Happy Birthday Anita
Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 5:35AM 
090909 marks Anita's birthday and being a good hubby, I organised a few things for her. However, since it was a normal working day, we only celebrated in the afternoon. Being Ramadhan we decided to have our iftar outside after she enjoyed her prezzies and flowers.
Shot of the Colonial-themed interiorI let Anita picked which restaurant she wanted to go to. She picked a new restaurant at Great Eastern Mall, a branch of Penang Village. The actual restaurant was as mentioned, newly opened. All the furnitures and trimmings were nice. The concept appeared to be English Colonial, which is understandable as Penang was one of the former English Straits settlement. And unfortunately, that was where the niceties end. It was meant to be a buffet, but the spread was rather pathetic for one. A price tag of RM45++? You got to be joking me. Put it this way, the food selection were spread along two tables, and that was it. Yeah, that would be OK for a private party, but to charge patron for that amount of money .... I thought it was ..... inadequate - being diplomatic here.
Anita enjoying her foodAnd how about the food? One thing that will always win buffet over for me is diversity. People coming to take on a buffet expects that there will be selections. Here, there was some sweets - mainly jelly or Malay kueh, a small selection for appetiser and salad - like 4 plates to choose from, the main course, being either white rice or 'tom yum' fried rice with about 7 dishes. If you don't fancy rice, there was either spaghetti or 'kuey teow'. The food were best described with the typical Manglish expression of 'so-so la' - reminding me of Idlan's music school where he had to sing out the notes - fa-so-la. To sum things out, I went for a take away right after the RM250 dinner ...... My mum-in-law in her typically acidic one-liner quipped - "better to eat at home".
Since we arrived there early and fed the boys there, they became restless by the time we finished our meals. Irfan especially was going hyper and I had to take him out for a walk in between my courses. It was not an altogether bad evening. Anita was happy with her gifts and well-wishes from her friends. When I updated my facebook status about 'my wife celebrating her brthday', one of my old collegemate replied that she wishes my wife a happy birthday and said sorry that she did not no her personally. When I told her who Anita is, she then realised that they used to share the same dorm while in college - Anita is my childhood sweetheart and we went to the same school before.
We came home relatively early with some take away of course. That was then I had my dinner. Will I recommend Penang Village to anyone? No for a buffet. It was simply a lame excuse for one. Maybe the ala cart menu is better. I suspect that that was how they usually do their business. The interior settings however was nice. There were big wndows with good view of the outside. I bet it would be nice during lunch.
Anita, Birthday, Great eastern Mall, Penang Village in Diary, Restaurant, Review
Reader Comments (3)
sorry to hear of your bad buffet experience. whilst i admit you do get 'upper crust' extablishments serving nice local delicacies, i am never impressed with them. i don't see the point of having nasi at, say, madam kwan's. if i want nasi lemak, it'll be the pakcik belakang sekolah whose stall manages to open for only an hour because his nasi will be sold out by then. my malaysian meals will always be at low class establishments!!! :D hahahaha.
Absolutely. The authentic stall food will only stay authentic if it is not commercialised. Commercialisation will introduce too many compromises and that's when it loses it's value. The nasi daun pisang mamak food will only stay the same if it retains it's spot under the tree, not when they move it into a restaurant. Are you coming back for Raya?
ya. back this thursday!