Friday, May 29, 2009

Con Job of a Meal

House of Zen's My Cuisine
39 & 41 Jalan Puteri 1/4
Bandar Puteri Puchong
47100 Puchong

I read about this place recently in one of the blogs which gave a good review of it. It seems they have this All-You-Can-Eat promotion for RM28.80 per head and the food was rated as "good". So, since I was in the vicinity of Puchong the other day with some colleagues, this was the choice for our lunch (even though I had wanted to go back to Kong Sai Chicken Rice!!).

When we stepped into the restaurant... well, it looked pretty encouraging... water-cascading-wall, wine chiller, cute little oval-shaped sauce plate...

1st disappointment of the day: found out that the All-You-Can-Eat-for-RM28.80 promo is only for Dinner!

Okayyy... nevertheless, we decided to go for their Set Lunch and for 3 of us, we took their 4 Dishes + Soup + Dessert set which they told us would just work out to RM14.80 per person. Right... and we can choose from a selection of different soups and dishes on their menu.

Coincidentally all 3 of us opted for their Spicy Sour Soup (Szechuan-style) simply because the other 2 soup choices they had were definitely not attractive. Soup was served in individual bowls and while not spectacular, it was quite flavourful. OK - so far so good...

Next, the waiter carried 3 plates of the Prawn Dish we ordered to our table... and I was thinking "wow, not bad, 3 separate plates for us worrr". Boy - was I wrong! 2 of those plates were meant for other tables and the guy plonked only this one plate for us...

The prawns were soft, limp (definitely stale!) and were coated in some kinda pathetic mayo/starchy sauce... and just look at the size and portion!
Our vege dish was this...

...and the chicken dish...
and the Steamed Fish Fillet - cheap doryfish slices which had too much cornflour smacked into them, with slices of totally-tasteless boiled "kai choy" and black fungus strewn at the sides. We had to dip these into the chillipadi-soyasauce before they were edible...so sad.


All the kedekut miserly portions of food were served on small 6"x6" square plates and these are meant for 3 people!So that's the 2nd till 5th disappointments of the day!

So, what was dessert??

This...
The only consolation from the tasteless watermelon was that they were served on the biggest plate of the meal! (if you can call that a "consolation")

Wait...if you think that was the end of our ordeal... here's the "best" part. In their promo menu, it's clearly stated "In this set lunch, drinks will be discounted 30%". So all 3 of us ordered chinese tea... and they served us a pot of that.

But lo and behold - they charged us RM15 for the chinese tea! (it wasn't even any fancy tea, ok! just tikuanyin regular tea). So when we queried the 30% discount for drinks, they told us that "chinese tea is not drinks"! Yeah, you go figure, man!
I don't know what chinese tea is classified as then??

Don't you think that if they classify chinese tea as "Main Course"or whatever, they should at least have informed the customers that the 30% discount does not apply?? Blardy cons!

This was truly one of the most disappointing meals I've ever had. The miserly portions, the mediocre taste, the poor-quality ingredients used and the chinese tea incident... I think it's very bad to con customers with these masquerading as their so-called good-value lunch set promotions!

Now, I really do not like to post bad reviews because I was taught that if you have nothing good to say, then don't say anything. Times are bad, yeah...but then, I really beh-tahan how some restaurants can come up with such scams and I just had to have my say here!

I do not mind paying premium prices for premium food - but this was really a con job, period.

My rating - you seriously wanna know my rating?? My friend Z said to be kind to them - give them a 3/10 la - and that's just for their speed in clearing our used plates! So, my rating system says "below 5": you better stay at home & eat maggi mee, ok!

P/S: I still wanna go get my Kong Sai fix!!! Anyone wanna join me?

29 comments:

Rebecca Saw said...

lol! honey..i can feel the warth from my monitor!
yup..i ll post bad reviews as well. aft all, its our personal opinions & our blogs. & ur doin us foodies a favour by warning us!
Kong sai! = me me me!!

Anonymous said...

my goodness, 15 bucks for chinese tea...?!!!that's too too much!! really a conned meal

PureGlutton said...

