An Unplanned Restaurant Turns Out To Be Hidden Gem

Who knows, an unplanned restaurant could turned out to be a great one! Though you may be familiar with this Japanese Restaurant – Menya Hanabi, it was our first encounter visiting this place.

The Unplanned Restaurant – Menya Hanabi

When we visited this place, we did not set any high expectations on this as we were just “selecting a restaurant randomly” to have a decent dinner.

The Menu

Le wife ordered the signature Menya Hanabi’s Maze-soba (soupless ramen) whereas me ordered the safest menu in the list, Shoyu Ramen (Soy Sauce Ramen), topping it off with Wakatori No Karaage as our side dish.

While Waiting for Food…

Wakatori No Karaage

This is our starter side dish menu before the mains. Karaage was freshly fried with slightly crispy on the outside, tender juicy on the insides. For me, I will mix the Karaage with the mayonnaise to elevate the taste of the Karaage just the way I like it.

Verdict: 8/10! Overall this was one of the nicest Karaage, can’t say the best as we believe that there will be better ones outside waiting for us to explore.

Jikasei Yaki Gyoza

The gyoza is the starter dish that we ordered on our 2nd day visit. Yep, we literally went to this place again, you will know why in a sec.

Gyoza was filled with generous amount of meat inside with light crispiness of the char at the top. Mixing it with the sauce will give another different flavor profile.

Verdict: 7/10! Overall it was a nice gyoza and one of the very well done ones we have tried.

Shoyu Ramen – Soy Sauce Ramen

This was the first time I tried Shoyu Ramen. The ramen was light to the taste albeit the soup is thick. The pork tasted great and the Onsen egg almost hit the spot as the yolk was slightly cooked at the bottom.

Verdict: 6/10! Overall the ramen is good, probably because I have a preference for “strong umami flavor”, the taste to me was just alright.

Maze-soba – Soupless Ramen

Sometimes I was wondering, why my wife always being the one who ordered the right dish. Don’t get me wrong, my shoyu ramen noodle was good too. However, this dish really blows both our taste buds as it was packed with strong umami flavor!

For this dish, we can request for free scoop of rice to let the rice soak itself into the extra sauce creating a different flavor profile for us to continue finish it clean without any drop of leftover sauce.

There is even a guide to teach us how to mix and eat Mazesoba!

Verdict: 9/10! Mixing the noodle with assorted varieties gave the noodle the best umami flavor. The free scoop of rice after finishing your noodle is also a huge plus to us! We liked it so much that we visited this place again the next day! Now you know why 🤣

Our Takeaways?

We once believe that any restaurant that we chose randomly, will end up to be something that is really great or otherwise. Though most of the time it will turn out to be a great one! Just trust our instincts and go for it!

For Menya Hanabi, it will always be our go to place if we are in Kota Kemuning area craving for some Japanese food.

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