jogoya

The reason for an identical facial expression in photographs 20 minutes apart is either (a) the food was so good throughout that I stoned in a dreamy, gluttony trance for 3 hours, or (b) the food sucked balls so consistently hard that I had to force myself to consistently smile the fake, enjoying-it smile.

In Jogoya's case, sadly, it was the latter.

They should place more literate, English-proficient staff before the entrance. This dude didn't even smile while shoo-ing me to queue at the registration counter (I made the grave mistake of walking straight up to the payment counter before registering but how would I know). I asked what I'm supposed to do first. He pointed again to the little queue-less counter at the side. I stood there totally lost until a Chinese guy in a better suit came and explained.

They should place more literate, English-proficient staff at the entrance. Not someone who shrieks "See receipt! Show me receipt!" while flagging customers two-steps onto the red carpet leading to the 30,000 square feet (so I was told) interior. If this is a semi-fastfood franchise, I'd understand and smile apologetically and speedily dig out the receipt from my already-cluttered handbag. But I just paid RM101.20 for dinner and my mood sank lower at the cheapness everything was oozing before I even set foot inside.

If this is your first time at Jogoya, I guarantee you'll be awestruck by the spaciousness of the set-up and the layout of the food. I got lost trying to find my way back to the table a coupla times. Ya I know I have no bloody cow sense of direction to start off with, but this place is huge.

Check out the dry ice for the smoky effect. Woo! Alas, the 2 workers featured here got into a scuffle. With real punches being thrown and shoving until another burlier worker had to stand in the middle and pry them apart. All these unfolded right in front of maybe 5 guests queuing for dimsum. Does wonder to one's appetite, this.

Bamboo clams, herbed snails, custard paos and ginseng soup. Only the custard pao tasted nice. But their raw food section was good! Oysters were the biggest I've ever sampled, and the salmon freshest. Other than that... errr...

Do not, I repeat, do not go for their king crab whatever extravaganza. There's this little special placard that says VIP members are entitled to king crab rolls, grilled king crab, curry king crab etc, and small fry customers like yours truly got all excited when I saw that I could actually order a soupy king crab do in some special fireproof, waterproof paper... and did. Oh my gee that was the foulest crab ever, royal descendent or not. Tasted like yesterday's VIP's leftovers now passed on to small fry customers to clean up.

Proceeded to sample desserts very quickly (what to do, main courses didn't excite me). The cakes and pastries were nothing to shout about, but

the lime & lemon sorbet and mango & passionfruit sorbet were heavenly with a capital H. I think they're from Movenpick. Said so on the container-lah. Yummylicious! The mushrooms were okay too (no, these are not dessert, it just arrived... very late). And the coconuts, oh the coconuts (mouth waters). I set myself a goal of emptying 20 coconuts (to make up for the RM50 I didn't/couldn't consume on food) but I could manage a meager 5 before giving up. The remorse shall follow me to my grave.

What's a Taiwanese franchise without Taiwan's very own mwah-chee? I fell in love with this sticky pepejal ever since my first Taiwan trip 4 years ago. Rock hard and whitish uncooked, jelly-ish and semi-transparent cooked, it's a larger version of our local Chinese tong-yuen (little glutinous rice balls one eats a month before Lunar New Year) without the sesame/peanut stuffing. A bit too sweet, this, but fine nevertheless.

Jasiminne the Penguin has much better pictures (and more positive comments) about Jogoya than I do. Go go.