Halzan Penang — Restaurant in George Town

Update - December 2024

Kinda ruined our Christmas mood, honestly. The food this year was rather subpar for the 2024 Christmas (3 course) menu. Service has deteriorated so much as well that I don’t even know where to begin.

We were seated rather quickly, when we got to our table, it was okay until we got our appetisers. 2-3 minutes later, my main course arrived when I just started on my soup.

I’m not sure why it was served right away while I was still having my soup. They didn’t do this before so I was wondering why the sudden change. By the time I started on my main, it was already cold.

The beef wellington, lasagna and tiramisu were nice though. Turkey was disappointing and way too tiny of a portion. Though it is stated 150gm (drumstick) when the waiter pointed it out to us, I think this is better option for children or for a very small eater.

Once we were done with our mains, we had to request for the dessert to be served after 15-20mins of waiting for someone to realise.

When we requested for the bill, they straight away gave it to our mother who isn’t paying for the meal as it was our Christmas treat. Where is the courtesy in asking?

Last year’s Christmas food (4 course) and service was top notch and I used to love this place and raved about it to my sister and it was her first time here. We were both F&B staff before in cafes, restaurants, and fine dining too. We get that it can be tough during holiday shifts but seriously? Please, do better.

For the total, we should have dined elsewhere if I knew how disappointing the night would have been. Or maybe we didn’t spend enough to have decent service.

Total RM600+ December 2023

It's our first time at Halzan, and we made reservations for our Christmas Eve dinner since it's a festive season.

We had the Christmas dinner set which was RM130 per pax and it was just divine. Our set came with Duck liver pate, Roasted turkey meat, Chocolate brownie and a glass of red wine.

Total was RM400+ including service charge and tax.

Overall, we had such a great time there. I absolutely love their attention to detail and their service was amazing.

The only downside is that they do not provide free or sell filtered water so you'd have to order a bottle of...

Food taste good with nice presentation, however we notice flies at times. The service was good initially, but few of us were feeling thirsty after eating and we tried to request plain water from the service crew but the answer that we received was way too disappointing - NO WATER AVAILABLE, we were then asked to purchase their mineral water. We spent three hundred for 4 pax, even is not a big sum but not consider cheap as well. Even kopitiam are more generous in terms of water. Thing that makes us more disappointed was when we were at the counter to make payment, we notice the water dispenser is just beside and we ask the service crew why can't just serve us water as the supply is definitely not an issue. The answer given is the WATER DISPENSER IS NOT FUNCTIONING!! We requested to speak to the PIC of the cafe, a lady who attended us was rude, sorry to say that. She doesn't allow me to finish my sentence and keep on interrupting when I was trying to tell her what's going on. She says they have this practice is because of SOME CUSTOMERS WILL KEEP REFILL PLAIN WATER AND OCCUPY THE TABLE FOR LONG (so this should be the real reason for not serving plain water even knowing customers are ordering meals, drinks and even desserts????). And she also asked me if the plain water so important to me why not I just request from the service crew? I told her I have requested many times and your service crew mentioned that the water dispenser is not functioning???!!! Then she only say she will feedback to management about this issue. The so called PIC (lady) who was on duty on 23/12/2023 ~3pm does not help to solve concern from customers, in fact the condition was worsen with the way she react. We are willing to foot the bill (happily) if the service is satisfactory, but not end in this way, and we were never treated in this way at Wheelers. Our gathering was spoilt with the services that we received on that day, kindly look...

On March 23rd, we went out for a family dinner around buka puasa time. Despite not having a reservation, we were lucky to get a table. About five minutes after being seated, we were ready to place our order.

After ordering, we noticed the table next to us had a different meal set, so we asked the waitress about it. She informed us that it was the Ramadan Set and admitted that she might have forgotten to provide us with the menu. We were also told that our food would take approximately 30 minutes to be served, which we were fine with.

Upon seeing the Ramadan Menu, we decided to cancel one of our previously ordered dishes. However, the waitress told us that she had already sent the order to the kitchen and that the dish was being prepared—this was just 2-3 minutes after we placed the order. Understanding the situation, we agreed to proceed with our original order.

We had placed a total of three orders. After 20 minutes, two dishes were served. After 30 minutes, the remaining dish—the one we had initially wanted to cancel but were told was already being prepared—was still not served. When we asked about the status, the waitress said she would check with the kitchen.

To our surprise, she returned and informed us that the kitchen had forgotten our order! Earlier, we were told the dish was already being prepared and couldn’t be canceled, yet in the end, it was completely missed.

What’s unacceptable is that the staff did not take the initiative to confirm with the kitchen before insisting that the dish was in process. Given that it was peak dinner time, it’s hard to believe that within just 2-3 minutes, the kitchen had already started preparing our dish—but later, it was entirely forgotten. This lack of coordination and communication was very...