Fishy Malaysian Service (review: Sushi King, Low Yat Plaza)

One concept I kind of like is the Japanese "assembly line" style sushi places.  It is quick and quite tasty - even if it usually end up a tad expensive.

In Malaysia there used to be 2-3 different chains operating this kind of places, but I think the only one remaining is Sushi King.  According to their web-site, Sushi King is a Malaysian concept, so it is apparently not part of any international franchise (unfortunately - but I'll get back to that).

Today I decided to grab a quick bite in the early afternoon, and I entered the Low Yat Plaza outlet of Sushi King.

When I entered the place I was in for a bit of a surprise.  Half the shop was absolutely completely packed and the second half was absolutely 100 % empty.  I really don't like rubbing shoulders with strangers while eating, so I naturally headed for the empty part, but I was told that it was all reserved (let me repeat - this is important - I WAS TOLD it was all reserved!).  Anyway - my response was the same it would always be - something along the line of: I want to sit there (pointing at one of the empty tables) or you can ask me to leave in which case I will take my business elsewhere.  Obviously not having the nerve to tell me to leave, the waiter just let me sit down - and then promptly ignored me for the remainder of my visit.

Fortunately - with the exception of drinks - the brilliant thing about this assembly line concept is that waiters are not really all that important - so I quickly grabbed some sushi.  At this point I got somewhat curious what the hell was going on at the place.  The setup didn't change - I was sitting absolutely alone in one half of the shop - while people were practically piled on top of each other in the other half.  While I was sitting there about 12 people entered the shop - only to stop at the "section closed" sign and then leave the shop again (obviously having more respect for that sign than I did - or Malaysians usually don't like to "break the law" in public - they only do it if they can do it secretly).

At this point my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to ask the supervisor about this somewhat curious approach to "crowd control".  I managed to flag down a waiter (none ever stopped and asked if we wanted any drinks - let me repeat - NONE ever did that!) and asked to talk to the supervisor.  A few minutes later a guy - with A MASK covering his face and with a sign saying: "Trainee" -  approached me from the preparation side of the assembly line and asked what he could help me with.  I informed him that I asked to talk to the supervisor - not with a trainee wearing a mask, and he responded that he was the trainee supervisor.  Ah well - I asked him about why half the shop was closed (the half I was sitting in) while the other half was so packed people actually left without buying anything.  His response was that they were understaffed so they couldn't handle it.  If there is one thing I can't stand it is being lied to by anyone who get their salary partly from my money, so at this point in time I just decided to leave.

While trying to flag down a waiter to pay my bill, the trainee supervisor approached me again (this time minus the mask) and said the supervisor just arrived so if I wanted to talk to her he could fetch her.  I responded that: "yes sure - if the supervisor wanted to hear what I had to say - she was welcome to come over."  The trainee supervisor then walked over to a lady in the opposite part of the shop - but this lady made NO attempt to approach me at any time, even though it took me some 5-10 minutes settling my bill (so safe to conclude that she was NOT interested in what I had to say).

I also noticed that the sign saying "section closed" mysteriously was moved away when the supervisor returned (the above picture show the sign having been moved to the side but the section still empty while the rest of the shop is packed) - so my guess is that the staff just couldn't be bothered while the supervisor was not present or the supervisor realised that her laziness might actually backfire.

No matter how often I see it I simply don't get why anybody would piss on their customers like this.  Within a very short time frame I was lied to and ignored and I most certainly didn't leave with a feeling that Sushi King appreciated my business in any way whatsoever.

I find it unbelievable that the supervisor or manager couldn't even be bothered to listen to a reasonable customer complaint.  I think however that said supervisor MIGHT have forgotten that her name was prominently displayed behind the counter:

  

So there you have it Sitty Noor!  While you were on duty, customers - who may I remind you are the ones ultimately paying your salary - were lied to and ignored in the most pathetic way. You are a shitty manager and I sincerely hope you will be kicked back to mopping floors once the owners read this blog.  And if you ever read this and get upset, do not forget that you had the opportunity to listen to my complaint while I was there - you just couldn't be bothered.

As for Sushi King I have definitely spend my money there for the last time ever and I am quite sure that the 12 people who were turned away while I was there might feel the same way.  As always on my blog, the option of leaving a comment is open - so should you feel like explaining yourself, by all means do so.

Update Sep. 27, 4:15pm

I decided to give Ms. Yang a call to see if she had any comments.  I'll update later if she decide to get back to me.

Update Sep. 28, 12:08pm

Still no update from Sushi King.  Meanwhile this page is yanking up hits quite quickly - people reading the page without any explanation from Sushi King - but obviously no great sense of urgency at their side.

Quite interestingly I noticed on Google Analytics that the most popular search query is: "sushi king low yat plaza complaint".

Update Sep. 28, 21:43

Well - reply from Sushi King - and here on the blog no less (which even if I sound slightly sarcastic - I do appreciate).  I will leave it to the readers of this blog to judge if this is good enough for them, but personally I think it's just too little too late and there's no way it's going to convince me to spend any more money in Sushi King ever again.