Journey Oriental Kitchen & Bar Surabaya (Review)

I’m back again with another new hangout place in town! A little bit spoiler, this place is by far the coolest chinese restaurant that I’ve ever visited, like, EVER! I heard that the place is great, nice ambiance and stuff, but when I actually visited it, I just didn’t expect it to be this nice, lol! And it’s not just that, the foods and drinks that they served were also tastilicious! *I’m not sure if it’s even a proper english word, just made that up* haha..

Placed inside a colonial building at Kalimantan street, Journey Oriental Kitchen & Bar will blow you away with its unique beauty. You wouldn’t expect that from an old architecture that you see outside, they actually have such a nice modern interior inside. Well at least that was what I felt about this amazing new restaurant which located at the heart of Surabaya City.

I went there with my foodie fellas, and the first thing I wanted to talk about is of course, the parking lot. I kind of encountered a little problem with it since there was not so many space, though there were probably only ten cars were parked at that time and that was not even a quarter of people that this restaurant could hold inside. The thing is, this restaurant is at the center of the u turn, and the road is not wide enough to also be used as a parking lot. So, I got a parallel parking spot inside, which actually I don’t prefer because I have to move it all around whenever there’s a car that wants to come out and I also have to wait if I want to come out, you all know the drill. But at that time, there were only us there, so I knew whose car I was blocking and I also knew that we would leave the place together, so I was fine with the parallel parking.

When I entered the place (quite struggling, because of the unstable paving road, bad for heels), I was welcomed by this huge solid wood as their main front door, but don’t worry, someone will get the door for you. 🙂 The waiter and the waitresses are very warm and friendly here, I love this place already! A girl opened the door for me, asked me about my table, but my eyes were glued to the sculptures on the wall which brought back a lot of memories, and also gave me a big hint about what this place is all about : Sun Go Kong and The Gank (LOL)

YES! That is the big theme for Journey Oriental Kitchen & Bar. It’s Sun Go Kong, and The Gank (Tong Sam Cong Monk, Cu Pat Kai, and Sam Cheng), on the front sculpture, they were holding kitchen utensils, haha.. And if you step futher inside, you’ll see more of them on the decorations. I don’t know what’s the story behind this interior design, but they put it together very well!

I was really truly amazed to see the overall design of Journey Oriental Kitchen & Bar. It was nothing like any other chinese restaurant that is usually dominated by the color of red and yellow (or gold), which makes everything looks and feels old. In Journey, it was mostly dark grey. It looks really modern and chic, but you can still feel the oriental ambiance. Salute to the interior designer, kudos to him/her, kudos.

Journey Oriental Kitchen & Bar is divided into three parts of area, the first part is the main dining area, the second part is the little section of dining cubicles that’s a little bit more private, and the third area is their bar, which is on the left side of the main dining area and separated by a glass door. Overall, I think Journey can accommodate more than a hundred people inside.

Their menu book is like the other chinese restaurant menu book, very thick. I didn’t even bother to take a picture of it, haha.. But their price is on the middle high range, so that’s a hint for you guys before you go here, prepare around 200k a person, it will be the safe number in my opinion..

I really can’t describe about the foods that I ate, because… The foods that served for our photography session and the foods that served for us to eat were totally different, except one thing, and that was the jumbo xiao long bao. But one thing for sure. NONE of them was bad in terms of taste, tell you once again, NONE of them. It was all great! I even had this thought about “There must be something wrong about this place, it can’t be this perfect” haha..

My favorite was the jumbo xiao long bao, the crab soup, the ribs, the black fried rice, the fish, the oat shrimp, the beef, and the fruity berry drink with soda. I’m sorry for not being specific here, but I’ll make it up to you when I get back there, kay? One thing that I could complain about Journey is probably their serving time. It was pretty slow. But it’s something that they could really improve from time to time, so it’s really not a major problem at this case.

To wrap it up, I want to give Journey Oriental Kitchen & Bar 8.5/10. Great place, nice interior design, cool ambiance, you can totally hangout with anyone in here. You can bring your family, their chinese cuisine is amazing. You can bring your friends, their bar area is totally instagram-able! Or even your lover for a date night, it’s just all in one place to go.

Hopefully this post helps you guys, and don’t forget to share it to your friends, I’ll see you on my next one, bye! *muach*