Hotel Buffet: A Greek Shenanigan @ Swez Brasserie, Eastin Hotel

On May 01, I was brought to Swez Brasserie at Eastin Hotel Penang for a surprise buffet. When I reach there, I was genuinely surprised that it was a Greek semi-buffet dinner – Greek Grandeur as they called it. I was so excited to be able to taste Greek food again since I’m kind of obsessed with everything Greek... :p

Greek Grandeur! Sound Exciting?

Look at that!

Since it was a semi-buffet, we had to order a main course with appetizer and dessert in buffet style. We quickly ordered the Greek Chicken Souvlaki & Greek Moussaka – both common meals in Greece. While we were waiting for our main courses, we went to get some appetizers to fill our stomach.

The Greek Grandeur Semi-Buffet Dinner Menu

The appetizer selection was quite small with some cheese platter, salad, soup & cold cut with a small section of sashimi, scallop & sushi. I also fainted when I saw the sashimi platter – it looked so stale and disgusting. I didn’t even want to sample that. We tried some cold cut and surmised that the best thing was the smoked salmon. Darn, there were even flies flying around and stopped on the food occasionally. I can’t believe a hotel restaurant had such a bad standard.

Cold cut & Salad Section

Sushi & Cold Seafood Section

Caesar Salad Section

Cheese Platter

Greek Chicken Soup with Egg-Lemon Sauce - kind of taste like Campbell Chicken soup.. LOL

This is not labeled - tasted like Chinese style chicken soup

The Best part of the night? - The Smoked Salmon

Look at this disgusting Sashimi Platter!!! My Gosh!!!

Our main course arrived and I could assure that it tasted NOTHING like Greek. Ares should rage a war on this shenanigan! The so-called Greek Chicken Souvlaki was hard to bite and basically tasted like over-cooked black pepper seasoned ‘satay’ – look at the size of that Souvlaki! I really wonder whether I should thank them for the small size due to the bad taste or wondered at how different size it was with traditional Greek Souvlaki. It was served with pita bread with thick cuts of cucumber & tomatoes which makes it impossible to wrap it like gyros in Greece. I really miss Lucky's Souvlaki in Santorini (link)!!! *sob*

Greek Chicken Souvlaki

The Moussaka reminded me more of a lasagna without the pasta. From our experience, Moussaka is a traditional Greek food with layer & layer of cheese, meat & eggplant and this looked and tasted nothing like one that we tried in Santorini (link) & Mykonos (link). *facepalm* From my memory, what makes Moussaka great is the combination of thick cream cheese and tomato puree - when eaten together creating a creamy yet sourly taste that tantalize your taste-buds! Unfortunately, the thin layer of cheese on top of this version did nothing to revive that experience. I don't think it was cream cheese either - most likely mozzarella cheese like the one on lasagna.

 Moussaka

The dessert was nothing to shout about either and there was only one Greek dessert which i must admitted i'd never see it during my travel in Greece. I tried it here and it tasted meh to me. 

Dessert

In conclusion, don’t waste your money on this if you really are craving for Greek food. In fact, this is simply not worth the money – if you want a semi-buffet dinner, go for The View at Equatorial Hotel to have their French Style semi-buffet instead.