Waka Japanese Restaurant @ Bayview, Penang: Most Disappointing Japanese Buffet!

Well, I'm rather disappointed at the moment after my Japanese buffet dinner at Waka Japanese Restaurant (WJR) @ City Bayview Hotel, Penang. Perhaps, I was having high hopes for great Japanese foods there. My colleague recommended this place to me a few weeks ago, highlighting their large oysters.

I'd planned to eat at WJR since early this week (think I'm take my eating too seriously nowadays, planning so ahead of time). I must admit I'm not a fan of buffet as it's just silly to eat in large quantities to justify the amount we're paying. However, I always end up 'trying' buffets and then regretting eating it post-buffet. My buffet dinner at WJR was no different, aii.

To cut my nagging short, I'd put my comments and descriptions at the photos that I took when I went eating (NOT stuffing) at WJR yesterday.

Waka Japanese Restaurant entrance. I actually called to make a reservation for myself but it was not necessary. The buffet dinner is only on Friday, 6.30pm - 10pm. Fewer than 10 people (actually 7, including me) were eating here yesterday.

View from my seat. On the left is one long table with sushi on one side and miso + soba on another side (sadly, only one table...no, just half able for sushi only!) . There are oysters, fruits and salad on another long table just beside me (not seen in photo). The table in front of me contain cooked foods such as fried oysters, fried chicken, beef, fried rice, etc.

First 'boat' containing sashimi; slices of salmon, tuna.
Sushi, salmon and tuna. Generous portions (actually, all you can eat) but lacking in inherent taste. The salmon and tuna taste was negligible (luckily got soya sauce and wasabi) and a bit stubborn texture when eating it, as though just defrosted.



Salmon. I must mention here that I found 2 small fish bones (both in salmon), so please eat slowly.

Second 'boat' containing oysters. It's actually about medium sized only. I'd ate bigger oyster before and this is definitely not the 'big' size that my colleague mentioned.

Close-up photo of the oyster. Small to medium sized oyster only.

My selection of oysters. The good and bad? Good that it's still fresh, luckily. Bad? Not washed properly, felt some sandy particles when eating it.
Assorted sushi. Only TWO plates (see below photo for second plate) ! Wtf?! How can a sushi buffet only have two plates of sushi? Varieties were really limited here and nothing exciting, as though I go there just to eat their salmon.
2nd plate of assorted sushi: the rice taste sweet and nice but the fillings were bland, as though just bought from Jaya Jusco sushi corner, lousy. Hello??? I came for varieties and exciting dining, not to stuff myself like a pig with salmons and lousy assorted sushi!

No idea what this is, and not interested to find out also. From the beginning until the end, nobody touches this plate at all. So, it makes me wonder how many nights already they'd display this food. Expiry date?

Another set of unknowns. Don't they know how to label their dishes? You expect me to eat something cold, uncook and suspicious looking without knowing what it is? Nobody touched these dishes also from the beginning until the end.

Miso soup and soba, with bits of tauhu and spring onions.

Appetizing? I won't mind if they put some Japanese flavoring but nope, just like drinking ajinomoto (made in Malaysia), aii.

My assorted sushi that I took. It's nice to eat but definitely not hotel standard.

Chawan mushi with only one small, thin slice of mushroom, disappointing

Fried/ baked mussels. Wtf?! I thought these were fried scallop but no, they were mussels instead. I suspected that these mussels are fried/ baked because it's not fresh anymore (leftover from yesterday night?). Taste aweful, rubbery texture, freshness zero.

Boneless fried chicken. I was glad that they made this dish because fried chicken is always my favorite and boneless fried chicken preparations definitely worthy of added bonus point. Unfortunately, no marinating, no flavoring, so no..., aii.

No labelling(!) but I guess it's the Japanese way of replicating our steamed kampung chicken, but not by using kampung chicken. Don't really know why this dish is in a Japanese buffet also.

Beef minced? sliced? Unsure. Taste weird.
My sampling of the cooked dishes; chawan mushi, boneless fried chicken and fried/ baked mussels

Get the fresh oyster instead. Fried/ baked mussels is worst than eating cockles.
Another sampling of cooked dishes. Lousy
Dessert corner with sponge cakes and fruits. Wtf! I'm paying nearly the same as Rasa Sayang buffet at Shangri-La but all I get is just mediocre, no, worse than mediocre foods, fruits and cakes.

Here is the sponge cakes, with some icings and whipped creams. To me, not even real cakes.

Salad corner. Another food that nobody touched. Limited range of veges even for a non-vegetarian like me.
Tempura. How good a Japanese chef can be seen by how he prepares tempura, according to my boss last time. These tempuras were not even properly fried, not crispy and oily
Teepanyaki. I ordered scallop and salmon. You can see for yourself the amount of oil here...and I don't think it's Omega 3 fish oil.
Ice cream corners with only 4 flavors; chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, peppermint. Nothing special.

Ice cream toppings
My own design. Sponge cake with 2 scoops of ice creams.

The damage: RM78

Waka Japanese Restaurant
Level 2, City Bayview Hotel,
Georgetown, Penang

Tips:
Avoid

Tasty Or Not?
Ratings: 1.5/10. Wasted my money, my time and my precious dinner here.

19 comments:

  1. i went there recently n i found out that dat d food there was good enough...im a chef myself and i think that dat its worth for my money.Aniway the fried oysters ur talkin about is not called oysters....its called mussel if u havent heard of it....

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  2. good for waka then..improvement is always good.

    i think we're supposed to be paying for great foods instead of 'good enough'/ mediocre foods.

    regarding the ?oyster/?mussels, god knows what it is when it was fried beyond recognition and taste, plus no name of the dish there. your guess is as good as mine...or did they even downgrade their oysters to mussels, hmm...hehe

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  3. eeeeeeerrrrrrrrmmmmmmm.........
    its not fried......
    its grilled..........
    usually all shellfishes are cheeewy wen its cooked....
    we cant blame them....
    since you dont like to b ''stuffed'' y dont you try going for ala carte....
    trust me....
    their sashimi moriawase's are good n fresh of cause...
    n their nabeyaki udon is really good...
    mayb you can go back there and try something you never had and you want to try....
    or if you want, u can ask for assistant choosing...

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  4. Do you think your RM 78 is so huge to cause you make a such BIG BAD and TERRIBLE comment?? Please anyway the food is great and worth more than RM78!! You are not professional enough to speak such a low class comment in food blog, therefore please shut down ur blog. The worst Japanese buffet is at Royal Hotel in Penang instead of Bayview. Please try and comment which is the worst if u are pro....

    Regards,
    Bao Bao Baby

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  5. thanks for the info, i'm sure it'll benefit others. i'm here just to point out the obvious.

    but i'm wondering, if you're against me saying that waka served lousy jap foods (when photos here + my taste buds showed otherwise), then what allow you to state that royal hotel serving worst jap foods? to end on a lighter note, it doesn't help to make ppl take u seriously when your name is baobao baby:)

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  6. I have my suspicions that Mr. Anonymous above is part of the Waka organization :-). I agree with your assessment, the food was really poor. Photos don't usually do justice to food, but in this case, the sad looking dishes are spot on

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  7. Definitely la. Anonymous just could not accept not even a single comment! haha, how to improve? I actually plan to have a gathering but since the things before like that already. I better change to Tao better. cheaper.
    from the picture i can see... their food may not be that bad. I say maybe only ah... because from the picture is not so tasty.
    too simple. not something you see and feel the deliciousness.

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  8. Wondering whtr the food has improved or not? Groupon is offering RM 45 nett per person for Jap Buffet lunch on Sun. I'm still hesitating whtr to try or not. Anyone care to advise or have tasted the food recently?

