Wonderboom — Restaurant in Sarawak

On Mother's Day, we ended up at Wonderboom with all our top 5 favorite Chinese restaurants being fully booked by noon. Looking at the super interesting and attractive varieties on the menu, I was so excited to try so many things and thanks to me, I brought my family into quite a terrible dinner as most of the food were overly hyped but didn't taste so delicious. Oh! The only thing I liked was the sweet potato fries. If you do come here, don't forget to order that. RM12.90

We tried over 10 items on the menu excluding drinks etc. and spent over RM420. I was into spending time with my family over the meal and didn't take the pictures of the food except for the Shinjuku rice bowl, all because I was shocked to see how different that slice of unagi was from the depicted picture on the menu. It was like only a quarter of the one whole unagi slice. RM27.90

Let's talk about the other things we ordered, which I got to try. The MI-SO Yummy (Japanese miso porridge with soft-shelled crab), to me, the wrongest thing they did with this dish was to marinate the fried soft-shelled crab in curry powder. It just didn't go well with the miso side of the Japanese cuisine. Other than that, the porridge itself was okay, nothing too special. RM25.90

Next, the Ooh - Ma - Mi, claimed to be the sirloin steak at its best, ordered by my big-fan-of-steak husband, and he didn't touch it any more after his first bite. RM48.90

Cousin to the sirloin steak was the Hey Shortie, beef short ribs that tasted like the beef stew you commonly get to eat during Raya, in bigger slice (with the rib) and tender. But definitely didn't live up to the impression its name gave us. RM38.90

The Red Sea, seafood red curry with vegetable rice bowl. Hmm, what should I say about it? It was small in portion with limited seafood among the vegetables, and the taste was not like any curry that I knew, maybe a little like the Thai green curry style. RM20.90

Okay, the Smells Are Free - mushroom noodle bowl in garlic butter oil. Indeed, it was just smell and didn't taste much.. But it's not free, you all. RM14.90

I didn't get to taste a few other dishes, so I will share my review on just what I have tasted.

Oh yea, and the desserts, expect around RM18 per slice with small portion. We ordered the Mango Cheese and the seasonal special, Tiramisu. The Tiramisu fingers were soaked in Kahlua which attracted me to try it (but overly soaked, so be careful not to get drunk, just in case).

Nevertheless, the friendly staff earned the 2...

Definitely one of my favourite weekend place for brunch. (Reservation should be done in advance to avoid disappointment as they do get crowded) - pretty good food in general but definitely awesome ambiance. When the crowd grows less that's the best time to enjoy the live music. Have been through different gigs and all the performances have been awesome this far.

2 years fast forward to December 2021 :

Unfortunately I cannot say the same for the level of food and service. I ordered the Christmas special menu - it's grilled chicken and has cranberry sauce. My chicken was served to me warm. I'm not sure if it's because it was left sitting there for too long (I waited a fair bit) or if its reheated chicken. There is this smell of a frozen chicken piece. So I didn't finish it even with the sauce it couldn't cover that odour. The pulled beef burrito is sad as well. The beef within had no flavour. Its dry. The scrambled eggs within saved the dryness some. We ordered a salmon and after 45 mins, we asked and they just said oh, it's not in the order. No apologies and the wait staff just said OK, cancel. When we 1st started ordering the wait staff was also inexperienced. We'd to asked 3x before our orders were taken.

A far cry indeed from 2 years ago when I posted. Sadly its been deteriorating to this point where I won't be visiting for a good long time - not unless I hear of significant improvements again. The saving grace to my entire meal is the...

Food: 3 stars I had ordered salted egg crab noodles, chicken rice bowl, fries and a pizza. Personally I will only recommend the salted egg crab noodles and the pizza which is quite nice. However, a NO to the chicken rice bowl because it is tasteless. Too bland. No sauce. Even the chicken itself is also no taste.

Atmosphere: 2 stars There is no music when I'm come. Few years ago when I come and visit they used to have some live band or some bgm music but now left is only silent.

Services:1 star There are not much customers when I visit. But there is no one come to serve. When we mention that we got reservations, the staffs look no clue what we talking about. And when we look at the menu, no one come and give recommendation so we have no idea what should we order. When we mention that we need to change our seats because it is near to the preparing area and quite noisy when they blend the fruits but that chinese staff is directly just walking away. And luckily another staff came to help. Besides that, when we want to add on some drinks and take our cake, the staffs are all sit down and we took some time to find where are them. My suggestion is they have to give more training to their staffs. But I would give a 5 star to the only staff that which is helping us on our seat arrangement and...