THIRTY8 Restaurant, Bar & Lounge — Restaurant in Kuala Lumpur

I was skimming through a few positive comments before visiting. I wish I read at least some negative ones before my family and I visited this restaurant. Please keep in mind that it was our FIRST time at this place, and that I picked it out to celebrate my parents’ anniversary, which makes our unpleasant experience even more disappointing. Well, good things first: the ambiance was great. A sky-high view was amazing, as well as a clean dining environment.

The most prominent aspect has to be the service we endured: The moment we sat down and Waiter A approached our table, his face looked dead, as if he was forced to be there. We chose to ignore it as we understood waiting isn’t exactly an easy job, having to deal with various customers, especially for long hours each day. When we politely declined still/sparkling water (as we knew this was a standard procedure to ask customers), he left. Waiter A returned, asking the same question (seems like he couldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer the first time). My mother explained to him she had a sore throat and a weak stomach, and that she’d therefore like to have hot tea. She received no sympathy and understanding, instead receiving a downright displeasing attitude from Waiter A. When taking our orders for drinks, my mother asked for a little more explanation about a few teas, but all Waiter A did was impatiently point as he gave a curt explanation. Our MOST sincerest apologies: we didn’t know we had to have knowledge of your tea selection before arriving. When taking orders for our food, Waiter A asked for our room number. My father explained we weren’t hotel guests, but lived next to Petronas Twin Towers (just making a small talk). I was already ticked off at this man, and so happen that I was observing Waiter A’s face: he gave a rude, dismissive nod with an impatient face. If this is what my father gets in return for BOTHERING to be nice to a waiter, then this waiter is unfit to be working for a restaurant, nonetheless one that belongs to a five-star hotel. This is absolutely atrocious! It is NOT expected of my father, who is paying a four-digit bill no less, to please the person who is supposed to wait on him. Upon pointing out his unacceptable character, Waiter A gave an apology, though clearly insincere. He mentioned that he would bring this up to his manager—but really, who would tell their manager of a complaint about themselves? My mother and I glanced at one another at Waiter A’s ironic words, as he was the one being complained about. He also had the nerve to say it was standard procedure to order a bottle of sparkling/still water. As one does when one drinks a little too much, I asked for directions to the bathroom from Waiter C—was I expected to have knowledge of where the bathrooms were? It certainly seemed so, according to Waiter C’s unhappy face. He gave me short, unclear directions with an impatient manner. Because of this, I had to go to a waitress nearby—she was delightful, pointing out to me where the bathrooms were with utmost patience, friendliness and a smile.

The food looked better than Waiter A and Waiter C’s dreary faces, that’s for sure. The presentation was top-notch. However, my mother told me that one of the tiger prawns on the seafood platter was stale. I would not have been so worried if her stomach wasn’t as weak as it was that night—she felt nauseous when we returned home! I ordered the lobster ravioli and…it was a little bit hard to chew.

Our experience was thankfully made bearable by two waiters and a server, Nas & Jamaludin & Kris respectively. Nas and Jamaludin excepted, servers like Kris generally provided a higher standard of customer service than the waiters. However, it is disappointing as this is the first time we have been let down by a restaurant in Grand Hyatt, as we have went to other branches of the hotel outside Malaysia. The hotel lives up to its five-star reputation, but I certainly don’t recommend going to THIRTY8–even a mamak store has better customer service (makes me doubt if there is...

NOT UP TO PAR WITH 5 STAR HOTEL STANDARD.

Wonderful view? Yes. Everything else? Not great.

As anyone walking into a Hyatt - we expect attentive warm welcoming service but unfortunately I was left leaving the place feeling like I was of inconvenience to the staff.

At first I noticed that my table received food first as opposed to the table next to me even though they were there much longer than I was, I felt bad for them.

Later, I can hear the waitresses almost yelling to another staff saying ‘Ada orang nak ambik gambar!!’ (Someone wants to take a picture). Now this isn’t a mamak, I really don’t expect waiters or waitresses to yell at each other.

Suddenly, I noticed a little table right near the window overseeing KLCC was vacant. I called over a waitress to ask if we could move to that table. She looked at me, frowned slightly and said that she would have to inform the front desk first if we could move.