Nomad: Ya la, was so pissed with them! Sooo tak-puas!
OK...we MUST go Kong Sai soon!

PureGlutton said...

SimpleGirl: Ya man... better stay away from such cons!

thule a.k.a leo said...

RM5 per person for the chinese tea??? I gotta say.. it's better than robbing someone.
It's OK to give your rating low if you are really dissatisfied with the food or even the pricing... you didn't say it but your conclusion is to suggest that we are better off having meal elsewhere!!!

foodbin said...

a real rip off-they could sloop so low to garner for business.

PureGlutton said...

leo: Hehe, u are right - it's daylight robbery with their chinese tea stunt! You took the words right out of me - stay away from this place!

PureGlutton said...

foodbin: Ya lor, so sad. Well, customers can only be conned once, at most! People won't return once they kena like this, right?!

J2Kfm said...

wow .. kinda sad to charge that much, cook up some meagre affair, then con the customers into believing tea aint drinks.

maybe they categorize tea as soup? complete with tea leaves to be eaten.

Life for Beginners said...

Aww, this place sounds below lacklustre... It's a good thing we have good reviews and bad reviews so we know which places to head to and which to avoid at all costs!

Still, one good thing I'm taking from this is how much I crave for spicy sour soup right now --- a good fix for a flu, no? :)

Bangsar-bAbE said...

o_0 Daylight robbery!! They are not even a fine-dining restaurant, and still wanna charge RM15 for the tea...geeezz!

Selba said...

Awww.. sorry for the disappoinment lunch.... don't we hate it when it happened. Can't believe for chinese tea they charge RM 15! That's too much!

thule a.k.a leo said...

anyway, the kong sai chicken rice looks amazing... my friend's company is nearby so I'm planning my trip there one day :) thanx for the info

Big Boys Oven said...

sounds like a con place and not to be!

gen.u.ine.ness said...

Jeezzz... I would have refused to pay for the tea. Plain ridiculous. I hope they put some rare tea leaves... hahaha yeah right as if la. Honestly I would have refused to pay and then if they make a fuss of it I would have called the police and reported them to FOMCA.

Tummythoz said...

Terrible! You are just too kind with the 3/10 rating. It'll be a -tive with me.

Ethnic said...

Bad food day!

Ciki said...

28.80 is a damn fine price!

terri@adailyobsession said...

this is what i love about food blogs-- we can tell those con people what we think about them, and warn others!

PureGlutton said...

J2Kfm: Hmm, now that's a thought - chinese tea soup! But then, soup is FOC, included in the set mah, lol!

PureGlutton said...

LFB: Aaww... hope you hv recovered from yr flu! Yeah, tat place is a "write-off" for me now!

PureGlutton said...

Bangsar-babe & Selba: Ya la, it was such a rip-off.

PureGlutton said...

leo: yes, pls do try out Kong Sai and tell us what u think of the food there.

PureGlutton said...

BBO: Ya, stay away fr them, lol!

PureGlutton said...

genuineness: Wow...u are very fierce leh, lol!
Even tho we were very pissed, we were in no mood to make too big a fuss coz we already decided that we were NEVER going back to that place again. I did snap pics of their brochure & the bill right in front of their faces, so maybe they already know I'm gonna publicize this, lol!

PureGlutton said...

Tummythoz: Hmm, maybe u r right - i should change my rating, eh?!

Ethnic: It was bad indeed!

Ciki: Ya, that was what attracted us to go there in the 1st place, thinking that it's available for all meals. But now after this experience, we ain't gonna step foot in that place ever again!

PureGlutton said...

terri: ya, we give credit where credit is due but should also warn others about bad stuff, hoh!

Anonymous said...

simonsays : i think i know which blog. i also commented in his blog, no offence. But really, we had the buffet, and it sucks. except for the prawns, which was ok, the rest was awful & tasteless. I just cant imagine how our friend cld gv them a good rating. but, funny thing is that people still go back...sigh.

PureGlutton said...

simon: aww..so the eat-all-u-can deal wasn't any good either huh! Well, i guess some ppl don't mind paying for bad food!