vkeong loves good food, travel and photography!
Queensbay
T.G.I. Fridays @ Queensbay Mall
Dec 21st
THIS RESTAURANT IS NON-HALAL!
Recently I got a lot of hits from Google for [tag]TGI Fridays[/tag] and [tag]Queensbay[/tag] searches. Mostly because of a SmallTalk Queensbay post I made few weeks ago. This is the first TGI restaurant in [tag]Penang[/tag] so everybody is quite curious. Anyway here you go, photos of the restaurant (whether you want to see it or not 
) And please pardon the quality lol, sometimes I take really bad photos.
Photos of the food at TGI Friday’s is not available yet.. Well I should have had them if it wasn’t fully booked last Monday. I was there and the only seats left were around the bar. What’s worse it was a smoking area. So it was a no-no for us.
“In here it’s always Friday”, and I do agree to that.
1901 Hot Dog
Dec 17th
When I first saw [tag]1901 Hot Dog[/tag], I thought it’s a US-based fast food franchise. But it turns out that 1901 is actually a local franchise started back in 1997. The founders are Tengku Rozidar and A. Zakir, who named it 1901 based on hot dog’s history.
The term hot dog was coined in 1901 by a sports cartoonist named Tad Dorgan. He was at the New York Polo Grounds, where he had heard some vendors selling red hot dachshund sausages. This prompted him to draw a cartoon of a real dachshund covered with mustard on a bun. Since he did not know how to spell dachshund he wrote on the caption “get your hot dogs.” The cartoon was a hit and the name persisted.
1901 offers hot dogs like New York Chicken (the best), Texas Ted, Minnesota Twins, Chicago Beef etc. Each hot dog can be differentiated by their unique combination of ingredients. By the way, these are bought in [tag]Queensbay[/tag] 
For New York Chicken, it would be mayonaise and pickles. Tastes good, definitely the best hot dog among all.
Mustard for Chicago Beef. Not as good as New York Chicken but if you like beef, why not?
I had my first taste of 1901 hot dog in Midvalley Megamall’s cinema complex last year. It’s quite boring to have popcorns every movie session. 1901 is doing very well, having to opened around 30 outlets in [tag]Malaysia[/tag]. Soon, it will be venturing overseas to Saudi Arabia. Quite a feat for Bolehland considering it started just from a hot dog stand in Sunway Pyramid. I feel that 1901 can be more popular and competitive if they could lower their prices. A set meal of a hot dog and a soft drink already costs around RM5-6. That’s also the price for a set meal in McD (with fries).
Siam Express @ Queensbay
Dec 10th
If there is a list of restaurants doomed to fail because of bad management and service, Siam Express will definitely be on it.
As seen from this, Siam Express has an outlet each in Gurney Plaza and [tag]Queensbay[/tag]. Also, I notice that most [tag]Thai food[/tag] restaurants like to use black as the theme. Just Thai in 1-Utama would be an example. In Siam Express, all waiters dress in black and food is served in black plates. Heck, even the environment is dark.
I ordered a plate of Seafood Tomyam Fried Rice Wrapped in Omelette because it sounded nice. But what arrived later was a real disappointment, look at its portion! And that pathetically thin layer of omelette! Taste wise it was quite good, but the price RM12.90 for something like this is unjustified.
Pineapple Fried Rice @ RM12.90 tasted bland. And pineapples were given in tiny bits, not chunks. Compared to Just Thai’s version of pineapple fried rice, this one loses by miles.
During the meal, we requested for belacan from a young waitress for the bland Pineapple Fried Rice. She totally forgot about it like 2 minutes later and we had to call for another waiter. This time, it took him 5 minutes to search for a saucer plate and fill it with belacan. And they still dared to charge us 10% for the lousy service. What service? Worse still, we saw a couple being shouted at by one of the elderly worker. She instructed them to pay at the counter instead of bringing them the bill. So, please avoid this Thai food restaurant altogether if you are in Queensbay. Until they change their staff’s attitude, I don’t see any reason to patronize Siam Express at all.
Beard Papa’s and Queensbay Mall
Dec 7th
It has been approximately 1 week since [tag]Queensbay Mall[/tag] opened its doors to shoppers in Penang. Since then I have been there for 5 times! Once even before it opened, just to have a glimpse of what the largest and longest mall in Northern Malaysia will look like. And to think that some jealous competitors spreading false news via SMS 2 weeks ago about a collapse in Queensbay Mall.. Hmm, what a cheap tactic.
[tag]Beard Papa’s[/tag] is something new here. It was attracting a lot of passersby so I decided to have a look. Apparently Beard Papa’s is known as the bakery of the “World’s Best Cream Puffs“. And of course, I think that’s self-claimed
A lady who saw me approaching immediately tried to convince me to buy a couple of cream puffs to try. The conversation goes like this,
Lady: Hey hey, wanna try some cream puffs? They are very nice one.
Me: Hmm, how much for a piece?
Lady: Only RM15 per box of 5, and RM3.30 if bought individually. Buy now and keep in the fridge, tommorow still can eat lah~
Me: HAR? RM3.30 for one? So expensive!
Lady: No lah. Once you try, you won’t feel it’s expensive. It’s very worth one!
Me: (Thinks for a while…) OK lah, try something new.
This is how a Beard Papa’s World’s Best Cream Puff looks like – crispy on the outside and topped with icing sugar.
A bite reveals the vanilla cream in the cream puff. It tasted like the egg custard in egg tarts, just not as sweet and milkier.
In the center of Queensbay Mall are 3 big Christmas trees which remind me of the ones in KLCC. They are beautifully lit and provide a great spot for visitors to take photos.
If you have never seen the huge Christmas trees in KLCC, looking at the ones in Queensbay Mall will do as well – just imagine enlarging them 2-3x bigger Oh yeah, T.G.I Friday’s is already open? Ooooh, can’t wait to have their Mocha Mud Pie again :drool:
