Ko-Fu Loft

My Ratings: 3 Stars

Cuisine: Chinese

Location: 170-04-59, Gurney Plaza Penang, Tel: 04-2295011

Non Halal

RM20-30 per person

Just opened about a week ago. This is where Food Loft before (first barcode pay as u eat concept). The first impression is that it kinda look like Food Loft and sound like Food Loft because little have changed in term of the layout/theme/furnishing and unfortunately the Lofty name too. However, I noticed they added in another cooking area for Dim Sum as if there is not enough kitchen space and they also added some VIP/private dining area/rooms. They also made some attempts to "orientalized" the restaurant by having giant bamboos as part of the new decor.

Very spacious. Not many dinner crowd. Maybe not much publicity yet on its opening except a advert in The Star newspaper. As we arrived, we were seated at a window table. Great view of Gurney Drive bay and the Tanjung Tokong dwellings. The menu offers chinese appetisers, mains, desserts, beverages and dim sum. However, at that time dim sum was not available. I found out from the waiter that dim sim is offered daily from 9am - 5pm and on weekends it is extended until 8pm.

We ordered Ma Poh Tofu (Bean Curd), Kam Heong (Frangrant) Fried Fish and Basil Fried Chicken. The dishes came out without much wait. The portion is small. The taste of the dishes are OK but I prefer the taste of similar dishes at Xuan Xin just a couple for floors down. Xuan Xin's Ma Poh Tofu and Fried Chicken with Basil is much more frangrant and tasty. Ko-Fu's Ma Poh Tofu gravy is less thick and thus after a while the moisture from the tofu diluted the gravy even more.

The pricing of the dishes are expected of a restaurant of such operation but the chinese tea is very expensive. They go by per pax at RM3 per person. So for the two of us, the tea costs us RM6. Imagine if I was hosting a table of 10 person. It would then RM30. For that I can pay for another hearty dish. And get this, tap water is RM0.50 per glass.

However, during the opening promotion, they are offering free chinese dessert for diners. Great! Customer get to choose between Bean Curd sheets soup dessert or Sago Coconut Soup dessert. So Amanda and I chose one of each so that we can try both. I got the Bean Curd sheet soup while she had the Sago Coconut. The Sago coconut is served cool. Taste nice, not so sweet but my Bean Curd sheet soup dessert is served warm and it tasted awful. It had a burnt aftertaste. I informed the waiter and he told me that the soup warmer had dried out of the water base and the heat then became too strong and burnt (overcook) the bean curd sheet soup....because the last time they checked the water level was in the morning and it was already 8pm when we had dinner. So that mean the dessert was from the morning.

The service can be improved....maybe they are all new. We (2 pax) were seat at a table for 4 but the waiter did not clear the other two settings. Just left it there at the table as it is. The kitchen is at the other far end and I wanted to get extra rice, the poor waiter had to key in the request into the CPU at one end of the restaurant and go get the bowl of rice at the other end and we were seated in the middle of the restaurant. There are more tables at the other end. So imagine the waiter has to walk the entire width of Gurney Plaza for a bowl of rice and that takes time. Also, they waiter spilled over hot tea while pouring for us.

I find the restaurant has too many kitchen/F&B preparation area. I think half of the restaurant is dedicated to food preparation and the other half to table seatings. Does not make an effective operation sense. Food Loft was a buffet styled concept and Ko-Fu is not. Kitchen/Area of operation cost money, seatings makes money!

Overall, the dining experience was just OK (not memorable). The crowd was not there. Maybe it was a Monday night coupled with the fact it is just newly opened. I think the opening of this restaurant came a little late with a competitor just a couple of floors down with 1/3 of the floor space in the new wing and that have extablished itself as a good chinese restaurant much earlier when the new wing opened.