Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Satay House
14-OCT-2008:
Satay House is a Malaysian restaurant somewhere near Paddington in London. We went there for dinner with some friends last Saturday and I was reaaaallly looking forward to some good old Malay food - especially satay.
When we got there, friends (Ellen & family) were already there - I could see them through the glass window but the door was locked. There was a Malay waitress bustling about and I was pretty sure she saw me trying to get in but she seemed busy and there were only 2 occupied tables in there! Besides, there were people already standing outside the door trying to get in before we arrived. Finally, she walked forward and gestured to me to come in. I tried telling her that the door was locked but she didn't seem to understand. She was like only 1 1/2 steps away from the door - even if the door wasn't locked, it would have been reasonable to just open the damn door and welcome us in. Duh! It was just typical "true" Malaysian service, "true" as in excluding the "pendatangs".
So, we took our seats and ordered our food. I asked for a soya bean drink without ice. I said without ice not because I wanted more soya bean but because I really didn't want to drink anything cold (and not hot either) and I've just barely recovered from a heavy bleeding condition, for God's sake, if you know what I mean, but you know what, the glass came only 3/4 filled, because apparently if you do not want ice, they're not going to top up the extra space with more drink. I was rather gobsmacked but didn't say anything. Honestly, how much can 50ml of soya bean cost?
Despite everything else, the food was however delicious. We had rendang beef, chicken satay, sambal sotong, roti canai, mee goreng and fish curry (which I didn't notice until the dish was gone - I was quite busy picking vegetables out of Dom's mee goreng). And we had a good time catching up as well.
The verdict? Food was good, as I've mentioned. The bill came up to £87 for 5 adults and a 3-year-old - pretty expensive if you ask me - and we didn't even stuff ourselves. We pay about the same price whenever we eat out but the portion would normally be huge - not a half-filled glass of soya bean or things like that. Ellen told the waitress to keep the change. I would have taken every penny back, honestly, but I guess Ellen was in a hurry to catch the train and God knows how long it would take for the change to come back.
