Friday, August 03, 2007

New World Park, Penang – Rou Gu Cha King aka Bak Kut Teh King

New World Park is located between the junction of Burmah Road and Swatow lane. In 1970’s to 80’s this place damn famous, it was an amusement park on that time. After that this place had been abandon there for a long long time. Hawkers located on Swatow lane are famous, especially their Ice kacang, Popiah, Laksa, Pasembur and many others. One or two years back, Robert Kwok’s group had decided to redevelop this place. They wanted to make New World Park to become one of the tourist attractions in Penang. Inside this place you can find food, shopping, clubbing, bistro, cyber café and many others. Most of the hawkers from Swatow lane had move into the food court of New World Park. You can get lots of local delicacies here.



1st Aug is the grand opening for the main park, so I had decided to go there to search for some good food. When I reach there, I was sort of disappointed because not all the shops are open. Only 4 to 5 shops opened on that day and most of the shops are still under renovation. Just because there are only a few shops over there, we had notice a shop name Rou Gu Cha King which means King of Bak Kut Teh. The first thing that came into my mind was this shop is good. WHY? Because in Penang, a food heaven and they still dare to claim themselves as King of Bak Kut Teh, this means that they are really something. Furthermore they had an outlet in Shanghai.





We decided to dine in this shop. After enter the shop, we realize that almost all the tables were occupied. The waiter showed us to table, after sitting for 5 minutes, I started to feel uncomfortable because of the hot environment although the shop was equipped with Air-Con but still hot. We complain to the waiter and he told us that their curtain blower for the door is still not ready. By looking at the menu, they have really lots of selection for Bak Kut Teh, they have original, dry, red wine flavored, spicy, BKT Mee, BKT porridge and many others. We were attracted by the menu but we were told not all the things are available yet when we wanted to order spicy BKT. So in the end we ordered Original BKT, Dry BKT and BKT Mee





For 1 person of Bak Kut Teh set meal which includes BKT, rice, bean sprout, Yau Char Kuai and tea is RM 10.90. To me the price is moderate I won’t complain it to be too expensive. When the set was served, the portion is really really small. The BKT was served in a mini size clay-pot with only a few pieces of meat and other ingredients. The soup taste weird because it was a bit on sour site and doesn’t really have the fragrant of Chinese herbs at all.





The service here was really poor as to me all the waiter are fresh and doesn’t have any experience before. As I mention, our set meal included a tea. A few waiters walking by our table keep asking what drink do we wanted to order, we told him we ordered set and include a tea. After a few minutes later another waiter walks by and asked the same question again. We totally were asked for four times and waited 15 minutes just for the tea. The original BKT was served quite fast, but the dry one took around 40 minutes. I am not sure what they are doing in the kitchen. If they don’t improve on their service, soon they will lose their customer. The Dry BKT doesn’t taste any special, is just like Kung Poh, dark soya sauce with dried chilies. The BKT Mee that we ordered was also the same, taste like Kung Poh and no fragrant of BKT or Chinese here.

Overall we were quite disappointed with the service and the food that we received from this shop. Is the first day opening of the shop so that I didn’t blame much, but I do really hope that can improve on their food and also service. I am not sure I will be there again or not …… Maybe when BKT King comes to Penang, I will bring him there as BKT king can go and screw the chef….. hehe

Makan King's ratings = 4 out of 10

Cheers,
-Wasabi King-

15 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

heard that there is a BKT stall in Pulau tikus are famous for Abalone BKT. My fren say a claypot of abalone BKT cost around rm 300 .... haha ... wonder how it taste like ...

Anyway thanks for sharing the info as I plan to go NEW World Park this weekend.... Dont think i would still wana try rou gu cha king....

1:47 AM, August 05, 2007  
Blogger Lingzie said...

i also didn't really like rou gu cha king. my parents went again after my visit and they said the same thing - poor service and not that great food. hopefully they will improve since they are still new.

7:08 PM, August 09, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have been there yesterday and I would say that I agree with u.... poor services and poor food.

