Sunday, August 05, 2012

Hyatt Hotel at Kota Kinabalu and its Oxtail Assam Pedas

There was an airfare promo some months back and I'd booked a short weekend getaway to KK for us on the first weekend of August.

I'm really glad for it because this break from the stress factors of the past month has recharged our marriage even though (or maybe because!) we had a most unpleasant experience together on our first night at Hyatt Hotel.

We reached the hotel about 9pm after a RM30 airport ride from the hotel and the check-in was fuss-free at that hour. Unfortunately, our request for a complimentary upgrade to a seaview room was denied (though I had the Gold card) and this was the view from our room in the morning. I'd stayed in a seaview room before at the Hyatt and the view was awesome (click here) so I'll say that if you had to choose, just pay that little bit extra for the seaview room.It's worth it. The mountain/city view is hideous.

We had an hour's complimentary internet access (WIFI as well as wired) which came in quite useful. As the hotel's restaurant only served buffet dinner till 10pm, we decided to order room service for the hotel's famous oxtail assam pedas. We were delighted to find out when placing our order that there is no tray charge and the cost of the hotel's famous Oxtail Assam Pedas for room service is just RM35 (with taxes and svc charge it works out to RM40) compared to the cost of the dish at the restaurant which is RM42 (without tax and svc charge).

My CEB went to the shopping mall next door to see if the shops were still open and when he returned, dinner was served literally. The meals came with rice and a glass of ice-cold water.

Now, make no mistake about it - the oxtail assam pedas is delicious. No two ways about that. There is lots of succulent tender meat cooked to tasty perfection and the sauce is thick and flavorful without being too spicy or too "coconuty".

We enjoyed our meal very much and retired to bed shortly after....only to be awoken up by our tummies less than an hour later! Everything exploded out of my tummy with a huge gush the first time I rushed to the toilet bowl. As I sat on the bowl, my CEB called out to me that his tummy was not feeling too good and he needed the bowl. So I got off and he got on. I was tired from being awake the entire day and fell asleep without waiting for him to be done, only to be awoken up two more times in the next two hours by my rebelling stomach. Liquid from the wrong place! It was awful!

At 7am, I asked my CEB to call the hotel to ask for charcoal pills as my stomach felt shaky and the hotel suggested that we go to the clinic instead. Now, I was exhausted from all the trips to the toilet and definitely was not happy to get out of bed at 7am on a holiday to go to a clinic. So I decided to go back to rest and hope for the best. My CEB and I both fell asleep till 11am when he woke me up.

The first thing I did was call the guest services to complain. They had the assistant manager call me back . He explained that it was the hotel's policy not to dispense medicine and urged us to go to the clinic. I did not see the point of so doing since everything had been purged during the numerous trips to the toilet. He told me that this was the first time any hotel guests had complained about their famous oxtail assam pedas giving them diarrhoea. I told him that this was the first time I had ordered room service that I had such a stomach upset - not even room service in a South Africa hotel had given me an experience like I just had!

I even had to tell him specifically that I was not going to pay for the food that had given us diarrhoea. He did not offer to take it off the bill. And he definitely did not offer to compensate us in anyway to make us feel better. If this is all the Hyatt can offer, and to its Gold member, then I'm definitely glad that we have chosen to maintain our Hilton Gold and SPG Gold memberships instead.

PS: I gave Hyatt feedback by referring this post to them and what do you know? They took almost a week to respond and all the manager said was that they would take the cost of the meal off my hotel bill, something which they had already done. There is absolutely no way I'm going to support the Hyatt group of hotels ever.

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