Ayam Goreng Sri -- Good

Ayam Goreng Sri is a traditional fried chicken restaurant right outside Surabaya. Before the toll booths and the Lapindo sea of mud, people from Surabaya would drive for 40 minutes just to eat here. This restaurant is huge yet it was always packed. Now people don't come as often because traveling here became inconvenient. If you are going to Batu, make sure to stop by this place.

The fried chicken here is not crispy but very tender and sweet. The meat just falls apart in your mouth. The texture is more like steamed chicken than fried chicken. I can't find a restaurant in Surabaya that serves chicken in a similar style. Since Indonesians love sweet foods, naturally people would flock here. Even the sambal is sweet and mild. I can eat a cup of this stuff every day.

Tofu fried with eggs. Meh, general fare.

The dawet is quite good. Green rice flour jelly is served with coconut milk and palm sugar. Refreshingly sweet.

The catfish are standard, but the price is anything but standard. Grossly overpriced.

Seriously, if you come here, just eat the fried chicken. Don't bother with anything else. You came here for the chicken, which are amazingly delicious.

Ah Yat Abalone -- Excellent

Hello everyone! I figured I should comment on techniques and ingredients used to prepare some food (or at least my best guess) so the home-cooks can try new things. I updated older posts  to reflect these changes.

I am somewhat torn about Ah Yat. Ah Yat serves the best dim sum in the city, but quality seems inconsistent. The last time I went there, the dumplings were already cold. The one before that, the dumplings were fresh except for the bao. Maybe the dumplings are fresher on the weekdays? Well, try coming here during a weekday for a 50% discount and fresher dumplings if you can. This way you also avoid the crowd, as you may need to wait in line during the weekends, even though the restaurant easily seats 300.

Fried shrimp wontons with mayo. From my observation, this is a big hit with the kids. Kids love crunchy stuff coated in sweet mayo. If you want to make this condiment at home, mix store-bought mayo with sweetened condensed milk. Add Sriracha and you get the spicy mayo found on sushi rolls.

Hargow, thin rice skin with crisp shrimp. If you want to make your shrimp crunchy like this, let the peeled shrimp sit in a bowl of water and baking soda (not too much or it will turn bitter!). The higher pH firms up the flesh.

Fried mashed taro with meat filling. Like a fancy croquette but less savory. Instead of rich mashed potato, you get mashed taro which is a lot milder and tastes slightly like coconut milk.

The famous bo lo char siu bao. A combination of pork bun and pineapple bun. The pineapple bun is named that way because the cracked yellow surface resembles pineapple skin. The top is just cookie dough slapped onto the bun, just like melon bread in Japan.

These chicken feet melt in your mouth. They are first deep-fried to puff the skin and then stewed or steamed with the sauce. Skin and cartilage contain a lot of collagen, which turn into gelatin when cooked for a long time.

The dim sum here is overall delicious. There are many other types served here and I will add more pictures in the future. Ah Yat serves a bigger variety of dim sum during the weekends, but everything that matters is served on the weekdays. I forgot to take a picture of the chang fen, but I highly recommend it. It's silky smooth and the sauce is quite sweet. In places like Singapore, chang fen is usually not that sweet or smooth. In this case, I approve of sweetening the sauce.

Last comment about this place: don't order the abalone. I mean, it's good for the novelty if you want to burn some cash. The abalone itself doesn't have flavor, just like shark fin. The flavor resides in the sauce, which Ah Yat is famous for. Then again, it is just really good chicken gravy.

Best Food and Restaurants in Surabaya!

Hi all!

People visit this blog to look for restaurants. You might be a tourist traveling to Surabaya. You might be a local trying to find a new place. Whatever your purpose, it would be better to list all the restaurants I recommend and follow up with individual reviews in the future

Here are the best restaurants according to me. The restaurants are listed in alphabetical order. I will add more restaurants as I remember/find them.

