Restaurant Review: Red Kwali

Red Kwali - lunch on April 1, 2014, 2.5 stars on yelp

I was going out to lunch with a coworker and another friend and we had originally planned to go to Dish Dash but when we got there, we were told the wait would be 30 minutes for a table. Now, while we might be able to get away for lunch, no way did any of us have time to wait 30 minutes then be able to eat lunch. It was a work day after all. So we decided to go next door and try out Red Kwali. It bills itself as Malaysian Thai food, similar to Banana Leaf just across the street.

The restaurant was a decent size and there were still empty tables so we thought our chances were good at getting in and out fairly quickly. Unfortunately, what we didn't take into account is there seemed to be one hostess and one server for the entire restaurant. Meaning, it took awhile for us to get seated and it took awhile longer for someone to take our orders. Once we ordered, the food took an okay amount of time to come out, not that quick but it didn't seem as long as it took for us to order.

The prices were pretty standard for a restaurant catering to the business crowd. Most entrees were in the $10-15 range and came as rice plates. My friend chose the eggplant dish since she said it's not something she makes herself so she always tries to choose what she doesn't cook when she goes out to eat.

Eggplant

I have the same criteria but in my case, since I don't cook, the world's my oyster when it comes to choosing from a restaurant menu. You'll never hear me say, "Oh, I make Black Pepper Beef all the time so I think I'll go with the Pineapple Chicken today." Instead it's "ooh, pineapple sweet and sour chicken, I'll have that."

Pineapple Sweet and Sour Chicken

I thought the dish was pretty decent. There wasn't too much extra stuff besides the chicken and it was easy for me to pick out what I didn't eat and just stick to the chicken and rice. Rice was just standard, not like Gochi or even Tribu but good enough. And the chicken was flavorful. Overall, I liked the one entree I tried (we didn't have time or room for dessert) but I wasn't impressed with the relatively slow service so next time, if I have to wait for a meal anyway, I'd rather wait at Dish Dash.