boon's log 4707.03: Sesame + Soy Experience

IL and I decided to take a drive downtown to check out one of the new fine-dining restaurants in Penang. It's called Sesame+Soy at the G Hotel along Gurney Drive.

This is not your normal fine dining experience. They actually put a little twist to fine dining, where they fuse artistic dining with chinese cuisine; while most fine dining is western cuisine-centric.

IL was rather impressed with the very first impression given by the restaurant staffs. There was a waiter waiting, outside the restaurant, for us. And he id'd us by my last name. So, it's either (A) there's not too many customers and he's free, or (B) he genuinely did his homework. Yeah, we've made reservations before hand, but knowing Penang (and given it's on a weekday), I'd go with option (A).

Anyway, the atmosphere was nice, really gives you that exquisite ambiance, warm, cozy and not too crowded. The staffs were very accomodating as well.

We kicked off with a Margarita for the lady and a Mojito Breeze for me.


Refreshing Margarita

They have an a la carte menu and then there's the Tasting Menu - 4 variants (from RM58 - RM98). Tasting Menus are 7-8 course combinations.


Sesame Menu

We've decided to go for the Tasting menu before hand, we went ahead with that. Of course the more you pay, the better the choices... We decided on the RM68 and RM88, which included dishes like pan fried salmon and pumpkin, stir-fried chicken, tiger prawn, eggplant and yam, slow cooked shanghainese pork belly with crispy rice noodles and vegetable, gula melaka crème brulee with coconut ice cream and red bean paste pancake ....


Tasting Menus...

How did they fair? Read on...

The Looks (**** out of 5)
The food was well presented; much attention were given to the details. Typical fine dining style - big funny looking plates with petite portion of food. I've gotta give it to them for the effort they put in making food look beautiful. Like what some would say - it's so pretty, I cannot bring myself to dive my fork into it...


Century Egg with Tofu..

The taste however, is a little bit on the lacking side. Not that it's yucky, but to me, it's lacking a Chinese-ish (or soul, according to some) in the preparation. Certain ones were okay, like the Quail Soup and the Pork Belly. However, the soup that IL had was rather bland (Pumpkin Chicken Soup).


Fried Katafi Crab

I was quite interested to meet the chef, since I'm thinking that he (or she) may not necessarily be Chinese, considering that the taste is lacking that Chinese-qi :P - but I forgot about it until I arrived at the car. Perhaps next time... ;)


Boiled Quail Soup

The Service (*** out of 5)
Well, I've mentioned that IL was quite impressed with having one of the waiter waiting to greet us outside the restaurant. There's the waiter who brought us to our table, and introduced us to our waiter for the night, Jason. We, thought... impressive and western.

The good impression soon took a dip when Jason handed us our drinks and food menu and immediately asked us what we wanted to drink. I was like, "Dude, gimme me a minute, will ya?" Anyways, told him politely to give us a minute.


Chick and Prawn Combo

After the orders were taken, came the second service-blow. IL decided on the RM68 while I took the RM88 menu. However, they started off the first 2 dishes correctly. But when the 3rd one came, they swapped our orders. we did not notice it until the 4th dish when we asked them about it. anyways, we did not really mind, but being a "upper class" restaurant as they claimed to be, they should not be allowing this sort of mistake. What's more, they just apologise (as a matter of fact-ly) and went on serving us.

IL finished her 4th dish while I was still working on my Stuffed Crab Claw. So, they retrieved IL's plate and served her with her 5th, while they left my Salmon in the middle of the table. That's number Three. I was tempted to swap my plate upon finishing #4, but I decided that I should let them do it. So I waited for about 2 minutes before they realized that they needed to remove my plate and move the Salmon from the middle of the table to my side of the table. Rather disappointing...


Pan fried salmon

Oh and half way through Jason transformed into another guy named NJ - which we believe was the culprit who swapped our orders. But both of them were very friendly - we were guessing that that's probably because we were the rare ones who ordered the Tasting menu (while others just settled with the a la carte).


Pork Belly

Chinese Tea's on the house and there's hot towels to end your nice evening's dining experience...

Dollars and Cents (***)
We think that it's not really THAT expensive. We ended up paying about RM180. UOB credit card holders have a 15% discount BUT only on a la carte orders (!!!), not applicable for Tasting Menus - we weren't really in a mood to argue with them - so, we signed and left.

Took us about 2.5 hours to complete the entire course and we were so full at the end. We thought it was going to last 2hours, max and that we will not be filled since it's fine dining - where they charge you a lot for very little food. But we were wrong... IL could not even finish her dessert.


Creme Brulee with coconut ice cream

Oh speaking of the bill. When we were finally in the car - IL noticed that they forgot to charge us for our Margarita and Mojito which was RM22 each - so, they actually "gave" us a 28% discount. We loved that restaurant! So we figured that you need to have the right combination of orders in order to enjoy the drinks on the house... That'll be the RM68 and RM88 menus with Margarita and Mojito Breeze.

... and that's the price that they have to pay for not giving us our 15% UOB card discount! (Ha!).

The Final Verdict (***)
It was a nice experience. But comparing to other places like Ferringhi Grill or Bagan, I believe they still have quite some room for improvement in terms of service. And they need to work on their timing.

I don't mind the free drinks part, though - keep 'em coming.

Of course, definitely can improve on the taste. I will remember to request to meet the chef the next time I'm there. Well, yeah, there you go - Will I ever go back there again? Yes, most probably.

Oh by the way, why (or what's) Sesame + Soy? Soy is the first room as you enter the restaurant that serves bistro-type a.k.a. casual food (e.g. noddles, snacks. etc) while Sesame's the inner second room overlooking the G Hotel Lobby that offers modern and fine dining menus (some call it slightly on the high-end part).


Sesame+Soy at the G Hotel

boon out...