Fukuya Japanese Restaurant Festival Mall

 

 

 

I went to church with my friend Mau at Victory Alabang at the top floor of Festival Mall. I’m happy she picked a Japanese place today.

We went to Fukuya Japanese restaurant and we were pretty excited to eat there because I haven’t had Japanese cuisine in a while and I had a thing for ramen.

This is a mixed review. It’s the first time I felt like sharing my experience about a restaurant that I wasn’t fully excited about.

Here’s our observation.

The place was a bit crowded. Lot’s of people and some of them look Japanese. That’s a good sign. The place looks like a clean and honest Japanese restaurant. As you enter, you’ll smell the familiar aroma you’re accustomed to from a Japanese style kitchen.

It’s self service, which means that like most fast food restaurants, you line up to a counter, place your order and pay at the counter. As you enter, you’ll see the cooks moving quickly and work hard as they fill the orders. The people look honest and hard working.

Service was good, the staff were generally silent and quick like ninjas. They don’t make a lot of eye contact. I don’t know if it is intentional to add to the feel.

When the food came, the presentation was a bit shabby.

I’ll show you the pictures.

The Shoyu Ramen was okay. It’s edible. I went through it rather quickly. On top of the noodles and signature ramen soup, you get a  quarter egg and two slices of roast port that doesn’t have the smoky, grilled aroma that I expected. On the other hand the pork was tender and a bit tasty. It made me tell myself, if I had a restaurant I’d at least put 3-5 slices of pork on top and a whole egg sliced in half. Then again, when I tried to make and sell food, I don’t really make a lot of money from how I approached my servings. I wish they’d put a little more into this dish.

The Gomoku ramen is a lot like a Japanese Style Lomo Seafood with Ramen as noodles. My friend didn’t like it. My friend didn’t eat hers and .We asked the casher what the best seller was. She pointed to it possibly because it’s the most expensive meal on the dish. The fishcakes were tasty. The crab stick choice was also good. I didn’t get to try the other seafood. My friend ate it and left the rest to me.

The Gyoza was stuck together and is a bit burnt. I know that gyoza is steamed and then fried at the end. But the thing with dim sum was that they were bite sized. We spent a lot of time separating the pieces and it looked ugly by the time it had to dip it in the sauce.

As I take my notes about the food, I observed that a lot of people were eating lunch here. Maybe we ordered the wrong thing. Personally, I’d rate the food as edible but not exceptional. It’s not so bad that I won’t give it a second chance. The next time I eat here, I’ll tell the person taking the order that the last time I went here, my friend didn’t like the food, so maybe we ordered the wrong dishes and ask for a new set of recommendations. As we were leaving I noticed that everyone ordered bento boxes. Maybe that’s what we should be ordering. My friend and I were both not feeling well so we ordered ramen. Maybe it’s our taste buds.

I’m coming back for those bentos.

What do you think? Have you been here? What was your experience?

 

 

 

 

Written on November 3rd , 2014 by Kevin Olega