This is going to be a review of an extremely lousy place I went with my family yesterday.
We bought Groupon vouchers for adult buffet at Malacca Celup at 115 East Coast Road. It was supposed to be satay-based 'lok lok' (food on stewers). Honestly, me and my sisters bought the vouchers hoping to have an enjoyable dinner with the family but it became the ultimate screw up dinner ever.
Do you know how hard it was for me to speak to someone to make a reservation per the Groupon condition? I called the first day and no one picks up the phone at the shop. I called the second day and still no one answered. Finally I googled for it's website and they indicated to SMS reservation to a certain mobile no. Great! I did it and I only received confirmation of my reservation the next day! Is it really that hard to pick up the bloody phone to confirm a reservation???
More 'surprises' came when we reached the restaurant on the day itself. Apparently, we are not entitled to seafood based on the vouchers we purchased. The voucher cost $10.45, which is 50% off the normal adult buffet. But there was no fine print stating seafood is additional charge. Fine! We proceeded to order seafood combo at $9.90, which comes with 4 skewers of cuttlefish, prawns and some clams (can't remember if there is anymore stuffs). But we waited for an hour and this combo never came. I had to tell the waitress who took the order that I want to cancel this combo since we are already halfway through the meal. Drinks are chargeable as well, even plain water.
Honestly, the food were not exactly fresh. It's basically frozen food like hotdogs, fishballs etc on skewers. And you know you can tell the freshness of ingredients especially crab sticks? The colour is just different and not as white? That's how the crab sticks they were serving looks like, not white and colour does not look fresh. The satay base for steamboat is also bland!
Finally we were done and wanted to go to the cashier to settle the bill. A Malay uncle with moustache came to our table and told us rudely that there would be charges for wastage. Honestly, this is bullshit because the customers in our next table also left with wastage and we did not see any staffs taking the wasted food, weigh them to find out what is the charge. We only saw the waitress clearing the food like clearing rubbish! My dad was do pissed with this uncle'a attitude that he said since we would be charged, he want to take away the food we are charged for. The lady cashier said we cannot do that as this is buffet. We highlighted to her that they did not charge the other customers so why the double standard to charge us. She said because their wastage is 300g and ours is 600g! WTF! This is bullshit double standard. The last straw was when she told us she would not charge us if we don't create a scene!
Superb customer service there.......not only is it a challenge to make a reservation, their attitude is horrible and rude and not to mention there were so many unmentioned terms and conditions!! Their food is not fantastic at all and with such service quality, all I can say to them is 'WELL DONE in screwing up your business'
For all readers out there, DO NOT purchase their groupon vouchers if it is still on sale now. There are many hidden costs that were not mentioned. Without the vouchers, DO NOT waste your money eating lousy food and experiencing lousy service. Trust me when I say you can get even better service at MacDonald's.
