Kayu

Grill Salmon Sushi

Our dinner at Kayu proved to be a very nice ending to the birthday of our friend S (Happy Birthday again :-) ). It took us some time to find a parking lot because there were two wedding parties going on in Srijaya building. There was valet service but we are too stingy to pay for valet :D . Kayu is at the 5^th floor of Srijaya building. Accidentally, we went to a different floor at first (bad sense of orientation combined with bad indication), the floor where one of the two weddings was going on. For a moment, we were tempted to crash the wedding party but then decided not to because we were too hungry already!

Kayu is a very nice and cozy restaurant. The interior consists of a lot of wooden elements which create a quiet and warm atmosphere. Kayu really has soul. It is hard to explain what ‘having soul’ means for a place but if it was a person, he would be honest, true to himself and not trying to be someone else or faking something. We haven’t found a list of criteria yet which determine if a place has soul or not, but usually you can feel it when you are there. 

Historica Coffee & Pastry

Sunday is the best time for breakfast at a café as it is the only day that Carlo does not have to work (yes, poor C). After Libby Café (read our review here) we tried Historica Café in Jalan Sumatera this time. We didn’t go there because of its location (Jalan Sumatera seems to be getting a popular restaurant/café street - the famous Domicile is also there), but because Historica café is having a 20% discount on breakfast and coffee this month :-) .

The café looks nice, outside and inside, and as you may have guessed from the name ‘Historica’ its interior design is vintage. There are a few big comfortable chairs (we were too slow to chope them – damn it!) and many normal chairs. It has also a small terrace if you want to sit outside. It was almost noon when we got there, so sitting outside was out of question, even for me as a European (this really means something...Europeans are crazy about sun and tanning). We came to Historica café not only to have breakfast, but also to “chillax”, read a bit and discuss our future plans...

The Golden Saffron

Chicken Tandoor Mix

Coming from a European country where most people eat bread every day, I (Julia) have some kind of a bread addiction. Sometimes it can get really bad and I crave bread so much that the sweet bread and toast bread which you can find in Surabaya are not enough to satisfy me. Then, strangely enough, I have to eat Indian Nan bread to fix my bread cravings :D . So, when this was happening last week, Carlo and I went to The Golden Saffron to enjoy some Indian food and bread. The Golden Saffron is located in Lenmarc Mall and one of the very few Indian restaurants in Surabaya (Sitara is another one). We haven’t been to India yet, so we cannot judge the authenticity of the food. But I used to eat a lot of Indian food when I was living in Singapore, so we have a rough idea about it.

You already get a feeling of India when you enter the restaurant. There is a small elephant shrine that welcomes you as you enter. The interior design is pretentious, with a lot of kitsch and a lot of purple colour and a screen showing Indian TV, so you feel a bit like being in Bollywood. Tables are big and comfortable but our table was not clean. There were stains on the table cloth! This little fact changed our expectations from neutral to negative and we were curious how the food would be.

Domicile Kitchen & Lounge

Durian cheese cake

Domicile Kitchen & Lounge opened its doors in the beginning of this year and many of you may have already tried it. We heard from quite a number of people that Domicile is one of the new trending places in Surabaya (mainly due to its unique lounge atmosphere). We just made it there last week (we are no trendsetters) and had quite high expectations.

The place is big and the interior looks very nice. We took only a few (bad) photos of the place itself but you can find nice pictures at Laura Angelia’s blog (she also did a review). We sat outside on a comfortable sofa-chair combination. There is some kind of air-conditioning outside and (fake) plants hanging above your heads. We didn’t really like that the plants are fake but if they were real, they would maybe attract unwanted insects.

Now, let’s get to the most important part: the food. 

Antica Osteria

Crema di zucca

The Italian cuisine is probably the most popular in the whole world – I haven’t met anyone yet who didn’t like Italian food. Have you? If yes, tell me about it :-). For authentic Italian food in Surabaya, La Rucola is our favourite place but last weekend, we tried Antica Osteria and were surprised – in a good way.

Antica Osteria is located in the centre of Surabaya and we had quite a hard time to find it. Some rather annoying traffic rules (i.e. one-way streets) combined with Carlo’s not-really-good driving skills and our bad orientation made us go some extra rounds, so when we finally arrived there, we were already super hungry. The place itself is quite nice and it really reminded me of a European restaurant. There was Italian music in the background and a huge screen which displayed FashionTV. Some restaurants and bars I have been to in Italy also displayed FashionTV so this evoked some good old memories. So if you eat at Antica Osteria and are bored with your dinner date, you can just watch FashionTV.

Libby Café

I’m sure all of you know Libby – they have a few small shops throughout Surabaya and are famous for their brownies (this is what I was told). But have you been at their café yet?

In my home country, we love to have a really big breakfast on weekends and often go to a small café for breakfast or brunch. We even have an old saying that goes something like this:

Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper.

(This old wisdom still seems to be up-to-date considering the health advice that suggests you to eat only a small meal for dinner)

Anyways, I was missing having breakfast outside so we went to Libby café in Sukomanunggal area. The interior design of the café is nice, with a slight vintage touch, and the atmosphere is cozy. What we really liked is their small yard outside – me because I love being outside in the morning and enjoy the brightness before it gets too hot, and Carlo because the small yard is also the smoking area (bad, bad habit). 

Tong Tong Japanese Resto

Carlo used to go to this place very often but had not been there for a long time. So we went there on a quiet weekday evening and had a nice date. It was the calm before the storm because after dinner we went on a crazy supermarket shopping marathon to find some European ingredients for me to cook at home (update: the food I cooked was not good -.- ).

Tong Tong is one of the most authentic Japanese restaurants in Surabaya. When we got there, a group of Japanese businessmen were having dinner. So we figured that if even Japanese people eat at this place, it must be authentic! It was also very interesting to watch those businessmen, the way they were communicating was, well, very Japanese.