Friday, March 29, 2024 | 22:38 WIB

“Have a Rice Day” at Satoru

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Japanese manga theme of Satoru

Flash forward to 2010. If you want a place in Sushigroove on Saturday evening, you’d better be prepared to stand in line for half an hour. All the sushi restaurants in Jakarta are booming, as a younger generation of professionals acquires the taste for delicate Japanese food. 

Flash forward to 2022. I am standing in front of Satoru, the newest Japanese fast-food restaurant, near my home in Condet. This is impressive, as an example of how much Indonesia, and Indonesian taste, has opened up. 

Condet, known as a “Cagar Budaya” (“Cultural Reserve”) for the Betawi people of Jakarta, sits at the extreme southeast corner of the city – at least it did before it was swallowed up in Jabotabek. It is an extremely traditional segment of the city, and the last place you’d expect to find any radically-different fast food place. 

But that was then and this is now. While I am practically the only westerner living in Condet, and I’ve been infesting the place since 1988, there are many Arabs who have settled here after immigrating, along with folks from all over Indonesia. 

Satoru is a snazzy down-market Japanese-fusion fast food emporium, and it only opened up a couple of months ago. Independent Observer readers may recall the review of Mur Mur, a similar Japanese-oriented sushi honkytonk, in last week’s paper. Satoru is one click higher in terms of style, offerings, design, location and price. 

Décor is a walls covered in Japanese manga illustrations, and a neon sign wishing patrons to “Have a Rice Day”. The food is best described as Japanese-Fusion, as it is styled to appeal to a broad audience. 

A masked waitress kindly took me through the stages of downloading the Satoru menu, also available on Zomato.com (https://www.zomato. com/jakarta/SATORU-1-kramat-jati/menu ), after first installing Google Lens. I know, I know, I should have done it all before. But it is definitely worth the effort, as the offerings are broad and appealing. 

Fusion sushi rolls, mainly salmon- or tuna-based, are crunchy and slightly sweet. An order of 8 pieces is more than enough for a single diner – better shared with a friend or more. Or an enemy, if you want to make her a friend. 

Some are baked, in make them even more flavorful and crunchier. To give you an idea of what this will set you back, I had a “Tuna Mentai Rice”, a sort of hot tuna casserole, very filling, for Rp 52,000. Two pieces of “Salmon Hana Roll” were Rp 36,000. 

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