My friend and I found Tori Hachi quite randomly. We were at Blok M which is a happening place in Jakarta (supposedly) filled with trendy cafes and restaurants. It’s one of slightly more affordable place than Astha or Senayan City. At first though, I wanted to check out Astha, but the traffic was terrible and my place of stay was slightly further from Astha. So, the middle ground from both of us is at Blok M which was only 30 minutes drive and that too under a bit of traffic.

While we were at Blok M, there were many small coffee shops and places that looked trendy but didn’t really capture my attention or attraction. It was all a bit too crowded to my liking and what they were selling looked mediocre. Most places just look like something I regularly visit and can visit elsewhere.

I was in the mood for something unusual, something that I couldn’t find back home. Afterall, I am in Jakarta and it’s the capital where I am supposed to find something unique.

My friend couldn’t give me quite a recommendation, so I googled something that looked unique but also has high rating, I wasn’t in the mood to be served a piss poor service, so I couldn’t accept anything lower than 4.8

There it was, Tori Hachi, rated 4.9 on google reviews. I was skeptical when my friend and I walked through the place. The place from the front looked like a sketchy bar and even I wasn’t sure why it was rated 4.9. We both hesitated at first because the front place doesn’t look it deserves those high ratings but wait until we were served the food.

I thought the place was exclusively izakaya style but it’s a mix of restaurants with izakaya bar typical in South East Asia. They serve various yakitori dishes with cocktails, beers and some proper meals.

But what really caught our attention the most was the assorted yakitori/ton that was grilled in front of us. We can see the chefs were grilling the assorted yakitori and that made us droll over it. While we were waiting for our food, I ordered Sapporo premium. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the full picture of it but that was a good beer I had after a while. It was very smooth and matched with yakitori that we had.

My friend ordered this noodle dishes and I ordered a yakitori bowl as we thought, we wouldn’t be full with simply assorted yakitori. But oh boy!, we were wrong.

We were so full after yakitori that it took us about 2 hours to finish our meal. Every meat that they serve here was just so good. It melts in your mouth and now, I have no doubt they deserve that 4.9 rating.

Oh, and this place is full of Japanese patrons, so I can say it’s the great deal and quite authentic.

For our meal and for the two of us we paid $45 which was worth the price considering we get beer, free fill Ocha, that yakitori which are mostly pork, and some other meals like the yakitori bowl and the noodle.

If I am back to Jakarta, I will make sure to pay a visit to Tori Hachi again and try their other menu. There were many things I needed to try because their menu book is quite thick. I am sure if their simple yakitori/ton were that good, others in the menu would be good as well.