Weighing in on Nabe or Sushi at Kiyadon Sushi

Kiyadon has been a familiar name for many of us Jakarta epicurians. And I’ve always been one of the many fans of its udon and donburi dishes –the dishes they’re most well known for.

Recently, they’re expanding their business and entered the sushi competition by opening Kiyadon Sushi. I first saw this restaurant at SenCi. It looks very nice from outside, with its warm ambiance and unique private dining areas. But I was never really tempted to try it out because other restaurant options there seemed more inviting for me. But one day, when me and my mum were craving for some sushi, but were kind of bored with Sushi Tei, I decided to give this place a shot.

The first experience was quite impressive. We ordered two types of hot soupy dishes. I missed their Nabeyaki Udon (around Rp. 65K), so I ordered one. And then we saw this dish called Tofu Chige (Rp. 38K), which looked tempting with its red soup (me and mum are chili-holics), so we got ourselves one of that too. We didn’t order any sushi at all, because when we looked at the small plates moving pass us on the conveyor belt, they didn’t look tempting at all –either from the presentation or the color, they didn’t look really fresh.

Nabeyaki Udon: udon cooked in a hotpot with veggies, beef slices, and poached egg, with a slightly sweet soup – a bit like sukiyaki. It’s very yummy, esp. when eaten hot. Tofu Chige: tofu cooked with beef slices, eggs, and onions, simmered in spicy red soup. This one was a hit! The soup’s not too hot/spicy (for me), and has a balanced sweet and salty taste. The eggs are cooked into flower eggs, not poached. Soo nice! A new favorite for me and mum.

After reading a lot of good reviews, I finally decided to try their much loved aburi salmon roll on our second trip there: D.I.G. (Rp. 50K) –don’t know what it stands for, I should ask the staff later hahah.. I want to make a comparison with the one at Sushi Tei, which I love so much. We can choose whether we want it spicy or not, so of course we opted for spicy. From the conveyor belt, we took a plate of maki sushi (Gold plate, Rp. 15K) and a plate of cured jellyfish (Red plate, Rp. 20K). I was tempted to take one plate of tobikko-inari gunkan sushi (my fave back when Daisho was still open in Sogo Supermarket), but in the end decided not to, since we’ve ordered too much food already -- we got the Tofu Chige again, my mum just love it so much.

The maki sushi that we took was filled with kani stick, cucumber, tanuki (tempura batter), and coated with tobikko. The taste wasn’t really appealing to me. Besides the fact that I don’t really like tanuki in sushi, it was mostly because the rice was overcooked and was not dense enough. Made me wonder what will the D.I.G. look like… But the jellyfish was good. Not as sweet as Sushi Tei’s and doesn’t smell fishy.

The ‘star of the show’ or the D.I.G. finally arrived. Their version of aburi salmon roll only used kani stick and cucumber for the filling (Sushi Tei added soft shell crab tempura inside), and used chicken floss instead of tuna floss for topping (a bit strange for me actually). And the spicy sauce was just spicy mayonnaise. Well, they are more generous for the sauces (unagi sauce and mayonnaise) and toppings (the floss and tobikko). The unagi sauce was literally soaking the sushi (which is actually not really good.. why? I’ll explain later).

That was just the look, so what about the taste? Like I thought, the rice was overcooked and the roll wasn’t dense enough. And after being soaked in the unagi sauce, it crumbled as soon as I picked it up with my chopsticks. Tsk! I hate it when I get this kind of sushi, it’s a sign that the chef's not really good. The overall taste was actually not bad. The chicken floss was crunchier than tuna floss, so it added some character. But still, for me, the taste of chicken doesn’t go really well with salmon and kani. But I must admit, the salmon was cooked better here than at Sushi Tei, more evenly done and burnt. For me, that was the only winning point.

Overall, I still prefer the hot dishes than the sushi.

Kiyadon Sushi

Senayan City LG #L23

021 72781778

* Originally posted in Multiply, May 24, 2007