Monday, May 30, 2011

Glamorous Wok

Glamorous Wok
Shop K4, Sunny Park Shopping Centre, 342 McCullough St, Sunnybank



Now here's a bit of a story...

A couple weeks back, mum and dad took me to this new Chinese restaurant in Sunnybank. We ate, I took photos, blah blah blah... I ended up not being able to blog the place because I didn't know what the restaurant was called in English.



I thought this was a shame because I actually had a lot to say about it.

Lo and behold, just the other day, someone posted a comment on one of my New Zealand posts saying 'you should write about Glamarous Wok!'



I didn't know what that was so I Googled it and it turned out to be that restaurant. Amazing. Well to me, it was quite obviously written by the owner or someone similar... though they weren't very tactical because they didn't even bother pretending it was a legitimate comment under a relevant post.

Well I'm glad. Because now I can get my opinion out there.

It wasn't too busy when we got there at lunchtime. The place is decked out really nice with shiny, flashy menus. We ordered a few dishes and sat, and waited.

Stir-fried intestines and snake beans

The first to arrive was stir-fried intestines with snake beans. It was a very flavorsome dish and I actually didn't mind it. It was heavy with garlic and shallot and a bit on the oily side but that's not unusual for restaurant food. My dad didn't like that all the aromatics were cut coarsely and he thought it was garlic overload in an attempt to create flavor cheaply.

Luffa and clam stew

Our next dish was luffa and clam stew. This was, in my opinion, disgusting. There was practically no seasoning and the clams were very fishy (obviously frozen). There were no redeeming features here. We munched at the luffa, convincing ourselves that if nothing else, it contained fibre.

Golden fried rice

The fried rice arrived. I couldn't help but overhear a table adjacent to ours complaining that their fried rice hadn't arrived and they had no rice to eat their dishes with. In fact, I heard them complain 3 times to different staff members. Our fried rice didn't cause that much trouble but it was completely unexciting. It was named their 'golden fried rice' and we couldn't see anything good about it. I dare say it was worst than most takeaway fried rices. It was gluggy rice with boring contents.

Grilled beef ribs

We waited ages for our grilled beef ribs, to the point where we nearly thought about cancelling the order. When they arrived, we were shocked by how small the portion was. They weren't cheap so we figured... hey, this might be a really good cut of meat cooked very delicately. Totally wrong. There was nothing special about the flavor but moreover, the meat tasted like it was from some throwaway carcass. There were lots of sinew and bone. I could barely tear the flesh with my teeth. It was a real struggle.

I probably don't have to spell it out but we had a terrible first impression of Glamorous Wok. My family gets very excited about new Asian restaurants and they're rarely as disappointing as this was. What's strange (and I think it's fair to mention this) is that the other day, weeks after I went, Mochi told me her friends HIGHLY recommended this place and that it was very difficult to get a booking. Either somethings changed (e.g. the whole cooking staff) or I'm crazy or someone's crazy. I did think they might have a good tea menu because the waitstaff were trying to push us to order some... but we didn't end up doing so. Maybe their tea is just that amazing that it overshadows their shortcomings... who knows!

7 comments:

  1. i keep seeing people checking into this place on my fb feed, and just read another (positive) blog entry on this place today, hence was starting to form a good impression of the food there, until i read your blog entry. guess i'll have to check it out for myself sometime.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi quop...

    I'm a bit baffled as well! Another friend of mine last night said she heard it was good. I feel a bit like the wicked witch with my negative opinion but I stand by what they say. Maybe we were very unlucky in ordering bad dishes but a) there shouldn't even be 'bad' dishes and b) all of them were bad, not just 1 or 2.

    It's more likely that they just improved over time. Perhaps we went when it was still early days and slightly disorganized.

    ReplyDelete
  3. well certainly very interesting..then again i have been to a restaurant or two and was quite shock at the level of quality presented despite being only a week apart!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Joe...

    Have you been? How did you find it?

    ReplyDelete
  5. i tried going yesterday to get my own view but was too late, kitchen closed already :( guess i have to try again!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I live just around the area, have to say it's really over-rated.
    I only go there for the milk tea!

    Deb

    ReplyDelete
  7. I've just been there tonight. It's really nice. something that I've never expect from a Taiwanese restaurant. The fit out, services... outstanding !!

    ReplyDelete