Subway Restaurant @ Straits Quay

Old mother hubard is a retiree who runs this franchisee place. She doesn't dress in uniform,doesn't put on an apron,thinks her terrible dress sense makes her ugly face look better.
In fact she doesn't even wear a cap to keep out her nest of hair cos it is so crazily tussled like she just tumbled out of a cupboard.

Old mother hubard doesn't like to clean the place.She leaves trays and cups and wrappers lying all over without batting an eyelid. Half an hour goes by,even one hour later,she still refuses to clear anything.
If you are a customer who wants to sit down and eat in,you have to do the clean up yourself or push it to the next table because she is still not bothered with the mess.It is her way of getting free unpaid labour.
Needless to say crumbs are all over the place,tables are wet and dirty,yet she just doesn't give a damn.
It's not her problem. It's yours. Her job is just to, collect the money after putting a miserable sandwich together for you,stretching out the inner expensive ingredients, so she can piece them together and make herself a free meal at your expense.

Old mother hubard not only runs this place but also has other interests in another place within Straits Quay.Money minded, profit driven , kiamsiap, allows her customer to get the shortest end of the worst deal.
Forced customer charity begins with sandwich under construction.

I want to tell you what this hygienically challenged sunken triple chinned aunty's sandwiches taste like

1. Tomatoes are bleaugh,soft,overripe,warm
2. Bacon looks inedible
3. Lettuce is WET,water logged,warm
4. Breads have such a lot of airspace in between when you bite,must be EXPIRED !
5. Counter foods are not stored at the correct temperature
6. Expensive ingredients are less to increase profit.More veggies are piled up,less hams and meats ,also less cheeses are given
7. Onions stink cos she obviously used her hands and not gloves
8. Coffee has been compromised and I suspect alternately substituted with other cheaper brands
9. Iceman comes,no gloves,dirty shirt, sweating,she gets HIM to pour in the ice himself straight into the drink dispenser.This spectacle wearing witch is THAT LAZY.
10. Overall  verdict : NO GOOD,BAD QUALITY,FOOD POISONING POTENTIAL , CHEATING CUSTOMERS BY REDUCING UNNOTICEABLE AMOUNTS OF EXPENSIVE INGREDIENTS.

By shortchanging you,all that extra savings goes into her pocket/free boss/franchise holder/family/staff meal.

Fans are switched on to the maximum speed cos she either has a problem coping with hot flushes or she simply loves driving customers out of the shop by freezing them to death till they cannot warm the seat longer than they would like to.

If you think I'm just being extremely demanding as usual, a check on foursquare reveals the following

Shun Jie   : April 12,2011 They never smile to you

Jayson G : August 21,2011 Stuff is kind of lazy, poor services :-(

small r     : December 1, 2011 No bread supply ask customer wait for 2hours ....swt

chintee    : September 7, 2011 Beware of miscalculation of the total amount. The staff sometimes calculates wrongly when you buy not just a sandwich

yee theng : November 15, 2011 Service very very bad

On top of that, I found this posted on their facebook about their Beach Street outlet

Miss Klieo Lee says :

Dear Subway Malaysia, I am very disappointed with the fact that I can't post on your wall. I want to complain about your outlet at Beach St, Penang. I've been there 3 times the past 1 month and I must say, I am disappointed with all 3 visits. Quality of the food and service is really bad that I actually felt embarrassed seeing tourists at your outlet. I wonder what they were thinking in their minds. I used to visit Subway at Kelana Jaya very often and I totally love that place. Unfortunately, I can't say the same of this Penang outlet. As a standard question, you may ask me what happened etc. Trust me, just send your trainer down there and get the SOP right!

April 7 at 5:51am

Kim Maou Cafe @ Cintra Street,Penang (night)

This shop is known for Snakehead fish or Haruan fish head noodles.
It is harder to spot these days as there is no signboard and it is no longer occupying the corner lot.

Although I have no complaints about the taste,the bittergourd syndrome on Cintra Street is so infectious especially since the mother virus comes from across Sin Sun Vood (the shop that has a night hawker selling Sang Yee chicken porridge),so strong that even the new pretty girl chopping chicken there looks like the pony tailed shopowners apprentice in making,till everyone here too is afflicted except for the old short terribly short sighted aunty server.

Portion is pathetic,order for 2 if you need to eat for one.
Be prepared to get service with absolutely no smile.

This particular street is certainly one of the most unfriendly,cannot smile because gold will drop out of their teeth,quarters on Penang island.

According to local gossip,he closed down for sometime due to illness.

Now that he's back,grinning,smiling,cheer and laughter stubbornly remain at the bottom of his list of a most fulfilling day to being another Cintra Street ambassador of Unhappy.

