The Cinnamon @ Hotel Penaga

Out of curiosity, went and took a big chance to try out The Cinnamon within the new Hotel Penaga at the Corner of Jalan Hutton and Lebuh Clarke.


Peter already commented that this could well be just another 'hotel-food' type of establishment but I still insisted of giving it a shot.





When we arrived there were only 2 tables occupied and no one seen at the 'Please wait to be seated' signage, so we walked right inside.

Greeted with dry-looking supposedly fresh flower



After seated at the table overlooking the lap pool,


we settled down with...

Drinks | Fresh Honeydew Juice (RM 12)


This was super diluted, did not come with the basic expectation of adding milk (they did not ask if I wanted or not), it was not sweet at all (poor quality honeydew), and came with plenty of ice. With a hefty price tag of RM 12, I definitely expected plenty of honeydew of the best breed with minimal ice. Any honeydew juice beats this one - including those of kopi tiams'.

Complimentary Garlic Bread


The garlic bread was charred on the surface and I was tricked by Peter into spreading the whole piece of bread with the butter provided, which made the bread super salty (-_-)" Though the bread was at the right level of crunchiness, there was no excuse of over charring, given the fact that we were the only table of customer left at that point of time.

Appetizer | Marinated Salmon with Asian Spices (RM 26)


The salmon tasted like smoked salmon and they came with 2 tiny pieces of salad within. Utter rip-off! On a side note, I clearly recalled this appetizer being priced at RM 18 on the menu as we kept thinking how outrageous the prices were - RM 6 for the 3, but with a price tag of RM 26, this makes each of them about RM 8!

Main | Grilled Rib Eye Steak - medium well (RM 44)


Peter was most fascinated with the presence of wolfberry (枸杞子) on the steak, an ingredient that is commonly used in chinese herbal soups. This was one very Chinese-y steak indeed. The steak tasted mediocre and came with a sauce that tastes just like a normal Western Food mushroom sauce.

Main | Lamb Rack with Herb Crust (RM 48)


The lamb rack meat was soft and juicy but lacking in flavor. Shockingly, I discovered that the sauce that came with my lamb rack was exactly the same as the steak's - just minus the wolfberry substance. It had 2 very common types of mushroom, one of which was straight out of the can - button mushroom.

Out of the 1.5 pages of main course menu, the chef couldn't have come up with a more unique sauce for these 2 distinctly different cuisines? What a let down!

The bill came up to a not-surprisingly whopping total of RM 150.80.

We were given a small feedback card and without hesitating a bit, penned down a firm NO to the question "Would you return to visit The Cinnamon again?". That about sums everything up.

And just when we thought we'd seen it all, we went and took a peek at its lobby and I went to the ladies while Peter went and kepo-ed the room rates for this 6-star heritage hotel.



When I came out, I was shown a corner of a brochure which had THIS on it:-


"Kindly bring this cut-off to enjoy 15% discount at The Cinnamon."

W - T - H !!!!

I felt a bit upset and felt cheated. This is a new heritage hotel, wanting to gain good publicity and positive word-of-mouth effect and it is doing the exact opposite. It would take absolutely nothing to have me coming back to this rip-off place, coz it ain't gonna happen - period.

Not forgetting to mention some creepy deco within the ladies....

And I couldn't really comprehend the 'meaning' of these mirrors in the context of this heritage hotel....