RIAN FARISA

Never before I found such an insolent, wasteful, and arrogant restaurant. Some might achieved one or two of those bad traits but Tokyo Connection successfully without shame accomplished them all in no time.

You’d be impressed actually with how they designed the place especially once you get deeper inside but I found that the main entrance a joke. It’s like you have to go through a side walk with plenty of motorcycles parking there only to found a not-so-grand entry. The front side with a view to the busy street of Progo appears to be quite nice for a quiet coffee in the afternoon but that’s not the case in Tokyo Connection. It’s busy, packed, and the music director, if there’s any, should be sleeping somewhere. You’ll find soon enough that they’re playing plenty of Japanese music with no relation whatsoever with the joint’s atmosphere and growing nuisance. A music director supposedly handpicked each of the song and standardized them into at least the same bit rate and volume. I found myself irritated because one song was right and the other jeopardized everything!

If you take a look at the food, it’s even a disgrace for Japanese people. With such investment for the establishment, I found that the menu is none other than street level izakaya such as ramen or donburi.

Thus we all had to head straight each with our own choices from different departments.

My oyakodon chicken katsu donburi proved to be careless. In shambles if you see the messy presentation with rice scattering all over the place and no eggs covering it. Though it’s a very safe dish if you don’t want to gamble especially at this kind of place, I guess that there’s no safe place anywhere in this world anymore. It was bland if it wasn’t for the eggs and served on a huge bowl instead of the usual box donburi usually resides in. I see no problem with that though because at first I innocently believed that Tokyo Connection will be an envoy of change and performing differently but still in a good way besides other usual, conservative Japanese restaurants. But I was just wrong and wronged!

The safest ramen was also uninviting. I don’t know what’s wrong with these people by serving with a tremendously huge bowl for ramen. It got cold quick and the essence of enjoying ramen vanishes just like that.. Poof! Japanese people slurp the noodle and enjoy it hot. The sound matters a lot because it’s a sign of respect for the joint’s owner or cook but here Indonesians mostly play it safe for their teeth by not abusing them with hot broth and noodles, even we want to play it the right way, they simply won’t allow it.

Third dish would be the so-called Japanese steak. It was served on a hot plate and the steak poured with sweet and savory teriyaki sauce. The sauce was good but they missed the point of how people usually enjoy steak. Truly, some people wanted sirloin steak and cooked medium. It’s gonna be a bit chewy but if you can’t chew it at all, why the hell they’re so utterly foolish enough to serve it?! They even dare calling it tenderloin on the menu!

Last but not the least is how disorganized their service was. I was told earlier that my hot ocha can be refilled at most one time meaning I can get two glasses of hot tea. After I finished my tea, another waiter told me that there’s no such privilege anymore and no apologize even spared for us. Should everyone get briefed before they open the restaurant? This small detail’s missing and it matters a lot!

To add the bonus of how miserable and lousy this place was the serving time and how slow they also in responding our request. One dish served way longer than the other, ultimately served cold and we had to ask several times for them to fix it and finally of how ignorant they were to our plea about the tea. Hell, we deserved some explanations right?!

Oh yeah, one more thing, you might wanna empty your bladder first because after hundreds of millions of rupiah spent to build this joke, they hadn’t thought for even a minute to build a decent toilet. Men and women restrooms are combined and there’s only two private rooms. Imagine that if patrons of this vast place all of a sudden got the urge to go to the toilet and it’s gonna be like antrian sembako! The cleanliness? Ah, don’t make me tell the story.

In the end, it’s a disgrace for fellow eateries especially in Progo Street who actually started their businesses clean and modest by showing their noble passion for food and sharing the goodness of it with others. While Tokyo Connection? I personally don’t care whether they manage to add more menu or new features for their customers since they started it awfully dishonest, inappropriate, yet arrogant, I won’t give a second chance.

Tokyo Connection

Halal-friendly

Address: Jl. Progo no. 5, Bandung, Indonesia

RSVP: 022 – 420 4335

Atmosphere: Dark and expensive, feels more like a discotheque than Japanese eatery.

Ambiance: Cacophonous thanks to the awful selection of music.

Service: One of the worst and non-existent. They’d better switch to self-service restaurant soon.

Opening Hours: 11 am – late (daily)

Pricing: Donburi, ramen, and sushi at around IDR 20K, pancakes and crepes at around IDR 20K

Facebook: Tokyo Connection Japanese food and cafe