Kiki & Lala

First post of the month?? Kiki, what’s happening to us??

OK, in an effort to make up for our blog slacking, here’s a post I meant to do at some point over the holidays. Since the Christmas break was pretty much hijacked with Lolo’s passing, I totally forgot about it.

Nonetheless, I’m sure you will be as intrigued as we were by Ryuma Japanese Restaurant in Sta. Rosa, Laguna. The restaurant occupies the entire floor in its wing of the Paseo de Sta. Rosa complex. In fact, there’s also a Ryuma Grocery and Ryuma Clothing Store on that floor. It is all so Japanese and yet so, not.

Here’s what I mean…

The hyper stimulating Christmas decor and rondalla (rondalla!) are so not Japanese but you do get a sense of Japanese quirkiness through all of this. And it certainly wasn’t lost on this kid:

As it turns out, the wait staff in this place are big fans of mi esposo so we were offered the VIP room.

There were three long tables, each with its own giant flat screen TV. Service was really on the ball. We left our shoes outside in a somewhat cluttered state but within minutes, someone came in with our shoes fixed like this:

And they offered us the use of a baby swing or walker!! We went for the walker and someone sure was happy about that.

But what about the food, you ask! We had our hopes up when we saw Japanese chefs milling around and we were not disappointed.

marinated salmon sashimi with seaweed

tuna belly maki

chicken karaage

spicy ramen

yakisoba

While the food here lacked the finesse and sophistication of more high end restaurants, it was authentic and thoroughly enjoyable. Reasonably priced too!

But it doesn’t end there.

FREE toys and ice cream!!!

Shall we try it out when (when??!!) you come?