Malaya Kitchen Asian Fusion — Restaurant in Charlotte

We called in our order for take-out from here. (You can order off the website, but there's a service fee).

We got... Curry Laksa (with chicken) The curry laksa had lots of meat and vegetables, but they were the star of the dish because the curry "broth" itself was very one dimensional, without any umami. (If you want a good curry laksa, stick with CO instead.)

Char Kway Teow (with chicken) This dish just tasted like food-court lo-mein or plain stir fry but with better noodles. The onions and bean sprouts added some nice variety in texture, and we liked it better than the laksa, but nothing I would bother ordering again. (If you like this dish I would recommend the Ho Fun noodles at Great Wall Chinese off Caramel Rd.)

Roti Canai This was underwhelming as the "curry" was the same as the broth in the laksa. It was more watery than any curry I've had, and more like dipping your bread in spicy chicken broth. (The one served at Hawkers Market is way better.)

Satay Tofu This was easily the most flavorful item we ordered. It was the only thing I would recommend out of what we tried today.

We had high hopes for this place, but nothing impressed us enough...

Staff was friendly, food was not the best - came here because I miss Malaysian and Thai cuisine a lot. We ordered these items: 1. Roti Telur (3 stars) - it was too thick and lacked taste unless you dipped it into the thin curry it came with - it is usually cooked in oil but this was flaky; 2. Chicken Satay (4 stars) - this was good and the most enjoyable dish on the menu that we tried but could have had more flavour and a thicker peanut sauce; 3. Beef Rendang (3.5 stars) - was a good flavour and had the chilli sign on it but was not hot by any means, so not sure why it was on the menu; 4. Pad Thai (0 stars, sorry) - I was completely let down by this, it came out a bright orange with peanuts on top and looked nothing like the authentic pad thai - it tasted more like rice noodles drenched in sweet and sour chicken sauce and I couldn't eat it after a few mouthfuls. I felt very disappointed with my experience. I saw people ordering Chinese cuisine and thought maybe we should have ordered those but all in all it was not the best experience for...

Everything seems standard for its price level. Food was good. Some dishes were better and exceeded expectations. However, there is a problem:

We had a group of four, not reaching the size, by custom, to be charged gratuity. Yet, the bill I received had an 18% "tip" penciled in by an employee without my consent. I am usually generous in leaving tips in respect of the culture and social norm here as an immigrant, but absolutely object the idea that tipping, especially tipping to a required minimum amount, is to be a moral commandment inflicted on the consumers. The only entity that is legally and morally responsible for properly paying any employee is the emplyer. A tip reflects a customer's compliment to a good experience exceeding the standard and is, and will continue to be, voluntary without external social or ethical pressure, whether such pressure is explicitly or implicitly applied. The behavior of prescribing a tip amount is in no way acceptable and should be by no means normalized.

I will not revisit or recommend this place if such...