Pizza Hut @ Prangin Mall

Everyone knows that when you decide against take away and dine in here instead,you are slapped with extra tax right?
And everybody also knows that the tax is meant for services rendered right?
Services meaning they will set the table for you,clear your table for you and bring your order to the table right?In short that is what table service is all about.
Nope.
The assistant manageress (the one in light brown shirt)here will only bring you your pizza.
YOU the customer have to clear the table for HER the princess almighty.
She will stand there with the pizza hovering above her shoulder like it were her queen's tiara on a silver platter,while posing like she's Tyra Banks and wait till you the imbecile get the message.
If you still don't get the message,(don't expect her to utter a word,she won't even waste her precious vocal chords to form a voice in order to instruct you mere mortals),and follow what we did which was to stare shell shocked at her for a full 5 seconds before scrambling to help HER do her job which we are paying the extra tax for,she will continue posing.As she strikes various poses she will look skywards,to the left and to the right.And after you finish clearing the table she will give you a dirty look,like you were an errant employee of the outlet.
Upon finishing our soup,again no one clears the table even though there were a minimum of 5 staff scurrying in and out of the kitchen and order counter.So what to do?We had to self remove our soup bowls,self pile them and self plonk them on the next empty table.Same thing for the garlic bread plate and our empty jug of drinks.
The entire time that we were there not one soul cleared that adjoining table.Why do people such as this even bother working in the service industry eh?
Having dined at their outlets in Gurney,Tesco,Air Itam and even Sunway Carnival,this has never happened before.Every single one of the servers clears the table for us.I have yet to come across a human being with this kind of hoity toity attitude other than the Air Asia,Gulf Air and Cathay Pacific stewardesses.
You can't miss her,she's quite pretty,wears a tudung,looks like Wardinah the actress a bit,walks kangkang like a cowboy and is in black tight slacks suspended by a punk studded belt.
Me thinks...she thinks she's a beauty queen who won the subsidiary title of Miss Roti Penyet Bertomato Prangin 2010 and the studded belt is her sash of misguided girl power....either that or she's training to be an Air Asia stewardess.

Sin Wah CKT @ Pulau Tikus market hawker centre (night)

This fella with an excuse of a moustache is a confirmed Male Diva that can challenge the Lorong Selamat CKT red cap granny.
Lately he likes to shortcut by frying 3 to 5 plates at once because he likes to bury his face in the arms of the very seductive gossip,suicide and drama filled evening newspaper.

Mr.Diva's marketing slogan is "Take it or leave it"

1. He doesn't deliver if your table is too far away.You have to tapau it and wait there for your order while his assistant flashes a creepy grin at u with one leg up like a human grasshopper.

2. He doesn't want,like to or enjoys cooking CKT according to your specifications.And he doesn't hold back on showing you his displeasure at your supposedly brazen attitude
.
3. He likes to torture you with exaggerated estimated cooking timeframe needed before u receive your order.Most times it will arrive earlier.
It's a trick I tell you,to make it look like he truly cares about you going hungry on his watch.

4. He likes to rustle his newspapers loudly to send you the telepathic signal that you have just disturbed him from his favourite pastime and he is now putting it away to do you a big favour.
If you don't get his signal,he will resort to staring at you like a taller human coloured Ju-On with a whisper of a moustache due to puberty.What he gained slightly on his upper lip he lost the majority on his scalp.
When that fails he will go on a vocal offensive and brush you off.

5. Occasionally he too enjoys standing with one leg up like a grasshopper,maybe it is a relaxing yoga stance to deal with all of us bafflingly troublesome customers.

6. His price can range from customer to customer.If you are a man sometimes he charges you less,most times he overcharges me by 50 cents even though we ordered the same dish(unless of course both of you sit at the same table) cos he likes newspapers not women.

His assistant used to fry CKT opposite the police station.
Actually he took over from a famous lady that has stopped frying there.
Since the policemen starting jotting down car numbers from their balcony,business has dwindled and another chap took over but I haven't tried it till today.
I'm just making an excuse for him for besides giving people creepy grins when he was free,he looked like he was panicking while attempting to tame his wok.
Apparently a few of the ckt sellers in this area are related to each other.
Not that it makes any difference nowadays.The CKT in this area just ain't as good anymore.

The thing about Sin Wah is he gives you one tiny scrap of sotong in your CKT.Hence the different taste.If only he would stop frying so many plates at once and cut the attitude.

