I’m no food and wine connoisseur but I absolutely trust my senses and personal favorites. I’m also proud that my young and beautiful family acquired their very own personal preferences. We’re all grateful for the chance to experience again, another delightful challenge to our taste buds and appetites. Last weekend, July 6th, 2013, Saturday, we went back to Eastern & Oriental Hotel Penang for another casual yet memorable gastronomic feast at Sarkies! With the warm and friendly service, remarkable of E&O, we felt so home already!
My wife, Tina & our son, Gabby at one charming corner of the Heritage Wing, E&O Hotel, Penang.
We were there to try their Wine and Dine Buffet Dinner that’s offered at Sarkies every Friday and Saturday. Free flow of red and white wines, beer and fruit punches. Children in tow could also indulge in fruit blends and other beverages that perfectly paired Sarkies’ buffet spread.
Red or white? a can of beer, perhaps?
But why do we love Sarkies at Eastern & Oriental Hotel Penang?
Allow me to count the reasons in random order.
Elegant Yet Casual Ambiance.
Either al fresco dining with the priceless view of the Malacca Strait and the tropical Malaysian breeze caressing you while you indulge during sundown, or dining inside the airconditioned areas near the spread, it’s always a visual treat to see tasteful interiors patterned after the history of this heritage hotel. Fixtures and furnitures are simply impressive!
The Live-Kitchen-Stations
It’s entertaining to see how chefs turn your choice of ingredients into a culinary masterpiece! Sure, it’s a common thing among food & beverage outlets in other hotels but what makes that of Sarkies different from the rest is the friendly service of their staff, from the ones handling the pans to those courteous staff who sets and clears up the tables.
Talking about Live Kitchen Stations, Tina delighted herself with a tasteful bowl of koay teow soup, filled with freshest seafoods that the chef whipped up from those raw ingredients she selected at Sarkies’ Noodle Station.
Go Local!
Even Malaysian dishes are cooked, grilled, fried and whatnot upon request. Beef or lamb chops, chicken satay, anyone?
The freshest and the widest variety of seafoods on this side of Malaysia!
Mostly are imported with great quality and taste! Tell me, how many hotels around offer these kind of seafood goodness? Alaskan Snow Crab Claws, Spanner Crab (those hairy curacha crabs we call back home are a new addition to the seafood spread at Sarkies) Poached Black Mussels, New Zealand Mussels, Duo of Gravlax, Norwegian Salmon, Barramundi or Asian seabass, Oysters on Ice, Prawns to name a few. All for a dinner price that’s surprisingly reasonable; far better than what our family sampled from buffets in premier hotels back home. Sarkies’ seafood choices are simply glorious! Continue scrolling down, just be mindful not to drool. 😛
Quick Refills! Eye-candy!
The spread is frequently refilled; you won’t see any station screaming for generous and quick refill; no need! Furthermore, the presentations of dishes are simply enticing!
Favorite of locals and foreigners alike!
Res ipsa loquitor. Back when I was having my haywire med-school days, I learned this Latin phrase in Legal Medicine that literally means, “the thing speaks for itself.” Apparently, each time we get a chance to dine at Sarkies in E&O, we see hungry patrons -both local and foreign alike packed the dining areas once the doors open at 7PM for dinner. A proof that Sarkies’ food choices, service, ambiance and all are worthy of thumbs up!
If you’ve been following this blog for quite some time now, you should expect that this is the part when the site shamelessly displays what we wolf down! For what purpose, you may ask? Must there be a reason for everything we do? Life is damn short so cut the logic and just indulge with this visual feast! Inhale deeply. Exhale forcibly. Get yourself a tall glass of cold water and you know the drill: Thou shall not drool! 😛
Some are used to prawn and steak or lobster and steak version of Surf and Turf. Here’s my own Surf and Turf plate – I paired that very tender and delicious Roasted Beef with Cheesy Baked Scallops (which I think, was a dish considered upon our family’s suggestion the last time we had dinner at Sarkies; blog post HERE!). Sedap!!! Sarap!!!
We also sampled Sarkies’ lobsters! It was generously served at our table by the staff. One may find this lobster dish on the dry side, particularly when you prefer those steamed and juicy ones but this from Sarkies was made more flavorful with the special gravy that came with it (not in photo); that dip/gravy was a fusion of mint, assam or tamarind with other secret herbs according to our taste buds.
We also enjoyed those savory chops of roasted duck! Those duckie slices tasted they’re cooked in two ways. Both delicious, you wouldn’t wish it to be wrapped anymore.
