People are talking about this newly opened Kokoro Tokyo Mazesoba, so we went there with Hans a few days ago and gave it a try. Located on the 5th floor of Grand Indonesia Shopping Town (Central Jakarta), Kokoro Tokyo Mazesoba held this opening promotion: Buy 1 Get 1 (Buy any main course, Get Free Chicken Tokyo Mazesoba) which quickly attracts everyone, especially to Japanese food lovers. We felt lucky because apparently, it was the last day of the promotion, yay! And we finally got our table after waiting for a few minutes.
From their book menu, I realized that Kokoro Tokyo Mazesoba is a restaurant chain from Tokyo (Japan), and already has 25 outlets which include Tokyo – Osaka, Bangkok, Malaga (Spain), Paris, New York, and this is the first outlet in Jakarta, Indonesia. Kokoro Maze-soba literally translates to Maze-soba from my heart and soul, created by Takuma Ishikawa, a Japanese chef and founder of the brand. It sounds good, and we expect so, but then how’s the taste?
For appetizers, we ordered Chicken Karaage (IDR 35K), and Corn Butter (IDR 22K). The chicken karaage were crisp on the outside, but the meat was dry and not juicy at all! Instead of having a ginger smell like other Japanese karaage, this fried chicken was just like an ordinary fried chicken, and it also had an unpleasant smell comes from it. But I enjoyed the Corn Butter, which can be a good topper for the Soba and adds a sweet flavor to it!
Tokyo Maze-soba (IDR 73K for pork / IDR 69K for chicken)
Niku Iri Maze-soba (IDR 83K for pork / IDR 79K for chicken)
From the main course, we tried their signature Tokyo Maze-soba, and Niku Iri Maze-soba. Tokyo Maze-soba is a soba noodle dish, served with a choice of minced meat (chicken or pork) seasoned with soy sauce, spicy minci (red pepper), and garlic, along with fresh green onions, garlic chives, dried nori, fresh minced garlic, dried fish powder, and first quality of Japanese omega egg yolk. Of course, for both main courses, we opted for the pork meat. The presentations were appealing, yet both of them look similar to each other. The only difference was there are a few of Char Siu slices for Niku Iri Maze-soba.
To enjoy Kokoro Tokyo Maze-soba, we gotta mix everything thoroughly until the eggs covered the noodle, sauce, and the rest of the ingredients. It was a fun experience at first, but the flavor wasn’t as expected. There’s a strange aftertaste from the noodle (I guess it probably came from the dried fish powder, too much maybe?), and it was too salty to my liking. Our friend who sat on a different table also agree this wasn’t his favorite. Overall, the soba wasn’t our favorite, and we experienced slow service because I had to wait 10-15 minutes before we get our Hot Ocha on the table. Have you tried this? What do you think if compared to Abura Soba? Share your experience in the comment section below.
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Kokoro Tokyo Masezoba
5th Floor Grand Indonesia Shopping Town, Jalan M.H. Thamrin No.1, Tanah Abang, Jakarta Pusat
Opening Hour: 10am – 10pm
Price: starts from IDR 80K