Ah Yat Abalone (Dim Sum)
If you come during the weekdays for lunch, you get a sizable discount, which makes the food really cheap. They're famous for the bo lo char siu bao (baked barbecue pork bun), although lately they don't taste fresh. The chang fen are better than the ones I've had in Singapore: silky-smooth rice wrappers are filled with crunchy youtiao/shrimp/char siu and topped with a sweet and tangy sauce. The fried shrimp wontons will please anyone in the crowd with its combination of crunchy shell and smooth mayo. If you don't want something fried, the hargow is just as good. The chicken feet melt in your mouth. Ah Yat is famous for abalone, as the name suggests, but it's not worth the money. My grandmother cooks tastier abalone using the cheap canned stuff. Frankly, I have never understood the appeal of abalone. It's funny how the expensive Chinese food ingredients are flavorless (like bird's nest and shark fin--better to avoid shark fin due to animal cruelty issues). Scallops taste much better than abalone and are cheaper.

Boncafe Steakhouse and Bon Ami Bakery
A classic steakhouse in Surabaya. The steaks here are cooked well-done but the meat is always tender and the gravy is so smooth and luscious. Make sure to ask for extra gravy and drown the meat and potatoes. The crispy chicken skin makes an excellent appetizer. The bakery has always been a childhood favorite. They make some of the best mushroom croquettes in the city. The smooth, slightly cheesy mashed potato goes well with the meaty mushrooms and crispy panko breading. Put some relish on each bite and you'll come back asking for more.

Golden Rama (Chinese)
This place is somewhat overlooked. They serve excellent Chinese food and steamboat for reasonable prices. The Lumpia Seafood sounds ridiculous: cabbage, shrimp, squid, and mayo wrapped in a thin crepe, breaded, then deep-fried. When I first saw this, I was disgusted by the amount of fat, but then I took a bite... and another... and another. Wow. Their mayo tastes so good. Also get their fried rice with salted fish. Oddly enough, the other fried rice on the menu taste horrible, but this one is so light and fragrant! They also serve delicious steamboat, but I prefer the a la carte menu.

Gudeg Bu Har (Indonesian)
Highly recommended for tourists. Rice served with tender chicken, jelly-like cow skin, young jackfruit, tofu, and egg, topped with savory coconut milk. You can get a combo with pecel, a traditional salad topped with spicy peanut dressing. Gudeg originated in Jogjakarta, but the recipe has been so heavily altered that we can call this part of Surabaya's taste. The gudeg in Jogja is cloyingly sweet and looks darker than the Surabaya version. I definitely prefer our version.

Hotel Majapahit (Pastry)
They make the best mousse cakes in town. I suggest the Mocha Latte cake if you want something light and fluffy (though the chocolate flavor is anything but light!) and the Choco Terrine if you want a denser mousse. The Tiramisu is famous but I still prefer my homemade version. If you come after 6 pm you will get a 50% discount.

Holland Martabak Terang Bulan (Snacks)
Terang bulan is like a giant pancake with the filling of your choice. Many others come quite close, but they suffer from being too chewy or too dense. I think that Holland does it just right. They are expensive though, considering that many hawkers sell terang bulan for a fraction of the price. Don't pay extra for butter since it makes no difference. If you like savory, get a thin one with cheese. If you like sweet, get a thick one with chocolate and peanuts/sesame seeds. I suggest getting martabak somewhere else since many hawkers make better versions for a fraction of the price.

Jade Imperial (Chinese)
Food done right. I love the care they put into each dish. Meats are tender and juicy. The sauces are perfect with rice (but too salty on their own). If you order a hotplate, they pour the sauce on your table so you can hear the sizzle. Even the onions are uniformly and thinly sliced! The noodles (la mian) are springy and are relatively cheap for lunch! In some malls like Galaxy Mall, the food here isn't much more expensive than the ones in the food court.