After our 8-year-old-son, Gabby finished his handsome plate of Roasted Beef, he also had Angel Hair Carbonara served directly to our table upon request to the Chef.
Heavenly Desserts.
Sarkies has Ice Cream Bar that looks nothing but classy with those dark wooden shutters as backdrop (you don’t get that Heritage-style interiors from an ordinary food place), cakes and pastries that could challenge the foodie in you!
Our dessert plates…
Such a friendly dining place!
Best of all, Sarkies provides a non-intimidating venue where special and memorable moments beyond our home are made!
We’re happy diners! 🙂
Gabby met Dylan, son of one of the hotel’s managers. This boy’s presence and his mom and dad made our dinner extra-pleasant! People of E&O Hotel Penang, in general are the friendliest!
And by the way, we brought along with us THE well-traveled, Manila’s Heritage expert, Ivan Man Dy of OldManilaWalks.Com who revisited Penang for this year’s George Town Festival. Tina and I were so glad that Ivan also found everything at Sarkies at par with his standards (or I bet, even beyond his expectations!).
Ivan Man Dy (center) went wacky with Sarkies’ authentic Chicken Satay! Visit Penang again and savor more of Sarkies & the rest of E&O, Ivan! We certainly spent good time during that dinner at Sarkies!
I had Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 from Australia Utah. Cheers! 🙂
Special thanks to Ms. Eileen for the invites and of course, to the people behind Sarkies at E&O Hotel Penang for this wonderful dinner! For each time that we go to E&O and its F&B outlets, remarkable moments are always experienced!
*Wine and Dine Buffet Dinner at Sarkies, every Fridays and Saturdays, 7PM-10:30PM. RM 148++ (or US$ 46.15 per adult), RM 65++ (or US$ 20.27 per child) with free flow of wine, beer and fruit punch.
Check out the other offerings at E&O’s food and beverage outlets :
Sarkies is also having Jamuan Buka Puasa from July 9 to August 7, 2013 at 7PM-10:30PM, with rates of RM 96++ per adult and RM 48++ per child from Sunday to Tuesday and rates of RM 110++ per adult and RM 65++ per child from Wednesday to Saturday. Spend breaking of the fast during this year’s Ramadhan season at Sarkies in E&O!
For more details and to make your reservations, contact : Sarkies at Eastern & Oriental Hotel, Penang | website : www.e-o-hotel.com/sarkies
This blog’s other posts about Eastern and Oriental Hotel include :
beyond toxicity @ docgelo.com 
i think one has to abstain from eating all day before dining here. the restaurant is filled with delicious food. sayang naman if your stomach can’t accommodate all the different dishes. love the selection. i’ve never tried any of the wines you photographed here, especially the Utah wine, Castle Creek. I didn’t even know they make wines in Utah 🙂
hi maria, if it wasn’t for your comment, i wouldn’t notice i had wine from utah, i relied on what the barista mentioned that it came from australia; probably that castle creek cabernet sauvignon was made in utah and distributed by a company in australia, hehehe! thank you, i had edited the caption on the photo. 🙂
doc, i just googled castle creek because it’s a brand i’ve never seen before. that’s when i found out it’s from utah. but there might be another castle creek from aussie. 🙂
i googled it too after i read your first comment, and yes, there’s castle creek from utah and you might be also right that there’s also castle creek in australia as per reply of the barista to me.
happy to know that even a bit, reading blogs can be engaging! 🙂
W-O-W…WOW! hehehe Oh My Geee, I was salivating while I was looking at your pictures and reading your blog. If I were there I would just concentrate on my favorite seafood with no rice so I can eat more hehehe….I didn’t know that the buffet there is expensive considering the seafood there would be cheaper than here. Here we can go to buffet for $30/adult with all those expensive seafood too like in any Las Vegas Hotel and Casino we would pay only $30 or less 😉 but I don’t know how and where I can compare that hotel here in the US, probably the wine makes it expensive 😉 anyways……I updated my blog na, hahaha ok ba sa segway?
hi missy, perhaps if you compared its cost to US (particularly in vegas) where hotel buffets are as voluminous as one can imagine, it’s a little steep but not when you compare it with asian standards. we’ve been dining around a few eat-wall-you-want-offers in premier hotels in the philippines and even here in malaysia and singapore, the rates of e&o with its quality of food and beverage on the spread are highly competitive; dare i say even better from the ones back home.
thanks for the visit here; will swing to your blog soon! 🙂