OXO

My Ratings: 2 Stars

Cuisine: International
Location: Block G-32, Persiaran Bayan Indah

Bayan Lepas, 11900 Penang +604-6466881

Halal

RM15-30 per person

The first time I heard about this restaurant was when a friend told me about the opening specials - 15% off their set menu during the opening week starting from RM12.92. The restaurant serves both international and chinese delicacies. Great! a new place to eat around Queensbay! and moderate prices too!

Actually, before I wrote this review, I have already gone to the restaurant twice, first time for dinner with my wife and second for lunch with friends from work.

For dinner, we were seated in a gondola inside the restaurant. The deco was chic with chandeliers and designer pendant lamps and arkworks tastefuly located around the restaurants.

We ordered from the set menus. I had the salad with the Juicy Chicken Picata with Boxthorn Fruits and Plum Sauce Combo while my wife had the Chinese Herbal soup set (Set A).

While waiting for our food to be served, I took the opportunity to explore the place. The restaurant has a outdoor patio where you can have drinks, a bar with a pool table and upstairs the is more dining area with a private dining room. I like the private dining rooms with its own chandelier lights and decorated with fabric curtains and furniture. But one area that I think is out of place in a restaurant like this is an eating area like KFC or McDs next to a chidren play area. I think the management is really confused as to what kind of concept the restaurant should be. Family fast food with children or a dine in full menued restaurant? I am really confused.

Alas, when I was done with my exploration, came back to my table and the food was already served. I was hungry and I whalloped the buns and the salad in no time. Then I quickly ordered the waiter to bring out my mains and again I wasted no time to get right into eating my chicken. The portions were small. Soon I was already eating my dessert and I bottomed up the fruit punch drink to complete the dining experience which is a little less than satisfied......still hungry. Maybe I was really hungry to start with but on that night I really got what I paid for....less for less money. Overall, the taste is OK

My wife's set was also small portions of everything from a bowl of soup, some rice with chicken cubes and watercress salad ans tea

A couple of days later, my work group has a farewell cum birthday lunch gathering there. I wanted to go somewhere else but majority wanted to check the place out.

I ordered the Grandma's spaghetti bolognese set with my co-workers ordered the chicken teriyaki and chicken and prawns combo with soup of the day. Generally, my friends feedback on the food is just OK but the soup (vegetable bisque), we all agreed is a bit too watery and portions was small.

However I was a little disappointed. I think that the restaurant is trying its hardest to be the top serviced fancy restaurant but I think it had missed a few fine points about being a fine restaurant. Having extensive experience in the restaurant business in Australasia, I can speak to it well (and probably why I love talking about food)

• First, the buns served were mostly wrinkled and comes out cold, and that's an indication that the buns are not freshly made nor any indication that it has customer in mind. The buns/bread roll should be warm and soft. Although the bun is the cheapest food item but it is also the most important coz that bun is the first taste(impression) of the food at the restaurant and it prepares the customer on what to expect next
• Two, the butter is all melted and at some point it looks oilly and too soft. Butter should comes out of the fridge firm but easy to spread. Firm butter = fresh & good butter
• Three, the salad was prepared ahead when I see no absolute need to. There is no banquet. No rush - no mass servings at one go. Furthermore, the salad was served with a piece of raw salmon and this is a no no coz the salmon meat is just gonna sit in room temperature in Malaysian weather for much longer than it needs to. Again freshness is a good measure of a well run restaurant. And when your food is prepared as you order means fresh.
• Four, they used a pool table and wall table as the cold kitchen preparation area for the salad and soup. Rule of a good restaurant is, never let use any part of the dining room as a prep area unless you are making the salad or desert fresh at the table. Also this violates the health code too...
• Five, I just cannot understand why they dedicate a kitchen staff to sole function of preping ahead the salad and soup there. So the kitchen staff prepares a few plates of salad and lay it out and prep plate by plate as the waiter serves out each plate. Isn't that a waste of resource?
• Six, they try to serve all of everything in a set like salad or soup, mains and desert for the low price and what is so irritating is the desert they have is like a piece of cookie, a slice of watermelon and a bite of choc cake. Why all of everything? looks so insufficient. I would have prefered like more of cookies or fruits or even a large scope of ice-cream rather than bits of everything. And you can change the desert seansonally.
• Seven, not much creativity on the food. For example the vege on all the mains are the same (potatoes, cauliflower, carrots), just the meat and sauce are different
• Lastly the service is not satisfactory because there is no team work and I think the waiters are not properly trained to do the job. Please hire some experienced waiters! It's worth evey penny coz these are the people who will bring back the customers. And that inexperience really shows when they cannot every balance a plate of soup or a glass of drink on a tray and spilled all over the back of my friend. I also found it irritating when the waiters keeps walking through the gondola to get to the bar instead of walking around it. And to make matters worst, we found that the supervisor and one of the waiters arguing in front of the customers and pulling long faces after the spill incident

For birthday celebrations, the lucky birthday person gets to wear a funny hat loaned by the restaurant to make things more merry. Overall the decor is nice and the food is not fantastic thus not value for money and the service is not so good. I would not return and I think more people will do the same when the 15% discount period has ended and the novelty of the restaurant has faded.