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    Replies
    1. Yes, I also wondering whether should buy that Groupon...If this is the case, Better I go for SUSHI KING Bonanza RM2

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  9. I was just there using my Groupon. The food was ok. Nothing to shout about. My wife loves sashimi and yet she didn't critize the food which means it was good enough. Teppanayaki was not as oily as above. No more mussels, instead they served scallops (teppanyaki and baked). All foods were labeled. Servings provided were in small quantity and were very quickly snatched up by 4~5 persons every time. If you missed it, you have to wait another 10mins (sucks). If you're paying the full price (not Groupon), you can order the buffet items to bring directly to you from the kitchen. All the staffs were friendly and helpful except for one slim Chinese lady. She's stern not rude, but stern. The elderly Chinese lady was friendly. Will I go back for the price of Groupon? Nope!

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  10. One of the worst buffet experience in my life. It's an insult to the hotel food industry. How do I start , food quality is very bad, limited choice , extremely small portion with slow refills and one of the worst service ever encountered. Was there today at around noon today and found most of the trays are empty, the sashimi finally came out of the kitchen after 15 minutes and its good for 3 person only, miso sup is plain with only beancurd available, one of the worst plain beef ever tasted .... Worst of all when I complained to the manager she argued with me that the standard buffet hotel practice is to wait for half hour for the dish. She even raise her voice arguing that this is the fifth time they're on groupon promotion. Complete ripped off and would never step food in this restaurant or bay view.

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  11. Please try other much more nicer Penang foods out there that I wrote about. Don't let this be reflective of the amazing foods that Penang offers!!

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  12. I will and always love Penang food and it does offer one of the most tasty and diversify foods in the region .I'm just so disappointed with my bitter experienced and this is my first comment ever on eatery. That says a lot about the matter as I'm not that fussy about food but this is just unbelievable . The message here to the general public is to go for any other Japanese restaurant except this one and believe me it's not worth it at all.

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  13. Food here is realy great compared to many other jap restaurants in penang.the fresh oysters itself is worth the money.variety and taste is excellent.definitely recomended.

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  14. I agree with Rapala.
    I just went there with my family last weekend using our Groupon voucher and I must say that it was the worst ever buffet!
    Trays were empty and there were not enough food! And like what Rapala said, food that came out after waiting for just enough for 3 person, and there were 100 of us!

    I blogged more about it here:
    http://www.tanshuyin.com/2013/12/worst-ever-buffet-waka-japanese.html

    Anyway I also complained to Groupon Malaysia about this bad experience I had.

    Btw if you all noticed, all the good comments above are by 'Anonymous'? Sounds fishy to me.

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  15. I am supposed to treat a group of friends to Japanese at Waka Bayview but after reading all the bad reviews, I am having second thought about going there this weekend. I am thankful to Macha for the comments.

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  16. Mike. Luckily u didnt bring them here. I came over 2 penang and ate here. Was very terrible and did not enjoy any!!

    I reckon food wasnt fresh. The teppanyaki salmon was not fully cooked n mind that these are frozen salmon

    Nth was satisying. Ice cream was weird.

    Thanks but no thanks.

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  17. Too bad I did not read these comments before eating there with my family recently. The food were lousy. It was supposed to be a la carte buffet but were served in very small servings i.e. for two persons when my table has got six adults! We were served one dish at a time and had to wait 10-15 minutes for the next dish. The first dish was assorted sushi and only 8 pieces sushi. The sushi was partially cooked! Every dish served provided only one tiny portion/piece per person.

    We were however served big servings of plain garlic rice without any side dishes and a generous plate of tasteless fried spaghetti (instead of udon because they trying out a new recipe!) which we did not order!

    We wasted 3 whole hours there hoping that the food will improved but we were sorely disappointed. Went away still hungry and had to eat supper elsewhere.

    Definitely a rip off.

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  18. The worst Japanese restaurant I ever visit. Bad service, food very small portion, slow service, food not fresh. Don't come! Not worth of money even with discount

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