Greetings gentle reader,
As most of us is already familiar with chinese food, we often took for granted the abundance of eating places that served this kind of cuisine. In Jakarta alone, there are throngs of places that either specialized in certain kind or those that provide general type on their menu. In general, from my experience there are 3 main differentiation; demographic, type of menu, and wether it will be “halal” or ”non-halal”.

Last month I got the chance to visit Rice Bowl at Pacific Place, one of the growing chains of chinese restaurant in Jakarta. At that time I was hungry, and looked for a place that can offered good deals for their food and drink. Location wise, since it was in Pacific Place (one of the top elite shopping mall in Jakarta), one would assume that naturally most of eating places there charge a lot of money. Fortunately, on lower level of the mall, there are rows of affordable with good deal eating places, and one of them is Rice Bowl.

I’ve been to the other branches of Rice Bowl, there’s one in Mall Kelapa Gading 3, as well as in Plaza Semanggi. Their specialisation is rice dishes and they also have noodle variation of the rice as well. Since it was a hot day, and I was on tight budget, I ordered a bundled menu of Roast Chicken Noodle with an Ice Tea, all for Rp 23.000,- (I think - it was definitely less than 25k). Oh, they have 2 option for the noodle, a home made one and “chinese noodle”, which refer to the long slender noodle. The first had the soup separated, while the latter will have it grouped with the noodle. I picked the first.

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Less than 10 minutes later, my ordered arrived. It was good. Really. Tasty fresh noodle with succulent roast chicken. The soup “merged” the taste well in the mouth. Refresh!

It would be fantastic if the actually lower the price tough, just a bit. One could not help to compare the noodle with similar kind menu, namely the famous Bakmi GM or Bakmi Abun. Their prices are more affordable as well. To be fair, those places do specialization on noodle, while Rice Bowl tried to cater wider selection of menu, which eventually lead to increase in cost.

On other note, this Rice Bowl on Pacific Place has great seats and tables, its very comfortable for me anyway. My back used to be problematic, so I have a knack to know whether a seat or table is ergonomic or not. Good one!

RH Conclusion (scale from bad to good, 1-5)
Taste: 3
Service: 4
Location: 3

PROS
Another nice addition of ever-growing fusion chinese restaurant in Jakarta
CONS
It’s always the same ol’ kind of menu, nothing too special.