Awana...Alamak

I have decided to return to my roots: Food, food, food.

Or rather, sharing my opinions about food.

Having lived in London for almost a year now, and having been exposed to a range of food quality and service, I think it's time to start reviewing the food scene as I see (or eat) it.

Unfortunately, what convinced me to start writing is a negative experience. Oops, sorry. But I've a good reason: This time, I had pictures (courtesy of my friend, Christina Quek) so here we go.

Awana is a swanky Malaysian restaurant in the SW3 area. It serves so-called high-end Malaysian food in an atmospheric space, and there's also a bar and satay bar.

I was there as part of a group to celebrate Ramadan, and we had an all-in menu. Now, given that we paid 20 pounds for this special lunch, I didn't expect huge portions, but what we got was a laughing joke and a lesson in what NOT to do if you want to entice potential customers to come back and pay for a full meal.

First things first, this was the food line-up:

Starters: Popiah sayur goreng, chicken satay, roti canai.
Mains: Ayam masak merah, rendang daging awana, cha bee hoon

With the accompanying descriptions, I was salivating at the tantalising tasting menu.

Alamak

Well, I got to salivate indeed. That's because the portions were utterly miserable! I was at a table of five, and my god we got five sticks of satay. I do NOT mean five sticks each, by the way. Yes, we got ONE stick per person.

Yup, you read right.

Now, since when have a Malaysian or Singapore been happy to have ONE stick of satay?! **roll eyes**

It was not a good sign.

There were also spring rolls, which were okay but totally forgettable. Again, we could only have small bites, and not a whole spring roll each... Gulp.

To add insult to injury, we got like 1.5 roti canai - again to share within FIVE adults. I nearly died.

It was ridiculous. Do YOU feed your guests a morsel of prata when they come over, and give them a handful of chips and say that's it?!

At this point, I thought okay............ Maybe it's just me, everyone seem to be going along with it, taking dainty little slices. I thought. The prata itself was again, mediocre.

The main courses arrived. This time, they were served in proper large-ish serving bowls and we were all given rice (thank god they were a bit more generous then they were with the starters). But again, the food was only okay but really nothing to write home about. And no way were we able to actually eat to our hearts' content. Did they weigh the portions on a digital scale or something?

The beef rendang was the only thing I can actually remember, and even then it was wastered down, to placate the angmoh palate I guess. I far far far prefer the version at Satay House. In fact, when I think back to the gathering at Satay House about three months back, we could NOT even finish the food! And there were about 10-12 of us at the table!

Back at Awana, we were done with the main dishes, and sat back to await some sort of dessert, and some tea or coffee to wash it down.

We waited....And waited. And waited some more.

Finally, we could not take it anymore.

"Er, was that it?" we asked the co-organiser. With a look of embarrassment and indignation, she said, "Yes, I am afraid so. The restaurant wanted to charge us some outrageous amount for a single dessert."

Goodness gracious.

I've gone for at about three of these events, each time with the intention of making friends but equally as an opportunity to try new food places.

I guess you can figure from my post here but NO WAY I WILL GO BACK to Awana!

It's a pity because I thought the wait staff was just superb. Genuine, obliging and very friendly. The management is really letting them down with such appalling portions. Talk about sending out wrong vibes. So sayang.

Totally off, man. Totally off.

When I asked an Awana regular, she said that the murtabak is not bad, but standards have gone down. But at 8pounds per murtabak, it's just daylight robbery. Even with the 50% discount that apparently you can download on the Internet, I am not persuaded at all. At these prices, it's really mediocre grub.

I would rather go back to Satay House, pay full price, suffer the rubbish t service there, and know for sure the food's gonna be better.