Wong Chau Jun @ Rangoon Road (morning to lunch)

Update :
It looks like World War 3 has started between the two sisters.Both look as if they are ever ready to push their respective caps down the others throat or smash the others face with their apron.
The nice fat one is now super nasty,always annoyed,bristling and frowning,never in a good mood.
The andartu has to watch her back.
What can you as a customer do?Just sit back and watch two tomboyish sisters silently glare at each other and act like the other just threw a durian onto their foot.
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This place is one of the few places in Penang (surprise!) which serves unfried fish without the fishy smell associated with less fresh sea produce(believe me there are plenty of establishments that dare to serve this here).The wise old man of the shop sits by his cashier table trying to keep the feng shui balance while his rippling Thor sized son scuttles in and out of the shop like a bee churning out soya bean by products and other muscle needed chores so that his father can rest easy.
No one else is going to tell you what I am about to tell you right now.I don't know why.
The old man has a taller bespectacled (what the malays call andartu type)slightly hunched daughter (another is shorter and fatter but much much nicer) that will not reveal if certain dishes have run out because she assumes that you would be desperate enough to take it as it is.No questions asked.
I hope the old man reads this one day.
Many customers have been too polite to tell her off.She is obviously not happy working there and hates the customers she has to take orders from since most times she's the trusted staff designated with this unglamorous responsibility.Even the old lady workers are not as stuck up and as judgemental as her.
I get the feeling since she looks so plain and frumpy,that women who take some pains to dress up or groom themselves femininely (unlike her) really get on her gall.And so for reasons best known to her,(maybe she is frustrated at having to clear tables too),she piles used cups and bowls together in such a way that the straw or spoon would flick out and bless the customers around her.Oh believe me,she knows what she just did.It's just her way of entertaining herself.Staining your silk dress makes her smile.
Many a time I have seen customers young and old who do not want to offend her,but have a great deal of respect for the old man,so dissapointed that their dishes did not come out as per their order,cautiously proceed to ask her(as if they were entering a porcupine's den) if the one that they wanted was available(they would readily order and pay extra for another).
Without batting an eyelid she would proceed to tell them as a matter of fact that she told them it was sold out already,as if she derives great satisfaction in hammering the message in to them.This is not true,because at the time that you place your order,she would jot it down without any hint of the dish being sold out.
How to know if she is going to screw up your order?When she starts asking nonsensical questions like "would you like some prawns to go with it?" if you specified that you wanted a certain ingredient that does not have anything to do with prawns.Then she would repeat the order in another way and if you are naive enough like us two lady diners (actually suckers cum victims),to believe that she understood what we wanted,you are dead wrong.When you question her,she will tell you that she told you earlier when she actually didn't.
She is inconsiderate unlike the old man,his son,his other daughter and workers.
Maybe it's the old man's way of punishing her (probably she is as lan see at home)but she takes it out on customers without him knowing it.If he is not careful,she will spell doom for all the hardwork he has poured into making this business of his a success.
I think the only way to get the message through to her is to be rude and curt.Make her repeat your order as if she were an imbecile.If she still insists on a screw up,just get up,voice your displeasure to the old man about her attitude,reject the dish,walk away without paying and let him settle it with her.

Sin Sun Vood coffeeshop (Sang Yee Chicken porridge) @ Cintra Street (night)

Update : This stall is now open earlier even during daylight hours,and not only after 8.30pm.On top of that,they have a very pretty helper who also is praticising her bittergourd face.I give her 15 more years to match the old pony tailed shopowner and the fat lady who cannot get up from her chair's attitude

1. All the ladies manning this stall and the coffeeshop owner lady inside from young to old are in advanced stages of super menopause

2. The male owner of the coffeeshop that takes drinks order is a sourpuss bittergourd face that cannot smile because he thinks he is steven seagal

3. The stall owner is super superstitious.
cannot open stall before certain time
cannot request for plain porridge before her 20something-th bowl

4. You will go into depression after you eat here because everybody here looks so gloomy like they have a rain cloud on top of their head

Salsa's Restaurant @ Hotel Continental

1. Got lots of mat salleh here dining which means locals HAVE to compete for the waitress attention

2. If you are a local,in order to get better service it is best to order a bottle of wine or liqour.Or dress stylishly chic or casually rich! How stupid considering the food is average priced.

3. Food taste and presentation may be great from entree to main course but cake desserts here are lousyyyyyy. What a terrible way to end the meal !

4. Locals that dine here mostly act and dress very "up". You know? The kind that like to make you feel uncomfortable even if they are just regular wage earners? The type that wants you to believe she/he lives in a supercondo instead of a flat?

5. There are reminders on every table to rein in your kids(how rude!).You will not miss it they printed it on both sides and stuck the laminated reminder in the middle of the table

6. The manager looks like an oily faced and haired fan of leslie cheung who's still stuck in the 80's.someone get him an oil blotter.

Heng Huat Cafe Char Koay teow @ lorong Selamat(day)

1.The lady freak chef thinks her shower cap is a crown that makes her the queen of Lorong Selamat.her goggles make her immune to customers venom.

2.she is prone to giving you a piece of her mind if you dare to differ from her recipe

3.eat at your own risk bcos some customers have turned voilent and one has even thrown a brick at her due to reason no2 ( no joke,true story)