Sharksfin galore

One of the special delicacies of Chinese cuisine that my family likes to get occasionally is the sharks fin soup. We normally go to a place called Thai Village, located inside the Galaxy Mall in Surabaya (don't know why it's called Thai Village, it's all Chinese food actually).

The sharks fin soup is expensive, so this time around we ordered a Medium sized soup w/crab to share among the three of us, and then got other dishes.Let's look at the sharks fin more closely :P They are the slices you see behind the bean sprouts. When one of my cousins was younger he thought that they were rice noodles!
The sharks fin is chewy, but does not have a fishy taste. The soup is rich and thick, and this particular one is also topped with crab meat. You eat it with lots of bean sprouts and, if you like it, cilantros. I think Thai Village still serves the best one in town, although a lot of people have gone over to other places like XO.

We also ordered some duck web, since the other dish we wanted was not available that night (I can't remember what it is).
It wasn't bad, but nothing special I thought. I like chicken feet better.

We also ordered one of my favorites, garlic stir fry noodles with crab. Just look at this!
That crab is just inviting me to crack it and eat it!

One of the best parts of this dish is that it is LOADED with garlic. This is what you will find at the bottom of the wok:
Roasted garlic everywhere :) Naturally the crab and the noodle both are completely garlic-flavored, which is just perfect for me.


Thai Village
in Galaxy Mall, Surabaya

Snow Crab in My Mouth

In general I'm a bit skeptical about eating sushi in Indonesia, especially when we're talking about the raw fish sushi. But my family wanted to go so I went along with them to Sushi Hana in Surabaya. We went on a weeknight so they were not that busy, also still had some customers.

There were six of us and each of us put in a request to order, including some tuna sashimi salad, which was pretty good - full of rich mayo-based sauce. We also had more basic rolls like Philadelphia roll and Rainbow roll, which were not bad (they tasted pretty standard, hey I'm used to LA sushi).

The surprisingly good roll though was this snow crab roll! It was called the Snow Crab Narudo (thx Stef for getting me the name!)Wrapped in fresh cucumber, the roll doesn't contain any rice - yes the pink stuff you see in place of the rice is fresh snow crab meat! And the crab meat was surprisingly fresh and delicious. Wrapped in cucumbers, this roll was very refreshing. Since there's no rice to fill you up with you really end up wanting more.
We ended up getting two orders of this.

I think it's worth it to come here just for this roll alone, and maybe one of their either tuna or crab sashimi salad. The rest of it though, I must say, is not bad at all. Again, can't beat LA's finest, but comparable to standard sushi places. They do have toro sashimi plate for about $11 if you convert it to US currency, but I was too afraid I would be disappointed so I didn't get it even though by our standards it was really cheap :(

Sushi Hana
Jln Dr Soetomo 97E
Surabaya
031-5688041

The Better Krispy Kreme KopyKat

The story we heard was that they signed up to franchise Krispy Kreme in Indonesia. Paid the initial payment, and got all the training and secrets of Krispy Kreme. Then backed out. Lost the initial payment but then opened up their very own donut franchise empire. So we've heard, I am not claiming this to be a fact.

What I will claim to be a fact is this: J.Co's donuts are lighter, less sweet, and more catered to the Asian palate. They serve flavors like mango, green tea, and Kaya which are big with Asians. Also a fact: Krispy Kreme later on did open up stores in Indonesia, but J.Co is doing far better business and can be found at least in every other mall. Krispy Kreme's donuts turn out to be too heavy and sweet for a lot of Indonesians (except for the glazed donuts straight out of the oven).

These donuts are pretty pricey by Indonesian living standards, they are luxury items and are about 3-4 times more than normal 'doughnuts'.

I got an assortment last time.
Our favorite was the very bottom ones, which are chocolate glazed donuts with cocoa pebbles. Sounds easy and simple but the crunchyness was great.

The white one was the Kaya with coconut sprinkling. It was okay ... I mean it was good, but if I want kaya I would just go for a Kaya toast in Singapore though.

I didn't get to have the rest :( My cousins ate em all >_<

Asian Soy bean craze

It seems like soy bean custard/ tofu fa was the pinkberry craze of Singapore and Indonesia. Although it is dwindling down now, you definitely still find a motley of soy bean dessert places all over the place.

I was at the airport when I saw Mr. Bean. I thought their mascot was super cute so I tried it out. Plus I had so much time at the airport anyway.

My favorite tofu fa is the one from this cart that used to pass by my house in Indonesia every morning. It had ginger-sugar soup and served with boiled peanuts.

At Mr. Bean I didn't find an option with peanuts, unfortunately (although they did have ginko nuts etc, healthier I suppose), so I just ordered a regular one in sweet ginger soup.





The soy custard itself is definitely silky smooth and of very good quality, but overall the whole thing did not give me too much excitement. The ginger was a bit strong and was not quite sweet enough for me. Plus there's no extra kick to the whole thing (some peanuts would do it for me perhaps?).