Jiashi Restaurant — Restaurant in George Town

Have known about this place for a while but have never patronized it due to its location in Gurney as a tourist enclave. Decided to give it a chance after watching YouTuber Uncle Lee giving it double thumbs up.

The verdict is 2 words : absolute disappointment.

Ordered 4 of their signature dishes and every one of them was a let down. Everyone raves about this dish but it was completely unmemorable to me. The egg was so runny it felt like I was eating soft boiled egg, and the mixture of the bitter gourd made it very bland.

The Assam prawn is sweetish and without any hint of sourness. Might as well call it sweet prawns instead of asam prawns.

The deep fried taufu with Brinjal was average. It tastes like something any subpar chef can make from any tai Chao place you drop in.

The French bean was the only dish I liked but that's bcos I love Ha Mai and it's hard to go wrong when you have that special ingredient to level up the dish.

After dinner, we ordered dessert. I ordered the cendol and it took such a looooong time to arrive. After 20 long minutes, the cendol arrived melted into a slush. (See the pic, this was the condition it arrived in). Clearly the cendol was made a long time ago but the wait staff was too inefficient to bring it out on time.

I was flabbergasted and normally would send it back to the kitchen. But after 20 long minutes, I didn't have the mental strength to wait another 20 mins.

The cendol was horrible. Scooped a few spoonful into my mouth, paid and quietly...

PSA there's parking at the back of the restaurant that's pretty hidden. Drive past the restaurant and turn right and go to the back entrance.

While the environment and decor is nothing to shout about, the din of diners talking, the smell of dishes and the bustle of waiters bringing food does evoke a chu char experience.

The waiters are well versed in their food offerings and food comes hot and quite quickly. Food's generally good but a little starchy from the use of corn starch.

Visually, the bittergourd egg looks a bit undercooked and wet. Till I tasted it. It was a brilliant dish that caught me by surprise. Slightly runny egg with fresh bittergourd combined perfectly.

The grouper yam is a delicious flavour rich dish as long as you consume it while hot. Which it managed to remain for a surprisingly long time in the claypot. But once it cools, the starchy sauce congeals, changing it for the worse.

I loved the pork tripe soup. It came hot with generous amount of chewy delicious pork tripe. The pepper tastes a little overboard in the beginning but after a few sips, the tongue acclimatises and it becomes yummy.

Meanwhile I found the tofu mince meat tasty and the sweet sour pork adequate. The two noodles that I ordered are also good options if you are alone / small party / just not feeling the chu char vibe. Both the oyster noodle and the preserved vegetable noodle are good enough to stand on their own and...

Food - 3.5/5 Service - 4/5 Environment - 4/5

Visited on Christmas night, with table reservation.

Food standards are just average, not up to delicious level, and reasonable pricing, but there are even better Chinese cuisines out there, personally think that visiting once is ok, second visit needs to hesitate.

Asam prawns are ok, fresh prawns are used. Lala wise is quite starchy, don't quite like it, and it's quite salty due to the excessive use of bean paste. Braised grouper fish with yam is extremely starchy, slices of yam are inside the hot pot, but I preferred the yam to be blended and braised together with grouper fish. Braised pork knuckle is totally out, the fats parts are like hardened jelly and the meat wise is hard to bite, the sauce itself is also not right, seems like the braising technique needs to have room for improvement. Signature brinjal tofu and vege just so so, nothing to shout about.

Desserts-wise, black glutinous rice is ok, not bad, mango pomelo sago tastes a bit artificial, like not pure enough so it doesn't really enhance the overall taste of the desserts, just pass for this. Lotus pancake...