Got invited to try out some of the creations of Kazan Ramen at its first ever outlet in Indonesia located in Food Avenue, Lotte Shopping Avenue Jakarta. This particular outlet applied the 'express' concept, technically it's located in a food court but CLEARLY you can't just underrate the food at the food courts and I'm getting there very soon.
For an outlet located in a food court, Kazan Ramen Express had a pretty spacious kitchen station, it's an open kitchen so you can see the whole production process, nothing to hide!
The red pails were used to pour the soup.
After it reaches around 300 degrees, the noodle's inserted along with some other vegetables. I love the fact that they're using thin noodle (that's my favorite form right there), the yellow noodle generally had a lovely texture of consistency, it was slightly chewier than those I had in some other places.
Pour glory pour!
They have two soup base: vegetable broth or savory broth (meat: chicken or pork).
When it comes to food, I am clearly someone who is a little more captious because I always want my food to be broiling hot, especially soups! I was more than thrilled to know that my food (ramen) was served in a hot stone pot that you clearly don't want to touch or you'll get serious hand injury...logic! I accidentally touch the freaking hot stone pot when I was taking pictures.
Look at those filthy delicious boiling soup! Such a foodporn.
The kind peeps from Kazan Ramen Express gave me not only one but four different variants of ramen to dig in, but the pleasure didn't stop there, I also got the chance to try out some of their appetizers and desserts. I was seriously pleasant and touched for their kindness *wipe tears*. I took Aline to gorge with me, imagine having THAT MUCH food just for myself, I'd probably be a fed up baboon, so thanks Aline for accompanying me!
Let's start with appetizers!
Boiled Egg
IDR 9,8k
The boiled egg (tamago) had a pretty nice texture and consistency overall even though I was expecting the inner yolk to be a little more runny.
Japanese Fried Chicken
IDR 9,8k
Now this I love! This was actually being served like a chicken skewer and one skewer contains of two Japanese Fried Chickens. The meat was juicy and tender, the coating was not exactly crispy but I didn't find it as problem.
Fried Dumplings
IDR 24,8k
The fried dumplings also had a lovely filling, pretty generous yet with juicy meat and proper seasoning. I just found the skin to be a little thin for the wrapping, they should've made a thicker version and chewier consistency.
Tori Kazan Shoyu
IDR 49,8k
Before I start explaining more about the ramens, I want you to take away all those imaginations out of your brain if you were expecting the flavor to be like those common and 'popular' brands like Hakata Ikkhousa, Ikkudo, Tsurukamedou, Marutama, Santouka because this ain't those and it had its own uniqueness.
I honestly first thought and expected the flavor to be like those I mentioned above, but here I learn that you shouldn't expect and let yourself in to what the restaurants serve you and you can judge later. The soup was a little light in both consistency and flavor if you have it alone but as soon as you mix everything on the hot stone pot together, it started to mix with the seasoning (which apparently hidden somewhere underneath the noodle stack) and the consistency of the soup started to get thicker and thicker and also milkier (guessing also from the cooking noodle). The longer you have this, the better the flavor! The soup had this overall chicken broth flavor with soysauce, it's just gloriously yummy if I have to put it short! The chicken was also tender but I don't know if you like having the chicken that way or shredded.
A little early to decide but from the four served, this was my most favorite!
Tori Kazan Karamiso
IDR 49,8k
If the previous ramen was using 'shoyu' as the soup base, then this one used 'miso' as their base along with the broth from chicken. The flavor was slightly richer and bolder than Tori Kazan Shoyu as well as milkier with a little hint of nutty flavor. The flavor was slightly different because I guess this one was a little spicier and more complex but in a fun delicious way. A portion of this also including spicy minced chicken. This happened to be Aline's favorite because she's very into spicy food.
Tori Kazan Shio
IDR 49,8k
A little recap and knowledge sharing... "shoyu" means using soy sauce, "miso" is a little hard to explain because the flavor was a little more complex but freaking yummy: a little bean flavor, tangy, milky, thick or simply what most Tonkotsu ramen preferred to use and "shio" is easily described as salt. Yes, this following ramen used chicken broth and salt as the soup base, clearly the consistency and flavor was probably the lightest, but I found it quite impressive that the color of the soup was not 'clear' as those I've seen almost everywhere, it's in fact white milk color.
Tori Kazan Curry
IDR 54,8k
Appearance wise, this was probably one of the most tempting but when I had the first sip of the soup, I knew exactly that the soup needed a little more kick, it was not exactly bad but I found it to be a little curry flavor lacking and a little basic seasoning additional would do.
Next, desserts!
For the desserts, we were happily presented with their signature Cold Stone ice creams! I mistaken the desserts because I thought that "Cold Stone" was actually the name of a famous ice cream brand but in fact they're using cold stone pot as the plate! They must have a lot of stone pots!
all three sold for IDR 29,8k and they all had mini cookies LOL!
Told you a zillion times that Banana and Chocolate are almost impossible to go wrong and this was another living prove! Hands down, my favorite out of the three, the ice cream had a nice vanilla flavor and amazing consistency! Thanks to the cold stone pot, the ice cream remained cold and hard even though it took us tenths of minutes to finish this (we were really full). Highly recommended!
Strawberry Milk
This was also another decent one but the previous one stole my heart from the very first scoop. I noticed they're using milk here so I didn't have that much of this, but I definitely tried one scoop and the milk flavor was still tolerable, but if you love milk then you gotta love this one a lot better than I did.
Caramel Peach
The caramel sauce made this ice cream to taste even milkier so it had to be my least favorite for personal reasons, but I appreciate the generous amount of big chunks peach given there!
In a nutshell, visiting Kazan Ramen Express left a pretty good impression at my heart, I was thrilled by their food, the humble service and definitely their uniqueness. I warned you before that if you expected and are more used to the flavor like those miso-based thick savory pork broth like the brands I mentioned before (see above) then you might find yourself trying to understand, but I do LOVE this, to try food and expanding your food encyclopedia wouldn't hurt afterall!
THANK YOU KAZAN RAMEN EXPRESS JAKARTA FOR THE AMAZING DINNER!
Kazan Ramen Express Jakarta
Food Avenue, Lotte Shopping Avenue Jakarta (4th fl) unit FCS-03
Jl. Prof Dr. Satrio Kav. 3-5
Kuningan, Jakarta Selatan 12940
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email: eatandtreatsindo@gmail.com
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