Haidilao Hot Pot — Restaurant in Subang Jaya

As a regular customer at haidilao branches throughout Malaysia, I am deeply disturbed with the treatment of my non-chinese girlfriend by the servers at Haidilao Hot Pot @IOI Puchong Mall, Malaysia.

This incident happened at 6pm on the 4th of December 2022. Before we were seated at our table, we were shown to the waiting area while they prepared our table. When a Chinese lady server came to our waiting area, she proceeded to take my drink order exclusively and completely in mandarin without asking my girlfriend if she wanted anything nor did she even look at her, the server completely ignored my girlfriend's presence. I find this completely rude, disappointing and uncalled for given how haidilao prides itself on hospitality and service especially in a multicultural country like Malaysia. This is no way to treat a non-chinese customer. Upon this interaction, my girlfriend felt like she was not welcomed but she wanted to give Haidilao's service, the benefit of the doubt since we had better experience at other branches.

With our table finally ready, we were brought to our table inside. This time, it was a Chinese male server named Zi Hao who was in charge of our table. The whole time, he had the audacity to explain everything in mandarin without batting an eye on my girlfriend or enquiring if she could understand mandarin. Throughout the explanation, he was only looking at me and explaining everything to me in mandarin without acknowledging her presence even once. The menu had the option to change to English but he never bothered to ask if my girlfriend could read or understand mandarin.

This time, my girlfriend had enough and decided to ask if he could speak English, he replied yes, he can. My girlfriend was taken aback and enquired further that if he could speak English, why did he not explain it in English, he instead replied because I think you can understand mandarin. My girlfriend then asked if he knew she could understand mandarin, why did he not look at her at all when explaining the menu, completely ignoring her presence throughout and just focusing on me to which he had no explanation. Honestly, I find his reasoning to be flawed and was not exactly honest because my girlfriend never once spoken to him in mandarin before the confrontation.

Despite that, it is still rude to assume a non-chinese who may speak minimal mandarin can understand mandarin without asking and it is very rude to assume that a person has similar reading comprehension as their speaking. When he knew we were upset and uncomfortable about the interaction, he never once apologized for his racist behaviour for not accommodating other races on a shared dinner table.

To summarize, 2 consecutive racist encounters however subtle from 2 different servers in the same outlet traumatised us. We will be sure not to return to Haidilao anymore albeit a regular in other branches. It is no excuse for such a huge restaurant chain to have servers who behave in a racist manner. All it took was for them to look at the person and ask if they could understand the language or if they needed anything. We would not have been so upset if the server first enquired if my non-chinese girlfriend could understand or read mandarin but to exclude someone without first enquiring was too much and the conduct was racist. Even if a non-chinese could understand minimal mandarin, it is only polite to also look at them when speaking instead of focusing on the chinese person only without acknowledging a non-chinese at all. This is totally unacceptable in the food and beverage industry.

At this point, our dinner plan was ruined. We did not feel comfortable to dine there and we decided to leave the restaurant. Since most of my family members and friends are regular customers, we will definitely take this into account in terms of the service provided by this branch and may not return to any Haidilao branches in the future until such behaviour is addressed...

I am a frequent diner at Hai Di Lao and IOI puchong branch is the outlet that i frequently visit. Sad to say that the service level has deteriorated a lot.

I visited the branch yesterday. Made a mistake on the soup selection and immediately asked for waiter's help to make changes. He took the ipad and went off, came back in a minute and said something to himself that i could not hear and ran off again. The soup was then served by the other server. After few minutes he came back with the ipad and said nothing can be done since the soup is already served. It's okay i don't mind since its my mistake but the act of disappearing with the ipad until the soup is served is something i could not understand.

We also queued for the manicure service. As we are almost done with our food, the manicurist came and asked us to go for the service. Not sure what is wrong but the manicurist was really rude during the entire service process. I can understand if you are having a bad day but i am still a paying customer. I don't even expect your service level to be as high as the Haidilao brand would require but i really think her rudeness is unacceptable even for a normal waiter at other kopitiam.

Immediately after the manicure session, the manicurist reported the incident to her superior where the superior stopped us from leaving and asked for feedback since an incident has been reported. We gave our feedback and he took down our number and said that he will follow up via whatsapp. Follow up was not made, so please don't reply to this review and ask me to contact you for feedback. You have our number but chose not to follow up.

Sadly to say with this bad experience, I most probably will not visit this...

Have been dining here for a dozen time since its opening. Only good things can be said about this place.

If you arrive when the restaurant is full house or needing waiting for your turn to enter, there is a spacious waiting area for you and your family or friends to sit, get some drink and snacks (see photo). You'll get a waiting ticket which is divided into two categories of smaller number of guests (1-4 ppl) or big group (more than 5ppl).

Once seated you'll be served with fruit platter (slightly differ every time but the watermelon is always there) and your choice of drink Chinese tea or Winter Melon drink.

Orders are done through digital pad, and you can have an option of getting membership to collect points every time you dine with them.

Why we return to Haidilao for steamboat is because the food are always fresh. If there's anything you're not satisfied or happy about you can always let them know and they'll change for you. The service is commendable.

After finishing the steamboat, you may ask for dessert with about 6 or 7 choices. Today, my usual favourite white fungus is already out of order, so I tried the taufufa (bean curd pudding). Their ice ream is delicious (see photo). There's a custoner feedback QR code on the tissue box so you can provide feedback or praise the waiters or waitresses who provided great service (their names are in Chinese on their name tags).

Fresh food items and friendly staff are their strong selling points. Hopefully they can keep up their good work, and consider opening a halal version of restaurant chains to serve Muslim customers to introduce steamboat...