Kota Dine & Coffee - when Francis meets rempah — Restaurant in George Town

TLdR for customers: I think you can find cheaper and better somewhere else in the city. This isn't bad, but it's overpriced for the quality that you get.

I'm gonna try to describe our experience as much as possible in the hope that the management can see and hopefully improve. This place isn't bad per se but the problems are so obvious that it gets quite frustrating.

The first issue is when you arrive, you have to pay for the entrance of the fort, just to get to the restaurant, you get half of it back when paying the bill, but still it feels like the restaurant should have a deal with the fort to provide free (or at least hassle free) entry. I know this might not be doable/easy but still isn't super fun.

The second one comes when ordering. There is too many choices on the menu. This could be fine in itself but a lot of the dishes are not available. Even the dishes that are highlighted by the menu (dish takes the whole page) were not available (only 1 of the signature dishes was available out of 3). I really think it would be better to offer less options, maybe have different menus printed, so that what is presented can be ordered.

Third issue came when the food arrived. The appetizers are not appetizers. They are full size dishes and come as a sharing concept. This is probably obvious for Malaysia and the size of the dishes could have been inferred from the prices, but still. A note on the menu would have been nice because this ended up being way too much food.

And finally the quality of the food, it's not bad, but it's not great either. The rice was overcooked! In south east Asia, in the signature dish. This is hard to look past. For the dessert, the chocolate mousse was a defrosted mini chocolate cake with cream not mousse.

Finally the service was okay, not great not terrible.

In summary, this place is trying to be fancy, which is an honorable purpose. But you have to do things one at the time. Reduce the number of dishes, make sure you have them all available, make seasons menus if you want to keep a large offering. Make sure every dish that goes out is up to standard. Because overcooked simply isn't. Don't try to overdo it on service. Staff opening the door for each customer isn't required. Do simple things and do them well. Be clear on your menus and do smaller potions for appetizers or propose two sizes. And master the dishes you propose.

I hope this helps. This place can and should do...

This restaurant is situated inside Fort Cornwallis. So I had to pay RM10 for each person to get in but they issued a voucher of RM10 each to eat there. This restaurant seemed to have won quite a lot of awards with their fusion Nyonya concept dishes.

Seafood Cake Otak-Otak - 😋😋😋 A bit spicy but very tasty deep fried.

Chicken Briyani Rice - 😋😋 Nothing fusion about it. Taste just like any other. The curry sauce could have been thicker.

Deep Fried Spring Chicken - 😐😐😐 But no spring chicken and replaced with chicken whole leg. The fried chicken was overlayed with tomato curry sauce. It was just ok for me but my mother loves it.

Miniature Nasi Lemak - 😋 My brother absolutely hated it because the rice has no lemak taste at all. It did but very subtle. It was saved by the sambal and the ikan bilis. Otherwise the whole dish could have been one of the worst nasi lemak I ever had.

Nasi Kerabu Nyonya - 😋😋😋 This was one of the better dishes that night. Nice presentation and flavorful chicken rendang (I assume) that taste good together with the rice.

Creme Brulee - 😋😋😋😋😋 Ironically they won me over with this trio of creme brulee flavors - pandan, pulut hitam and palm sugar (again I assume). The pandan flavored one is the best.

Bubur Cha Cha Cake - NOPE I didn't like it at all with the cheese cake later on top while the bottom part are layers of Bubur Cha Cha ingredients. Again only my mother likes it but not for...

We heard about this restaurant from the Michelin guide in Malaysia for 2023. Kota Dine & Coffee is situated inside Fort Cornwallis near the coast of George Town in Penang, Malaysia. It offers a fine dining experience, fusing modern European cuisine with the traditional Nyonya flavors of Malaysia.The interior was thoughtfully designed and provided an intimate experience for us.

Having experienced a decent amount of Peranakan flavors during our time in Malaysia and Singapore, we were excited to see how the chefs would put a creative spin on the foods we were able to try. Our favorites were the laksa campellini and the nasi lemak cake! The pasta was cooked with the perfect texture and blended the flavor of laksa super well, and we had never tried anything as unique as nasi lemak cake before! The cake had both a sweet and slight savory taste, and was extremely enjoyable to finish our meal with.

In total, we paid only slightly about 10USD each for the experience. For dining of this level and environment, this was an astonishing price point, as one would expect to pay almost 8-10x as much for a similar service in the US. We appreciated the thoughtfulness behind each dish, the service, and the environment so much, and would highly recommend anyone visiting Penang to...