Gam Tong (Hong Kong Recipe) - Suria Sabah — Restaurant in Borneo

Gam Tong? More like tourist trap Tong Sampah

This is a supposedly famous franchise chain and one of the famous tourist traps on gaya street.

No matter how legendary the food taste like, it means nothing if the customers can’t eat it.

I have dined here dozens of times already (because I only do these review after several visits and after sampling much of the food) and the end result is almost always the same. Service is sluggishly slow and the shop is always full not because it is so famous beyond compare, but because food is served at a tortoise pace to the point that the shop is always packed with customers waiting for food in a cramped sardine can of a space. The food itself is nothing special, it’s just you typical Chinese style cooking with much of the dishes available practically anywhere within the city eg. next door, for cheaper prices. Which bring us to the pricing, most of the items are priced exorbitantly despite their small portion and mediocre quality, due to being in a “tourist spot”.

I can personally verify the claims by other reviewers that the staff drastically looks down on customers with extreme condescension when ordering because they only order “a little” while worshiping tourists especially large groups due to greater potential for squeezing as much money as possible by recommending expensive dishes. If you are dining in pairs or in small groups of less than 4, be prepared to be ignored by the staff, long waits while being throughly and utterly impressed by how money and status makes people do anything.

My last visit saw us ordering “one” sweet and sour pork on ice and “one” vegetable dish. Guess how long this order took? After one and a half hour, nothing was served. Customers who came after us were all served their food which included the same dishes as what we ordered. When asked why the food was not out despite more than an hour of waiting, he just casually waved us away saying the kitchen is preparing it. We gave it another 10 minutes then asked again The same dish go to another table only to met with a myriad of creative excuses including “waiting for the ice to freeze?”, “that dish always takes hours?”. Needless to say after almost 2 hours of waiting, we paid for our drinks and decided to patronise elsewhere.

To all the tourists and locals, I cannot emphasise this enough “DO NOT EAT HERE” even if this is the last place on heaven and earth that has food.

Price - $$$$$ and increasing Service - Appallingly non existent Food - Non existent Location - Abysmal

Would I recommend - Never even if hell freezes over, there are better...

We arrived at 5pm+, before peak hours, so the restaurant was still quite empty. Our friends are Gam Tong members, so they have vouchers for 25% discount off the Peking Duck, and that's what we ordered for dinner.

The duck is prepared in three ways:

(1) The duck is brought out and the skin is sliced into pieces. A sauce is provided along with cucumbers and scallion, to be wrapped together with the duck skin in the popiah skin. The drumsticks are also chopped up and served roasted.

(2) The meat is stir-fried with onion and ginger.

(3) The carcass is used to boil the salted vegetable tofu tomato soup.

The price after discount and tax and service charge was RM104. It was a very satisfying meal for the 4 of us. Everything tasted good, though the soup might be a tad too salty.

The restaurant became fully packed from 6pm+ onwards. When there were not too many customers, the staff will stand around waiting to serve, but it can be a bit weird with them looking at us eating. Perhaps it would be better for them to do so more inconspicuously. This is not an issue when the restaurant became busier.

Another thing to improve would be the explanation of the dishes served. For example, since it's our first time ordering the Peking Duck, we found it hard to understand what is actually included, and the staff explanation was not very clear. We thought it would be better if a short explanation can be included in the menu?

There is no toilet in the restaurant, but customers can use the one in Kinabalu Daya Hotel lobby, which is connected to the restaurant. Not sure who is responsible for cleaning the toilet there, but more attention can be given there. The light there flickers quite a bit, it's also something that can be worked on, I suppose.

Overall we were happy with the dinner experience, especially during off-peak hours. Highly...

Tried the restaurant for a few times during the trip because it was just so good!

Food: 5 out of 5 Dim sums are quite authentic HK style. All other dishes are either very good or excellent. Recommendations - Shrimps, vegetables, curry noodles (refer to the photos)

Beverage: 5 out of 5 Milk tea is authentic HK style. I tried both the hot one and the cold one. It is better to order the hot one so that u can add the sugar yourself. Iced coffee is wonderful 2.

Atmosphere: 4 our of 5 Just a small restaurant, not highly decorated, however, its clean, tidy and air-conditioned.

Service: 5 out of 5 Very helpful and friendly staff. Some of them could...