Dinhokee (鼎好记) @ Terengganu Road, Penang.

*** This eatery has since closed down.***

With all these buffet steamboat outlets mushrooming in Penang these days, we Penangites have more choices to choose from when it comes to buffet steamboat, whether the concerns are on the prices, quality, services, parking, ambiance, food choices etc. My recent visit to this steamboat outlet was during New Year Eve, the place was very crowded and finding parking can be a little troublesome. One can have their cars parked opposite the place, in a housing area or just beside the road. There are a couple of parking spaces right in front of the place but obviously they are not sufficient. Anyway, you can choose to have the steamboat pot with barbecue plate on top or just ordinary steamboat pot (soup version only). If you are going for the soup version only (no barbecue for you), then you can choose to sit in the comfortable air-conditioned room. You can always grab your ingredients and ask the staff to barbecue or pan fry for you, they do have this service. As for price, I supposed the prices are pretty okay, after all, its an "All You Can Eat Buffet".

A very elegant set up, they are using the electronic stove which is much safer compared to the traditional gas or charcoal stove, good for those with children. Extra fruit juices are available to quench your thirst, but they are not included in the buffet sadly, you will have to pay a little more for them. Soup-wise, choose between the ordinary chicken stock (clear soup version) or tom yum.

Well, we were there pretty late that night, a lot of the food were finished and were not refilled in a fast pace, so there was a small table for the appetizers (fresh greens, fruits etc), another table for the sauces, fried rice, fried chicken, Herbal Eggs, some dim sum namely Siew Mai (Chinese Dumplings), a table for fried stuff such as fried fish balls, Thailand Pandan Chicken, fried fish cakes etc....you will find some vegetables inside the fridge too. 

The usual ingredients that you will get for steamboat. Something unique here was all the seafood were being marinated first, such as yellow curry powder, black pepper sauce etc. They do have some little shrimps too, they were very fresh and best for barbecue. As for meat, they serve chicken, pork and beef. 

They were very good in marinating their meat, particularly their beef. Thinly sliced and just perfect for some "Shabu-shabu" action, dip into the soup for a couple of seconds and your meat will be perfectly cooked. It worked perfectly with their home made sourish garlic chili sauce too. Their chicken and pork were not too shabby, but, the beef still prevails in my opinion.

As mentioned earlier ago, these were their deep fried finger food. Most of them were okay, the chicken turned out to be very disappointing. One of the bigger sized fried chicken I had was not cooked thoroughly, a result from attempting to maintain the smooth and juicy texture I supposed. They could have chopped the chicken evenly or to pay extra caution to the cooking time to overcome this problem. 

Marinated meat, be it pork, chicken, beef, marinated seafood such as cuttlefish, squids, small shrimps etc can be barbecued. I adore their effort to place all the ingredients separately (unlike some other steamboat outlets) and garnished with some chopped cabbage. Simply pass all the ingredients that you have chosen to the barbecue counter outside and tell them your table number, they will fry for you and will deliver to your table later on.

As for desserts, they have ice kacang (shaved ice dessert) and ice cream. A small ice shaving machine will be there and you have to operate it by your own. The ice will be coarsely shaved thanks to the machine and the texture was very horrible, more like biting ice cubes. On the other hand, I would recommend my readers to go for the Nestle ice cream instead. There were 4 flavors available, peppermint, yam, sweet corn and strawberry. Simple yet satisfying.

Ratings:

Taste: 7/10 (1-3 bad, 4-7 average, 8-10 good)

Price: 7/10 (1-3 expensive, 4-7 average, 8-10 cheap)

Parking: 6/10 (1-3 bad, 4-7 average, 8-10 good)

Service: 7.5/10 (1-3 bad, 4-7 average, 8-10 good)

Service Charge: No

Government Tax: No

Additional Information:

Address: 29-A, Jalan Terengganu, 10460, Georgetown, Penang.

Price: Adults (Rm21.90 during weekdays, Rm23.90 during weekends), Senior Citizens (Rm14.90 during weekdays, Rm16.90 during weekends), Children (Rm11.90), Children (5 Year Old or below will be FREE)

Business Hour: 6pm to 12am, Daily.