But after 15 minutes still no one came to us to inform the update if we were able to switch tables. My friend then called over another waiter and asked if we could move and he too frowned slightly and said he had to inform front desk.

Guess what? No one came back to us to tell us if we could or could not change tables. At least update us if our request could not be met. I found that really upsetting. They just carried on as if me and my friend hadn’t asked!

We requested if we could change tables around 3.45pm. In the end up until we had left approximately around 5pm the table was still left empty. (ive attached the picture of the table)

Again, I understand if our request could not be met however any basic decency would be to get back to us to explain or inform us.

Even 3 star hotels can do better than this. So yes, retrain your staff on basic customer service.

We then asked a waitress if she could take our picture after the meal was over, mind you the restaurant was almost empty at this point. She didn’t even look at us, no eye contact and said ‘wait a moment’ in a sharp tone and then walked away. Which also left me and my friend feeling a little puzzled.

Her response felt cold and harsh.

Few minutes later a very bubbly young boy came over to take our picture, bless him. He was very nice and took plenty of pictures for us.

Food.

Most of it was a hit or miss, the combination of food was slightly strange. The appetizers were very salty. The desserts were extremely sweet. Some were bearable, some made me question life. I’m not quite sure if the point of it is to be extremes of each other but it was definitely not what I was expecting. The scones were the worst, dry flaky and definitely not fresh.

However some of the other cakes were very nice. The salted caramel one were delicious and a good balance of sweetness and salty.

View was fantastic. What can I say, that was the most amazing part of the experience.

I hope Hyatt takes these complaints seriously as I was scrolling through the Google reviews I realised I was not the only one who had a bad experience with the staff. Others had similar experience. It would be such a shame if a prestigious hotel chain’s name is tarnished due to bad service.

5 stars for front boys at the hotel entrance! Extremely polite, warm smiles and ever readily happy to help customers. Maybe the restaurant staff should learn a thing or two from them. They made my day much better.

Personally I would not return and would...

Pros:

food was decently good (we ordered the Rib eye, Tagliatelle, and the Risotto)

allowed children in the restaurant (big plus since we had a baby and needed a baby chair)

We observed that they had prepared some light decor of rose petals and a “38 Signature Cake” for those celebrating birthdays

Open-kitchen concept was a nice touch

Waitstaff & kitchen team got our order preferences right. (we ordered fries non-salted for our daughter and w the parm cheese on the side. It came out exactly as we requested.)

Cons:

Restaurant was too dim it became more like a bar than restaurant setting.

service was adequate but nothing beyond expectation, which isn't sufficient for a restaurant of that standard. For instance, we were greeted by the host and shown to our table, but it would've been appreciated if the host had inquired whether we were celebrating anything (seeing as how most of the diners there seemed to be celebrating a special occasion). We were in fact there for our anniversary and my baby's first birthday.

Our water goblets were not refilled and we had some difficulty even getting the waitstaff's attention as they were so scattered rather than attending to allocated sections.

Would’ve been nice if they provided children’s dining set

no staff checked in to see how our dinner was going

food took quite awhile to arrive (approx 30 mins); there was a bread basket but the bread was nothing memorable or impressive. Would’ve been nice if some light canapés were served between dishes to entice diners while also providing some form of distraction to make up for the long waiting time for dishes

Lastly, we had a terrible experience with the reservation. A week earlier (on Aug 18), we had called to make a reservation for the previous Saturday (aug 22) but we were informed that they were fully booked, so we opted for the next Saturday (today, Aug 29). As our reservation was made more than a week in advance we forgot whether it was for 7PM or 7:30PM so we called to inquire. Lo and behold, when the staff answered the call, the response was that our reservation was nowhere to be found and all their tables were fully-booked. We were extremely upset as we had been waiting to dine there and see what this hype was all about. The staff then informed that he would check with his manager if they could still accommodate us; thankfully they managed to.

We are mentioning this because had we not called to confirm the timing of our reservation and just showed up at the restaurant at 7:30PM just to be informed that our reservation is nowhere to be found, we would've been hugely disappointed and dissatisfied with the whole experience.

It would have been appreciated if someone came to address the matter with us and apologize for the mistake, rather than jjst brush it under the carpet and expect the guests to ignore that such an issue happened.

This was really the biggest disappointment of all. Thankfully the food and the scenic view...