Layar (Seafood)
Fresh seafood all around, from clams to fish to crabs to shrimp. Their tomato-based sauce is extremely tasty, especially with fish or prawns. Their salted-egg crabs are famous, but they're too oily and grainy for my taste. To each their own. Layar is hailed as one of the best seafood restaurants in Surabaya, so it's definitely worth checking out!

Lemper 168 (Snacks)
Every tourist should try this traditional snack. Chicken is slow-cooked in coconut milk and herbs. They are then shredded and wrapped in glutinous rice. Intensely sweet and savory! These are incredibly cheap for the amount of chicken you get. In fact, my complaint is that they put too much chicken! The proportions are a little off; I'd prefer less chicken and more sticky rice. However, this is the best version in Surabaya since the others suffer the opposite problem: too little chicken and too much sticky rice.

Pasar Atum (Snacks)
If you are a tourist, make sure to visit this mall! Pasar Atum is one of the oldest shopping centers in the city, so it has some historic value. Many well-made traditional snacks have been sold here for decades. My personal favorites are Cakue Peneleh (fried garlic dough), Pastel Go (fried pastry stuffed with sweet noodles), Ronde Kitty (glutinous rice balls filled with peanuts), and the different versions of bubur Madura (Madurese porridge) sold throughout. Notable mentions include the crispy char siu in the food court and the lontong mie on the second (?) floor.

Pisa Cafe (Italian)
The food is decent. I wouldn't come here for the food. I'd much rather make my own pasta at home. However, the smooth and creamy gelato is heavenly! I come here at least once a month for the gelato; the other gelateria simply can't compare because they can't find the right balance of flavor and sweetness. You can keep sampling the different flavors until you find several that you like due to their great service. Never have they made me feel ashamed even after sampling the sixth flavor! My personal favorite is the coffee. They used to mix in cocoa nibs into the gelato, then they stopped doing that. I asked them about it since I missed the crunch and now they mix in toffee into the coffee gelato. Even better! Their signature flavor is the stracciatella (chocolate chip) but I'll stick with my coffee!

Sheraton Hotel (Bakery)
The best croissants you'll ever find in Surabaya. They are light, soft, fluffy, rich, buttery, and oh so flavorful! The plain ones cost the same as the chocolate or cheese ones but I prefer them plain because they're already so good on their own! Come here after 5 pm for a 50% discount. They also have an all-day 50% discount for the ladies on Wednesday, but they are usually sold out by 10 am.

Tong Tong (Japanese)
The Japanese expats love to eat here. The food is expensive but the taste is clean and simple, a characteristic of true Japanese cuisine. Other places tend to skimp on or substitute the expensive ingredients, or cover up the taste of the dish with heaps of mayo, but not Tong Tong. They use real dashi (bonito broth) to impart a delicate sweetness. My personal favorites are the gyoza, loaded with garlic, and the ten oroshi soba, which is their version of tenzaru soba.

X.O. Cuisine (Chinese)
Even though their portion sizes keep dwindling every year, the food is still consistently good. I recommend the pork ribs with Marmite sauce. This doesn't reek of Marmite, which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your taste. Either way, the umami meter is going haywire. Another good choice is the ikan bilis. These are small fish (like anchovies, but not smelly at all) deep-fried to a perfect crunch and then seasoned with garlic and chili. X.O. used to make the best xiao long bao (they were better than the ones I ate in Shanghai!) but the quality has declined a LOT over the years. Right now they're not much better than 3.6.9.'s dumplings, which breaks my heart. I miss the old xiao long bao.

X.O. Suki (Steamboat)
After X.O. Cuisine became popular, the company opened several steamboat restaurants to great success, even in Jakarta. Now it is the icon of steamboat restaurants in Surabaya. If you want to eat a lot of soup, come here. They also serve a la carte menu

This list is by no means exhaustive and will be updated in the future. I sincerely hope you will find something you love, perhaps to the point of coming back for more!