As I'd forgotten the location of the restaurant, we stopped to ask for directions at the petrol station at Kuah Town. The pump attendant didn't know where it was but a very friendly Malay chappie on a spanking new BMW motorbike did, and also suggested that we try out the nasi kandar at this Malay coffeeshop nearby called Nasi Haji Kandar. The coffeeshop is easy enough to spot, being near the traffic junction and having a prominent signboard. The Slog Reviews: 8/10. Maybe we were starving, but in any case, my CEB proclaimed that this was one of the best nasi kandars he ever had. I thought it was pretty good grub BUT I thought that RM16 for our meal (see below) and a diet coke was a bit of a rip off - that's almost SG price or more like, tourist price. It's hard to conceive the locals having to pay that amount for such a simple meal. In any case, the coffeeshop was pretty packed, even at 4pm in the evening.
Now, I wish to set the record straight about Wonderland at Langkawi, even if the rest of the world may disagree. Wonderland sucks big time. It doesn't deserve the reputation that it has the least. I'm not talking about the service which was just slightly below mediocre, but about the entire experience there. The Slog Reviews: 3/10. Go spend your money at GLK which is just next door. Y?
We were the second group of customers at Wonderland (about 6pm) and although there were some staff standing around, none made the effort to show us to a table or make us feel welcome. So we took an empty table under the fan, waited a good ten mins for the lone server who was taking the orders from the first group to come over, and well, waited some more because she never came over to give us the menus after she was done with the first group. I had to get up, go the kitchen (where the rest of the staff who were equally customer-oriented NOT ignored me) and ask her to switch on the fan and give us the menus. As I didn't want any spit or dirt in my food, my tone was polite (despite my first negative impression of the place) and she came over in a bit with the menu, quite apologetic about the delay.
As I do not eat oyster or squid, our seafood options were limited to fish, prawns, crabs and clams. And being a fisherman, I'm pretty adverse to having pay for fish that has been dead for a while since my own catch is always fresh and tastiest heh. (Wonderland does not have ANY fresh seafood at all - no tanks of lively prawns/fishes or struggling bound-up crabs). So we asked for crabs and were told they only had soft shell crab. Eeks. I asked if I could order crabs from GLK to bring over and the server was okay with that but sadly, GLK was out of crabs too. Crap. So we ordered lala and were told that they didn't have any of that either. So it was down to just prawns and fish. My CEB ordered assam prawns at the server's recommendation and kangkong per the pic below. The Slog Reviews: 5/10. Both veg and prawns were disappointingly mediocre and bland. The assam prawns tasted nothing like the ones I always have at this restaurant in Muar (click here), being cooked in a thick soy like sauce. Eeks.
My CEB also ordered a red snapper. The Slog Reviews: 5/10. We had the fish steamed per the server's recommendation and the result = a waste of a good fish. The meat was tender and fresh (as fresh can be for a fish dead and kept in a freezer) but the cooking was so bad that there was hardly enough gravy to go over the flesh and sauce was not absorbed by the fish meat. Disappointing.
And so, that's our RM60 first and last time experience at Wonderland food store at Langkawi. If you want good FRESH seafood in Langkawi that doesn't include oysters and squid, this restaurant is definitely not the place to go to.
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