Tummy Bowl Penang — Restaurant in George Town

As a person who's working on her journey towards the path of mindful wellness and holistic health, one would find this place convenient and cool for sure at the first place. I give it four stars, firstly because I'd definitely like to recommend this place to my beloved ones; secondly, I pay high respect to the team of this business for making an endeavor to start out a food business which themed healthy and wholesome, it's definitely not easy considering how the major preference or the society would always perceive heavy-seasoned food as delicious (however I'd say this is quite an old fashioned way of thinking as I've seen positive results in terms of the change that many people have seemed to carry out with regard to the approach of a genuine and authentic healthier lifestyle. By that I mean people no longer engage false mindset to this: for instance, still having high sugar energy bars/muesli/cereals etc that are filled with corn syrup, refined sugar etc., yet are being convinced that this is how a healthy lifestyle should be which is a delusional perception, etc.) Anyway, it's amazing and lovely that people are gradually paying real attention to wellness by not only making shallow attempts in the current market (you know, there are many cafes/restaurant out there themed healthy but doing the opposite in reality; staying true and genuine could be a challenge considering what's deeply rooted in the consumers' mindsets; many still do not understand all the sweetness and saltiness they long for don't exist in place like these so there shouldn't be any blame if the food in these kind of restaurants doesn't align with their favourite dim sum or etc) I reserve one star cause despite what I'm going to bring up might be a challenge, I really hope y'all would consider my piece of suggestion/opinion: I hope that those sauces y'all are using could be rather light and simple (which in turn it wouldn't look that milky) I understand the sauce is the main thing in the bowl cause this might be the only thing y'all can season up a little bit more to attract your customers but still

Also, I suggest that y'all replace the order paper with something digital cause a paper disposed per customer is pretty much a squander to our mother Earth.

I wish y'all a lovely year ahead,...

I went to Tummy Bowl at Elite Avenue, Penang, with my sister on 18 Feb 2023. I heard about the restaurant from my friend who were also into poke bowl, and thought that I should finally give it a try this time around, since it's one of my favourite food, ever since I tried poke bowl for the first time at a different restaurant in KL.

Overall, the place was clean, tidy, and on a Saturday lunch time, it had a fair number of patronage, which means that they do have a pretty good reputation as an F&B business. The staff were also polite and professional, and clean and tidy while preparing the food.

On that day, I ordered a shoyu salmon poke bowl, and my sister ordered the chicken poke bowl, both with brown rice (can't remember which sides and toppings we got). What I liked about the food was that it was presented well on the bowl, and that the amount of protein (salmon/chicken) was pretty substantial.

It might be a matter of personal preference, though, but we both found that the poke bowl was too creamy for our taste, which, in my opinion, kind of drowns the taste of everything else in the bowl. We expected it to just be a dash of the types of sauces we wanted, but we didn't know that the rice was wet with the sauces. I like my poke bowl drier, and if you are like me, you might want to let the staff know, as you make your order, to not put too much sauce on your order. Or maybe, ask them to put the sauce on the side instead.

Apart from that, the food was okay. Next time, I'll just ask for less or no sauce on...

Update: back again 4 months later. Still encountered difficulties with paying with my Grab Wallet, but was able to settle the bill with TnG. Had a better service and the server understood my request to avoid food waste and gave me the toppings that fell out of the bowl. Overall, much more pleasant experience.

Amazing food, location and atmosphere. Comfortable sitting space, considering that I have been waiting there for over an hour. Not too crowded, should be able to get a table if you are dining in. Not to mention fantastic pricing, with maybe a discount or two, on Grab.

However, overall, it was not a pleasant dining experience. Portion size was mediocre. But my beef with the place was I am not impressed with the rigid customer service and attitude, alongside the limited payment options. For context, I could not pay by my card and had no cash on me. Had no choice but to order a pick-up but I was not allowed to dine in, even when majority of the table ordered in person. The staff also came over to repeat the point... Understand that they are just doing their job, but do you have to go to such extent?

Otherwise, the food is still worth it. Did affect the mood of the crowd for...