so. They were lucky that I noticed they made some cutting pattern to the eggplant though. Their effort has noticed by me. (lol)
My food didn’t taste unnecessarily amazing, grand, or anything. But the yasashii taste soothed my tongue. So I felt no regret to have paid 80.000 IDR for that food. Rather than putting oily, strong tasting foods into my mouth, eating those veggies would be better for my body. Still, I would never said that 80.000 IDR for only veggies was worth it. I just didn’t feel like regretting it.
After we finished our lunch, the waiter offered us some coffee, since I have never take a liking to coffee, I refused it. My friend, too, because she saw that other guests were drinking black coffee. One more reason as to why I refused it, because I was afraid that they will charge me more. (lol, stingy me)
At first I was pretty sure they will charge us more than the so called written prices. But, boy I was wrong, they didn’t. I was expecting that we would pay for the service fee, taxes, teas, etc. Luckily, we didn’t have to.
I don’t know what should I called this essay as? A review? Not really look like a review, though. A diary? Yup, it kind of a diary, I guess. Whatever this is, I will rate my healthy lunch from Hougetsu 2.5 out of 5. I will call the dish maamaa. If it was cheaper, I will rate it 3.5 out of 5, because I liked the environment and the outside window scenery. Oh, but if I remembered about how they gave us those stinky and poisonous wooden chopsticks, and how the table was shaking when we ate, urgh, those two factors were so annoying that I don’t feel like to give any stars.
That’s all. Ciao.
