Cari Makan @ Kuala Lumpur: California Pizza Kitchen (CPK)

December 31st 2009, KLCC, Kuala Lumpur. The last dinner of the year was also our last 2009 blogger gathering. One of the blogger has organized this event @ this popular California Pizza Kitchen (CPK).

We arrived @ 8pm, we quoted the organizer name and the lady manager sent her assistant to let us know they don't have a table for 12... so we called up the organizer whom were on his way. After a bit of hooha... they finally setting up tables for us. The next thing we realized that they were combining three round tables to make up a big table for us... and a couples of chairs... what surprised me was the two stools was slotted in and it became part of the chair.

Hawker food center table setting in a Full Service Restaurant

Hmm... first thing came into my mind... Is this a new theme that California Pizza Kitchen has for Twenty Ten? "A HOMEY MEAL: Make your self @ Home" ... new setup for its guest... even our house table and chair is way way better than this...

Blogger A: Wow! they actually setup like our canteen table...
Blogger B: Is there any chance that we could get a table inside?
Manager : Even you wait we couldn't get you a table for 10 people. You might have to sit separately.
Me: Now. how could you give this setup for us? *pointing to the two stools*
Manager: *Angrily shouting* The chair can be changed.

Then she walked back into the restaurant and left us outside the restaurant... BTW, is this how a Full Service Restaurant Manager treated their customers... Later, i saw them taking out two chairs and replace the stools with the chairs...

Since our organizer agreed to take whatever we could get... we accepted the table... Guess what? straight after we sat down... there were a group of 10 peoples (mix of Caucasion and non-caucasion) walked in and requesting for a table... The front desk staff registered one of their name into the list and asking the group to sit @ the sofa beside the front desk to wait for their table... Later, the staff ushered the group to walk into the restaurant for their table. I straightaway felt that we were cheated and discriminated over what the manager told us earlier ... she was lying or what?... can i say that the restaurant management is racist too?

Let's fast forward to the food & baverage, I ordered a cocktail for my drink which i would say it should be listed in the Mocktail session under the menu... No alcohol taste at all, just sugar water and got charged for RM18++ ... sigh~... The food on the other hand was so dissatisfied... it was so sooo salty... Especially the Garlic Noodles was salty and oily too... it was nice on my last visit but really disappointed... Maybe you could argue that this was not their specialty... hmmm.... the pizza we ordered was NOT good... NOT cheezy and it tasted salty too.

Anyway, there is ONE LITTLE good things that i would like to mention over here. One of the staff (i should have asked him for his name) was very responsive towards his customer requests... I requested Parmesan cheese... and... the next thing i knew... the cheese was on the table... I thought it would take forever or even better NOT appear on the table given we encountered such a bad first impression of their customers service... ;p

Overall, I would NOT recommend this place to anyone... three words to describe DISAPPOINTED, BAD customers service and NOT VALUE for money... We spent around RM500 for 10 person dinner in this SELF-CLAIMED Full Service Restaurant... which i was not convinced.

Summary rating:
First Impression (greeting customer) : 0/5
Ambience (table setting, environment) : 0/5
Customer Service (Serving food, response to customer request) : 0.5 /5
Food & baverage (taste, quality, value for money) : 0 /5
Overall rating : 0.5 / 5

NOT RECOMENDED