Hopeless Hanare

Bright and early on Sunday morning, I attended English mass. It was actually my duty with the Mandarin hospitality ministry again that week but I had to skip it again because KH had planned a Japanese buffet gathering at Hanare, The Intermark. Our curiosity was piqued during our lunch there some weeks ago hoping that the quality we got from ala carte was reproduced in their buffet. At MYR148++, we had high expectations for air-flown seafood. Come D-Day, we arrived at about noon. A whole bunch of people were already standing out front waiting to be seated. Since SK's granny was with us, the staff let us cut the queue and led us to the private room since we were a party of six. Did a preliminary sweep of the buffet and I must say that it was a quickie! Not that much at all! Ugh. There were three types of fish sashimi-- salmon, tuna and hamachi. On top of that was calamari and shrimp. Raw oysters were also available, but the ice mound was hardly half full with the small oysters. Other than this, one gets yakitori, some nimono, tempura, udon, soba and nabe. At the grill, tiger prawns, scallops and wagyu beef was available. The first round was quite satisfying, but the subsequent rounds revealed something not very healthy about the buffet-- the sluggish refill rate. It reflects quite badly if you can't even ensure that the gari is refilled, what more the raw oysters? Lifeebook was so pissed that he complained to the head waiter, "You shouldn't put the label as FRESH OYSTERS, it should read ICE MOUND". Typical of the standard Malaysian service, when confronted with criticism, they think that by telling the complainant that you are not the first to complain will smooth things over. LOL. Exactly like how police officers tell you that you're the fourth victim of snatch theft in front of their police station that day. Never a cute answer really. KH was seated next to me that day and I must say that his hands were busy, hovering at the edges of my jeans. Not that he had so many oysters. LOL.