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...

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.