10:50 AM, August 13, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

i only managed to visit the restaurant yesterday, quite packed with crowds. personally i felt comfortable with their concept-restaurant typed of deco & ambience.

price was quite reasonable considering i was dining at air-cond environment, about RM10-12/head was acceptable.

after reading various comments, i think their service has improved, their staff seemed to be quite friendly and had courtesy to explain their dishes & made good recommendations. the food was ok especially i liked the bah kut teh was served boiling hot!

will definitely going back to patronise rou gu cha king again as i'm anxiously waiting for their special spices to come from china... :)

5:28 PM, August 14, 2007  
Blogger kee said...

i just visited rou gu cha king last weekend, i like the place, can chit chat and drink premium chinese tea. I took the rou gu cha king noodle and order a red wine rou gu cha, very nice and special.

12:35 PM, August 30, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Those picture you captured already portray the taste of the foods = not nice!.. Better go to Klang, there are more variety, cheaper and tastier..

11:06 PM, September 02, 2007  
Blogger Makan Kings said...

anonymous: Yup, there is a BKT stall located at Parma Food Court in Pulau Tikus and that stall serve Abalone BKT. They are expensive, havent try before as we are still saving money for that.

lingzie: Yup, agree with you. Hopefully they will improve their service.

alvan: Seems like you are the big Fans of Rou Gu Cha King. So detailed introduction on that shop that you had given. When I was there, it was totally different. First impression is really improtant for a shop, right now no matter how many people had good comments on them, I will not go back again. Sorry to said that.

Kee: Yup, there serve premium chinese tea with premium price.

Anonymous: As people said picture tells a thousand words. So you are right !!! BTW, I like Klang BKT.

3:02 PM, September 04, 2007  
Blogger kee said...

makan king?? u must change your name to CONman king. you please don't simply use other people name to comment. Don't make this blog become a lousy and con people blog. I never comment and say about premium price. Only poor people worry about price. I only care about quality and my lifestlye quality. Please be honest to yourself. Then only you know how to live your life. I really don't know how anonymous, lingzie, alvan feel about Conman king using their name to comment. I am sure they feel conned by you too. So I looking forward to see their comment on you. Hope you be a good boy, don't use my name to simply comment again. THANKS.

11:36 PM, September 06, 2007  
Blogger Makan Kings said...

Kee,

I think that -Wasabi King- was using your name because he was REPLYING TO YOU!!

This is the standard format for us when we reply comments. How else would people know we're replying to them?

If you are going to be so sensitive about it I'll remove all your comments and also get -Wasabi King- to re-write his replies to exclude yours.

Our blog is here for us to share our opinions. READ....O-U-R!! Not anyone else. If you cant stand it, please stop reading. There are a million other food blogs and you are more than welcomed to browse through them on the links we have on the right of our page.

Cheers,
-BKT King-

9:04 AM, September 07, 2007  
Blogger Makan Kings said...

Kee,

Can you please read carefully before leaving any comments. I am just replying to you saying that they serve premium tea with premium price. When did I use your name? If you do not understand then please ask, dont straight away flame us on that.

Over here we are just trying to share our dining experience with other readers. You may not agree on what we had written and said over here. Furthermore you said that "only poor people worry about price", I totally disagree with you. Are you trying look down on the poor?? Poor people doesnt deserve to have good food?? What are you trying to tell us?? Is it that you are rich enough and you can pay for anything without worrying??

All the while I am honest to myself, why would someone need to cheat himself? We, Makankings obviously know how to live of life, and thanks for your concern.

Cheers,
-Wasabi King-

1:59 PM, September 07, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thats is, I'm planning another trip back to Malaysia again.... You guys were lucky to have all the nice food in one town...

12:25 PM, October 28, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

not sure what you foodie blogs are arguing of... a pot of tea?? I'm not quite sure this is a foodie site or what... A Malaysian friend recommend me to take a look...Is how Malaysian culture supposed to be?? Arguing over a pot of tea & who is right or wrong?? Shame on you...

12:31 PM, October 28, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

anonymous,

As the owner of this blog had said, If you cant stand or dont like, please stop reading. No one force u to this page, unless ur mum did .... hehehe.....Get a life.....U dont like it, we like it .....

10:40 PM, October 30, 2007  
Blogger Rasa Malaysia said...

You should go back there again as now all shops are open. I recently was there for a food photography project for my sponsor Shanghai Ding...great food, cheap, and awesome location. I did see this BKT King, but didn't smell any BKT smell when passing by so I knew it wasn't good. :P

2:37 PM, November 15, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Puppy:
thank you rasa malaysia. u teach me a way to save money. next time i can smell the shop then will know good or not. then no need taste the food. hehehe

5:50 PM, November 25, 2007  

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