Quivo — Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur

I’ve been to manier restaurants around the world and I’ve never encountered a worse manager in my life.

The tall dark gent, he might be Indian or Middle Eastern at best, really dropped the ball in representing Quivo.

We got to the buzzing restaurant at 18:10 on Saturday, 24 December 2022, and asked for a table for 4.

The manager led us to a table that was reserved for 19:45.

The timing was tight but he assured us we’d be served and settled before the reservation.

Besides, my wife and I were with our kids, and we’d planned to be on our way to the hotel by then, anyway.

We took a seat and a waitress took our drinks order.

Less than a minute later, another waitress came and asked for our food orders.

Mind you, they had a set menu for Christmas and their regular offering listed on a two-page laminated sheet.

I told the waitress to give a little time to peruse the menu. She obliged and walked off.

From the corner of my eye I saw the manager approach the waitress, possibly enquiring about our order.

Before I could blink, the manager was hovering over us, tapping at his watch and reminding us rather raucously that we were on a tight schedule.

I could not control my utter dismay at the pure disrespect and poor conduct displayed by the manager.

I’m a black South African traveller and encounters like these only fuel the narrative of Malaysia’s reputation with discrimination.

But this was in no way a racial encounter. In fact, the manager Quivo hired basically lacks the necessary leadership qualities required for such a position.

Absolutely disgusted.

Quivo, use this as a wake-up call and train your staff on customer service excellence. It’ll go a long way.

Quivo’s loss was...

A decent fast-casual spot within the mall, offering excellent people-watching opportunities and an impeccable value for the power lunch.

While I might hesitate to label it as purely Mediterranean, some dishes do reflect the region. Execution-wise, it's commendable, likely to gain approval from most patrons. At this price point, it's hard to complain.

I opted for the house-made lemonade (although there's a lemon tea alternative, which, for me, felt like life serving lemons, but I'm a fan of citrus). I enjoyed the Caesar salad and the Angry Arrabbiata pasta.

The Caesar salad stood out in this meal, even without bacon. The Arrabbiata was also quite good, although it missed the vibrancy I've encountered in dishes from Mediterranean chef-owned restaurants. The kick was enjoyable.

However, one issue arose. The menu listed S. Pellegríno, but I was served Sole water. I had to scrutinize the bottle to confirm it met my expectations:

1. It wasn't carbonated water overloaded with sodium.
2. It truly originated from Italy, where stringent quality control is claimed.

The bottle appeared slightly worn, almost resembling an in-house carbonated drink container. Eventually, all was acceptable, but it shouldn't require this much effort to clarify details. (-1 point)

Overall, it's still a four-star meal. Would I return? I believe so. The warm staff and the overall 70RM/pax offering...

Let's not beat about the bush here.

The RM35 set lunch is a shocking sham scam.

There are 6 choices on the set lunch menu. Two of the more enticing ones – the wagyu beef burger and the lamb burger – were not available to order.

The lemonade is proclaimed to be homemade right on the menu. It came in a florescent green hue. Tasted like Mountain Dew. I enquired about it was told "oh it's our in-house concoction. Mountain Dew with soda". Wow.

The tomato soup came in a pitifully small portion. Kids pool vs regular pool, that's the difference we are talking about here. It was easily less than half the usual portion of soup at a fine dining place.

The beef bolognese. Tasted alright to be fair. But the beef meatballs are a shocking r sight to behold. Three puny, PUNY meatballs. Just look at the picture.

My companions ordered the linguine pesto with crabmeat. They both later told me there was no crabmeat in it at all.

I was actually here last weekend for lunch. I ordered the pesto pasta with soft shell crab. It actually came without any pesto. I had to ask about it to be replaced.

Given the very clear tendencies of this place to cut corners to maximise profits, I wouldn't be surprised at all that they made arguably the two more expensive items on the set lunch unavailable for order.

Avoid...