Thursday 24 May 2018

Sedapnya Or Cantiknya? (Closed)


This restaurant should be renamed "Cantiknya". In terms of decor, it gets top marks. That's what caught my eye when Sedapnya@The Starling opened not too long ago.


My partner visited and his impression of the food was not encouraging. He specifically told me to avoid the meatball soup. According to him, the meatballs were mostly flour. 

I stopped by to look at the menu but nothing looked interesting to me. But one day I decided to check them out because I had run out of places to eat. Imagine that.


I love the decor. And I think TM will love those rattan chairs. 


Since I was alone, the set lunch was ideal.


It took me a while to decide as nothing really appealed to me. In the end I chose the Dark Honey Chicken Set. For drinks, there are only two choices, the Pandan Green Tea or Barley. Barley is so ordinary, so I chose the Pandan Green Tea only to regret it later.


My lunch. If you looked at the menu, this set is supposed to come with chicken chunks. 


But what I got were these battered strips of chicken. It tasted good, so I am not complaining. The sambal (dried prawns sambal I think) was good. 


The stir fried cabbage was ordinary.


There was a piece of omelette served on the rice. Nothing special.


I was served a soup later and I'm afraid it was tasteless.


As for the Pandan Green Tea, OMG. It was pandan juice. Seriously guys, if you want to serve pandan water, you boil the pandan leaves for the fragrance and then add syrup. This concoction has a very vile green taste. Do not order this drink unless if you like the taste of raw green leaves.

I do not judge a restaurant based on one visit, unless if it was really bad. So I went back another day. This time I chose from the main menu, the Nasi Nonya. Yup, nonya, in spite of my misgivings about nonya restaurant food.

The server informed me that the rice is yellow rice but it was "not cooked yet". I don't know if that meant they haven't started cooking the yellow rice (which I presume is nasi kunyit although from the photo in the menu, it looked like white rice) or the rice is still in the process of cooking. Then she asked if white rice was OK with me, so I agreed.


This is how it looked like. The presentation is so...... how shall I say....... clinical. The fried chicken was nice, the fried egg yolk was runny just the way I like it but the sambal ikan bilis was not to my liking. It tasted like those canned ikan bilis sambal.

As for those miserable slices of cucumber, well, if you are serving a nonya dish, it would be nice to have nonya acar instead, don't you think?


The server had to flip a few of the menus to find the drinks as some did not have the drinks menu attached. In the end I chose the barley which was nice because it was not too sweet.

There was a couple in front of me later and the gentleman ordered the Pandan Green Tea. I was on the lookout for his reaction. So kaypoh, right? He took a sip and I could see that he was not liking it.

So that's it for me. Yes, they should be called Cantiknya.

Update : On 7 December 2018, this was what I saw. Honestly, I am not surprised.


22 comments:

  1. The place is lovely and nicely decorated. Sayang, the food looked so-so.

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    1. Yes, if only the food is as lovely as the decor.

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  2. Yes, nice place but the food looks kinda ordinary, nothing to get excited about.

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  3. I think they should call it nyonya-nya-not! :D I see they serve mainly nyonya dishes (from the menu) but it has yet again failed the PH-test...kekeke! ;) I don't know what's so nyonya about the Nasi Nyonya to be frank....the dish looks disjointed. Sometimes, I find that restaurants put so much effort in the decor instead of the food.

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    1. hee..hee... yeah, it's such a shame that the emphasis is on the decor instead of the food. I think they have to do something to improve or else all that renovation cost is going to be wasted.

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  4. Cantik indeed! I don't mind eating there. xoxo

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    1. Well, twice is good enough for me :)

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  5. I can't believe you ran out of places in uptown! I have seen the staff of this eatery at jaya grocer and he asked me is this yau mak holding a vege cos I guessed the cook asked him to buy yau mak. I nearly ate there but did not. Guess I won't be eating there now.

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    1. Actually there are some restaurants that I have not explored because I don't find the menu interesting enough for me.

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  6. That is a cheery design. I'm often attracted to setting.

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    1. That's what attracts first and it's important to be followed up by offerings that would attract our tastebuds.

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  7. You are so scary to have left all your foot trails inside all restaurants in the whole Starling and Uptown. I am sure you are now the real "Uptown Girl" or Tai Kar Chieh. Have you tried eating at "A Pie Thing"?

    I have passed this Sedap Nya so many times and the last was just last night when I went to collect my voucher prize from Book Excess. I really admire the beautiful walls of this restaurant and thought they are so creative yet thrifty to use white umbrellas to light up the walls. So serene and charming with my favourite rattan chairs waiting for me! Now looking at your food ordered, I think the food is not very exciting enough to lure my wife to dine there. I need to go alone and brag to her later.

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    1. I have not tried A Pie Thing yet, in fact there are still other restaurants I haven't tried yet. If you go and try the food, let me know you think.

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  8. I should jio TM to go The Starling and see if we will bump into Ah Hong Chee there...

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  9. Aiyo ... but I guess from the looks of it, this is a brand that might have been set up with the intention of becoming a chain ... so maybe there’ll be a few more Sedaps springing up in other malls soon. Hopefully they will rework their menu and execution before then!

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    1. The food definitely needs some work before they talk franchise :)

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  10. The decor is nice but the food very normal and ordinary

    Ya sometimes i also run out of ideas what to eat, everyday has to think of where to eat what to eat

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    1. I have been bringing food from home to solve my problem.

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  11. I absolutely love the decor but the food.....not really appealing :(

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    1. Yeah, that's why it took me so long to visit.

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