George Town, Penang Restaurants and Bars

Here's some information about the restaurants we ate at when we visited George Town between 11-18 November 2004.

Sushi King, KOMTAR building

This is one of the Malaysian chain of Japanese fast food restaurants. It has a fairly limited à la carte menu but an extensive selection of small plates of food coming round on the conveyor belt. You sit at the sushi bar and help yourself to these plates which are colour coded according to their price. Most of it is very inexpensive anyway, with the most expensive dishes being RM6 (less than £1).

The staff are very friendly and helpful, and the food is tasty. It's not as good as some other Japanese fast chains, though. We noticed that salmon appeared to be brought in ready-cut in plastic packets rather than cut from the whole fish on the premises. It was still nice but it lacked the freshness we've come to expect elsewhere (such as the Fuji chain in Thailand).

Another downside for us was that they did not sell sake, the Japanese rice spirit. It's always nice to have a sake with your sushi and sashimi. Sushi King does sell beer, however, so at least it's not "dry".

They also run a Privileged Member scheme, which costs RM15 to join. This entitles you to a couple of free gifts (a little green-tea set and a calendar) as well as 10% off your bills. It's definitely worth getting this if you think you may visit more than a couple of times before the end of 2005.

Overall rating: 3/5

To sum up, we ate there several times because it was the place which appealed to us most, and was convenient and quick. Until or unless we found something better I expect we'd continue to go back there.

Farquhar's Bar, Eastern and Oriental Hotel

Just as a visit to Singapore is not complete without a Singapore Sling in Raffles, we felt that we must have a sling or a punch at the E&O. Expecting it to be prohibitively expensive, we planned only to stay for one drink before moving on to somewhere more affordable. Surprisingly, we discovered that because of Happy Hour (which lasts from 5pm till closing!) the bar at the E&O was considerably cheaper than the so-called British bar called Soho, which we'd visited the previous evening. A jug of beer, the equivalent of four glasses, cost RM29 in Farquhar's compared to RM34 in Soho pub.

The à la carte menu for the main restaurant in the E&O is relatively expensive, although it looks like a great place to go for a special treat. The pub grub menu in Farquhar's is different, though. There's a reasonable variety of food on offer at affordable prices.

The bar has a pleasant ambience, and you can sit looking out at the sea. We decided to stay on for a beer or two and ordered half a dozen sticks of chicken satay just to keep us going until dinner time. This was beautifully presented and tasted delicious.

When dinner time came we were comfortable where we were and didn't feel like moving on so we ordered fish 'n' chips (RM24) from the pub grub menu. Again the food was very nice, and something we'd probably have again.

Overall rating: 3/5

(I would've rated it 4/5 but for the fact that doing so would be unfair to restaurants elsewhere which will be rated 4/5. Great but not quite perfect.)

It's probably the best you can find in George Town and the ambience is lovely. Farquhar's Bar is an oasis in George Town which otherwise does not seem to have much to offer those looking for decent food and drink at a reasonable price. However, if it had been in a more vibrant city, it would probably not have been worth a second look.

Dinner Buffet, Sheraton Hotel

It just goes to show how limited our choice was of nice little local eateries that we'd end up having the buffet at the Sheraton. Sure, there are grotty little places where you can get street food for next to nothing. That's great for the backpackers but we prefer something a bit better. Anyway, we went to the Sheraton and on the face of it, the choice looked good enough for us to decide to stay. (Staying in the Hotel 1926, as we were, meant that we'd have a 20 minute trek into town otherwise.)

On closer inspection, there were so many things worryingly wrong that I even took the time to write a whole page of faults and subsequently discuss them with the duty manager. Seriously, the place was an accident waiting to happen. The standards of food hygiene were alarmingly low (non-existent?).

Some major faults I noticed included:

• cold cooked meats and items containing mayonnaise were set out at ambient temperature - they should have been served on ice or from some form of cooled serving
• cooked and raw foods were displayed together - thus risking food poisoning by cross-contamination
• the "hot" dishes were lukewarm - thus encouraging bacteria to multiply by leaving food lying in the "danger zone" for an extended period.

And a couple of other faults (from memory as I didn't make a copy of all the ones I reported to the manager):

• no labelling of what food dishes were or what they contained
• insufficient utensils for serving the food

So, all in all, it left a rather limited selection of what we considered OK to eat. It's not that we're all that fussy about things - "when in Rome..." and all that - but when a major international hotel is breaking every basic food hygiene rule in the book, it does rather put one off.

Overall rating: 0/5

Be afraid, be very afraid, if you're going to eat here.

A few more notes and comments:

I mentioned the Soho Bar above. This bar is situated in Jalan Penang and bills itself as George Town's best British pub. Well, it's not in the least British. The night we were there it was packed to the gunwales with Malaysians listening to music at ear-drum shattering volume. Urghh! Never again. Maybe it's just that I'm too old, so if LOUD music is your thing, the Soho Pub is definitely the place for you in George Town.

We visited the pub 20 Leith Street, which is opposite Cheong Fatt Tze's mansion in Lebuh Leith, and found the staff friendly and helpful and the beer not too expensive. It certainly is an interesting building but nothing to write home about really. The downside of this place is that it only has squatter toilets (not great for the balancing act after a few beers). The food wasn't great either; I ordered a "toasted cheese sandwich" which was a bit of a misnomer. The thin white bread was toasted on one side only and inside was a small slice of Kraft cheese (not melted) and great slabs of sliced tomato. Not very nice at all. But the main reason we don't plan to return was because, due to the airconditioning being cranked up so much, it was like sitting in a fridge. When we mentioned the cold to one of the staff, she suggested that we bought one of the long sleeved T-shirts on sale at the bar. No thank you, and never again!

Related links on this site:

A Walking Tour of George Town

1926 Hotel, George Town

 
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