Fire By Shankar — Restaurant in George Town

Fire by Shankar sits in Penang’s marina at Straits Quay, the perfect spot for fine dining. Affluent surroundings, calm waters, yachts bobbing. The scenery does its job. The restaurant does not. Once you step past the Instagram filters and TikTok fairy dust, the only thing fine here are the prices.

The entrance is more haunted house than high end dining. A half open door, a black corridor, and exposed kitchen windows you shuffle past like an intruder. The place is called Fire, yet the walls are black as if someone forgot to repaint after a blaze. Bright energy? Forget it. Even the outside seating I booked had mysteriously vanished.

Menus arrived looking like props from a food fight, smudged and greasy. The menu itself is a comedy sketch. This is a Malaysian Tamil restaurant that somehow thinks spaghetti belongs. What next, chapati carbonara or sambar lasagne? At that point you start wondering if you should have gone to a hawker stall instead.

Vegetables are another punchline. Out of all the wonderful Tamil produce, the best they could offer were carrots, mushrooms, and Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts, the sworn enemy of children everywhere, now passed off as Tamil authenticity. Our ancestors would be shaking their heads.

Service was disorganised. After fifteen minutes a waiter wandered over, surprised we even existed. Before that, we were given torn toast and garlic butter. Garlic bread apparently. Tamil cuisine apparently. Fine dining apparently.

The food? The goat curry drowned in a bay leaves overkill, tasting more like a confused korma. Meatballs were burnt outside but moist inside. Prawns plump but rubbery. Mushrooms watery and pointless, merely covered in spice. Rice and chapati were adequate. The cocktail had the punch of Ribena with ice. Dessert was a pandan panna cotta that was not panna cotta at all. More like a cornflour pudding salted by mistake. Why not end with payasam or kesari instead of this oddity.

Staff were polite but mechanical, the floor understaffed, the vibe flat. Fire by Shankar is not fine dining, not Tamil authenticity, not coherent. It is one man’s vanity project, charging fine dining prices while serving confused brasserie food.

I arrived with high hopes and left deflated. The only real fire here is in the...

Exaggerated Sappadu

Went to the Sunday Sappadu with high hopes based on the promotion done by the Chef in social media. When arrived at the restaurant, it took them 20 minutes to serve the Sunday Sappadu although all the food is ready. The person who served the food seems to be very calculative while serving food as he literally counted how many cubes of mutton is falling on the banana leaf. Even though i requested for additional, the waiter is not bothered. as he just putting the vegetable instead of mutton. Note that the mutton cube/ bone in mutton is literally the size of 50 cents. Then the duck briyani supposed to be confit before cooked as briyani based on the promo is rather chewy than tender. The day before i called to enquire about the food refill whether it is unlimited or limited and whether rice refill or meat refill is included as well, the person who answered informed its all unlimited refillable including meat. However, on the day i requested for duck refill, they told me that it will be additional charges. While the prawns they served, i believe is a mix between old stock and new stock as the prawns served were mushy when separated from shell.

They should clearly state all the details in their promotional materials when posting in social media. Asking for refill will take ages for the staff members to serve and again they will be very cautious on the amount that they going to serve you and i wonder why they call it food with refill.

For the price of RM69 per person i believe Passion of Kerala or Ananda Bahvan Tg. Bungah will do more justice to the food and portion being served to us.

Then why its called meal with refillable(unlimited) Very disappointed with the service and quality...

Went for dinner yesterday. Very much disappointed with the food. We ordered from the menu as mentioned below Local Goat Curry (too much of coconut milk, mutton was tasteless) Salmon Curry (Pieces of small cuts, it was bland!) Curry Leaf Prawns (Undercooked, "fishy" ammonia smell, there was no curry leaf taste at all!) Home Style Ghee Tosai (Thick in consistency, not crispy, no ghee taste of any sort, more likely the batter was kept for 2 days) Flatbread (The worst Chapati ever! Bitter taste and the texture was worse than paper like)

Skyrocketing prices! Is this how you run a restaurant? The social media marketing were superb but not to the par nor the price that you've set. Limited options in the menu. Out of chicken in the kitchen. I mean, you run a restaurant without the estimation of poultry stock you need for the day.

The service was good, the waiter/waitress, they've done good job at explaining the dishes. We left most our dishes unfinished. The worst part of leaving the curry leaf prawns due to it's "sour fishy smell". Couldn't even bring the appetite to chew.

At the end of the night, the waiter asked us to leave a review before they could give us free dessert. I mean are you guys for real? We paid about 200+ and we were not there for your free dessert. Is that how you've been getting good reviews? We were outraged and we were blatantly honest about how we felt!

Seeing the 5 star reviews in your page really makes me wonder whether people have really bad palate nowadays? Your chefs really need cooking lessons. Fire by Shankar is a total waste.

I would never recommend this restaurant to anyone! Sorry to say but this is the...