The Marco Polo Kitchen — Restaurant in Iskandar Puteri

Place: an air-conditioned restaurant with very comfortable seats, atas ambience and of course, ATAS price too!! Hence the 4 stars. Lets just get this out: dont expect a flavour-punch when you walk in here. More like a flavour-carass, and if you're used to the staple Malaysian food you might miss the carass as a tickle, which was what happened to me. They specialised in western food such as pasta, paella, pizza and the like. 1 of 5 branches of different restaurants: dining cultures group, Marco polo kitchen, the spice kitchen, the banana leaf kitchen and Bobby's restaurant & Bar.

Service: my 1st experience here wasn't a pleasant one. Hardly anyone served my table despite the restaurant being half full. Maybe just bad timing? Weirdly, the drinks came and & Even the food was slow...but at least they have the courtesy to serve us a complimentary nachos while waiting (didnt like the nachos)...And I MUST SAY, the birthday celebration done here by the waiter and waitress were on another level. (Check out my video recording) otherwise, food here is expensive unless you be a member here; RM290 for 3 years -- then you get 50% off all dishes. But even then, the food is also not food that the middle income group can eat on a daily basis.

Food: Salt and pepper Calamari with Aglio (RM42: non-members price): I'd say the calamari was cooked to cripsy perfection, but it lacked seasoning, which was a real let down considering the dish's name. Verdict: for the non-member price, I could get much better at Fish & Co for ¼ this price.

Mushroom soup: hmm...this dish is so-so...yes, its packed with mushroom, and yes its fairly Creamy, but it's too diluted for my taste and again, lacked seasoning...Verdict: I'm seeing a trend here...maybe just not the season for me...

Meat lover pizza: Just don't want to remember the price of each dish anymore, as I'm starting to feel my pocket bleeding from a lack of taste...super thin crust pizza with fairly seasoned, barely visible toppings...they should rename it to a little cheese lover pizza, instead of meat lover pizza. verdict: well...moving on...

Carbonara crumble: ok...this dish was good. The cheese really stood out, the smoked beef strips stood out and the flavour profile was the highlight here. Verdict: I'd come back for this.

Country chicken chop: its ok la...outwardly was hard and dry, inside (thank Goodness) was moist...verdict: not worth the price...Even as a member. Just WASN'T SATISFIED at the end of the...

I know the place has plenty of reviews to boost its rating and my one review won’t make a huge difference, but my conscience says I have to do it. Maybe this place was great when it opened up and the concept was new, but trust me it’s not great anymore. Let’s see the positives first. Whatever we ordered was decent taste and nothing was cold or stale. We got a table without reservation and the staff was attentive. And the inside decorum is nice. But now let’s quickly get to the negatives that make this a one star review. First, the prices and the membership scam that is running. The menu has two prices for every item, one for members and one for non members. If you look at the items, you will soon realise that the member prices are appropriate for the dishes and the other prices are just doubled up so that they can force everyone to pay the membership fee which I think is about RM 300. That’s pure ridiculous. Second, even the staff knows their prices are ridiculous and they come to your table if they think you are ordering less and say that they will give you the member prices for free! Clearly the system is broken and I think the place would run a lot better if they just removed this stealing on the name of membership fees. Third, you are trying to be a true Italian restaurant and you serve nachos and salsa as your snack to every table? I just don’t get it. The arabbiata sauce that came with the calamari was burnt and that’s the most basic Italian sauce. And last, it’s supposed to be a super high end premium restaurant, but if a customer has to go to the toilet, he has to go out of the building, climb a flight of dark stairs and enter this from looking first floor with a disgusting toilet! I don’t think I need to say any more. Forget the great rating and the #1 rank on Tripadvisor. Things may have been great at a point, but not close...

My husband made a reservation at this restaurant for my birthday. The deco set was lovely. However, upon entering, the server wasn't aware that my husband's the one that booked for a birthday deco and we weren't directly ushered to our table and the surprise element for the birthday girl was lost there. Lol haha.

My husband had chicken chop and tea whilst I had steak and 2 drinks. How did I end up with 2 drinks? I initially ordered an iced rose latte, however, they sent me an iced hazelnut latte and a hot rose latte. We were so confused as to how we got 2 drinks and they weren't able to clarify that they couldn't make an iced rose latte as per ordered. We had to wait for a while till someone came and told us to have both drinks and we only had to pay for one.

The food, fortunately, was delectable. After we're done with our dinner, a server came and placed a plate with a piece of cake on the table. After a few mins, someone came and took the plate away. We were again confused. Then, all the restaurant servers came out with props and sang me a birthday song. They then brought out the cake (now decorated with a candle). They even took a polaroid photo of us and offered to take our photos too.

It seems like there's a lack of communication between the workers as they seemed to not know what to do and the flow of the event. It was a full house during our visit. Price-wise, definitely on the higher end but you'd get discounts if you subscribe to their membership programme. And oh, there were flies flying around our table too and it wasn't a pleasant view. I hope the restaurant would take note of this as well. Overall, we enjoyed our dinner there and hopefully the service would've improved during...