Day +657 : Ask for the price before ordering

I am fine today.

A classmate of mine forwarded a mail to me sometimes ago, describing a “painful” dining experience.

“Last week, I brought my guests to Genting Highlands. After a day 'above the clouds', we decided to have dinner at the Gohtong Jaya area on the way down.

We ordered some dishes and decided to have a steamed fish as well. So the captain recommended 'sultan fish'. The steamed fish came. HALF, and plain steamed. Good & fine.

But when the bill came, it came to over $500 !! We were shocked !! We were told the fish was 1.4 kg ( & please bear in mind, its ONLY HALF A FISH ) at RM 320 per kg! RM 420!! This was daylight robbery. We were not informed by the Captain that a kg of the Sultan fish would cost us RM 320 and there was also no signs of such pricings anywhere in the restaurant.

When we checked with the cashier, she told us, its correct !!

Of cos, it was our mistake for not asking the price first.

Anyway, on the way back to KL, we stopped at Unique Seafood,PJ, where one can choose a live fish. The most expensive Soon Hock swimming in the tank is RM135 per kilo. Asked them about the Sultan fish, it is going for RM100 a kilo.

Will be sending this letter to the newspapers, Tourism board, etc etc; and friends, pls pass on to all on yr email list.

CHEATED. “

The bill

My brother Richard, the busybody :-), called the restaurant to find out the price of the sultan fish and he was told that the price was indeed RM320kg per kg, and they didn’t even have stock on that day.

Why the fish is so expensive? One reason could be the sultan fish that the restaurant supplies is from the river, and it is extremely difficult to find such fish in the river. That is why even you are willing to pay for RM320 per kg, it still has to count on your luck to have the fish :-)

Richard told me the Soon Hock cost about RM110 per kg in that restaurant, which is cheaper than the Unique Seafood at PJ.

Be extra careful when ordering food especially the fish, and among the fish, especially the sultan fish; else your dining experience might cause a fish lover like you to have fish phobia. If you can’t remember well exactly what type of fish you should watch out when ordering food, just remember “the fish for the rich Sultan” . With this you will straight away link it to sultan fish, and since this fish is for the rich sultan, and we are not so rich, we better choose other fish :-)

See you next post :-)