Rants about China House @ Penang

Suppose to be doing work but I can't seem to find the article that states that there is a lack in theory blah blah blah... I swear I read it before, why didn't I jot it down somewhere? Gah. So after looking through my journal collections, I got a bit restless and everything else seem to be more interesting than journal reading again LOL

So okay, I finally got motivated to write a little about China House even if I don't think I'll return to that cafe soon because they bad customer service (more like bad impression).

Btw, it's Valentines Day soon! Feel like cooking up a storm on that day! Like bake silly pink heart shaped cookies or something but I don't have my baking utensils with me now. But having second thoughts because I feel that my baking stuff wouldn't be appreciated if compared to buying them from shops so I might as well save the trouble and buy, lolol.

China House

153 Lebuh Pantai, Georgetown Penang

China House was a cafe/ restaurant that we visited when we were in Penang last year. Everyone seem to be raving about the place (not sure now if there's still a rave). I was on the fence deciding to visit or not to visit but I was encouraged to go so okay, we didn't had much activity anyway so no harm having teatime at 9pm, wtf hehehe

See what I told you about our meal times all jumbled up in Penang since we're eating all the time. It was hard to segregate meals into the typical breakfast, lunch and dinner.

That's Naomi with her grumpy face within 5 mins of us setting foot in China House

Not sure if you're interested in the story and I've told this story many times to my friends but why not write it here once and for all. Skip this part if you just don't bother to read lengthy explanations of what I mean by bad customer service. 

So we arrived at about 9pm for cakes and tea. The place was rather packed and the alleys to rather squeezy. No one showed us to our tables, waiters were just dashing everywhere, we felt a little lost not knowing whether to sit and then place order or place order then sit. Or should we wait to be seated or just do it the Malaysian rush-for-table style?

We decided to check out the cakes first since we were rather lost at what to do. Walking towards the long table of cakes was harder than though because people including waiters should be rubbing shoulders with you. My sis was actually SHOVED aside by one of the waiters! Are you serious? :O That explains her grumpy face in the above picture.

Okay, so we finally made it to the long table 

The long table did actually have more cakes than normal shops would. I think there were easily 10 different types of cakes on the table but most of them almost finishing by then. There were also a few cakes in the refrigerator not too far from the long table of cakes. 

Before telling the guy which cake I wanted from the refrigerator, I think my sis got pissed off again by one of the waitress aka cake bearer. Her duty was to take the cakes from the refrigerator and bring it over to the counter to cut and pack for take- away. My sis saw her with the cake so quickly move aside to let her pass. Instead of being thankful, she told my sis off saying that she's blocking her way!!

By "Blocking the way', she meant the way where my sis is currently standing at after making way for her to move. She could have continued walking in her original pathway because my sis moved aside, but she just HAD to walk at the place where my sis was standing (after making way for her). WTF is this?

There, cakes in the refrigerator.

Even after deciding on the cakes, no one attended to us so I had to go ask the waiter/ counter guy on whether I need to sit and order or order and sit. So apparently we needed to sit first, so we found a place to sit ourselves. The waiter came, handed us menu and before we could place an order he zoomed off :S

China House Menu if you're interested

I was already ready to order but it was so hard to hail the waiters who were constantly dashing about. Oh, of course there are waitresses who might come in handy if they weren't so syok sendiri standing their flipping their hair, grooving to the music, behaving as if they are those muscle guys  hired by Abercrombie and Fitch =.=

Hate gedik-ness, pff.

Okay, I get it that you love your job. Nothing wrong with that, so DO your job!

Yay, we found a spot to sit!

Ours is table 10. The place comes with free wifi. 

Our cakes came soon after we placed our orders, thank God for that or else I'd have flipped. We chose Oopsy Daisy, a peanut butter chocolate cake and Lemon Curd Layer cake. The peanut butter chocolate cake was a cake from the long table and the Lemon cake was from the refrigerator. 

Oopsy Daisy RM15

The chocolate cake (from the Oopsy Daisy)  was a little dry but if eaten with the peanut butter cream, it did mask the dryness. Peanut butter cream was quite good, could taste the thick slab of peanut butter. It's personal preference but I like lighter tasting less sweet cakes so good thing we also had the Lemon Curd cake.

Lemon Curd Layer Cake RM15

Lemon Curd cake is generally one of my favourite cakes because it has the tard taste and not entirely sweet. I'd usually stay away from dense rich chocolate cake because that's a little too much for me to handle. Lemon Curd Cake at China House was quite okay, the cake was better than the chocolate cake in the sense that it was not as dry.

The cake prices there are rather expensive. One slice cost RM15 before tax and honestly, cake tasted like slightly better homebaked cakes- like the ones we amateur make at home, Yikes. However, their cream on cake saved the day.

Earl Grey Tea, RM10 per pot (I think)

Good thing about China House is that they allow you to share a pot of tea. Not sure if you could refill with hot water but even if you could, I think it would take you a while to stop one of the waiters for hot water. Also not sure if they would give you the Stink Face if you ask for refill :S

The weird thing about China House is that occasionally the waiters are not literally in your face kinda rude. Example, they do say "Thank you, please come again" kinda lines but somehow you don't feel their sincerity in customer service. Probably the holiday crowd made it worst, it was so hard to sit and enjoy our teatime because everyone was zooming here and there so it gave us the 'rushing vibe'.

If you're looking for somewhere to sit and chill, maybe China House on it's fullest days isn't the place to go. In contrast, Mugshot Cafe provided extremely good service despite their equally busy routine.

Cashier was pretty quick with collecting money though. Not surprised LOL

Few more shots of us at China House. Doodle to stand a chance to win some prize I think, so I did: