Banana Café @ Chulia Street

Place/Venue:

Banana Café @ Chulia Street, Georgetown

Environment
Well, first off I would like to say it is a pretty nice place to drink and to have small chit-chats. Well that’s about it, then because if you were to expect air conditioning (its quite warm here) and nice lounge music, then you wont find it here and that my friends, is pretty sad because I think it would be great to have a café like this could be much nicer with these elements. But they stay true to their cause which is to attract tourist (as this is a tourist “hot spot” site) with rather CHEAP drinks (which I like) and moderate food servings (Well shall get to that in a while). Here you can see many people, especially tourist drinking their coffees or whatever, while renting the laptops that they provide for like a RM3 per hour thing. The WiFi service here is however, free of charge! This place is just crowding with business! I don’t mean customers here, because I currently don’t see any,( I hope they do have more then what I am seeing right now) but all sorts of business! From tourist guides, to laundry to whatever that goes behind those closed doors in the back, but all safe I suppose, I see no threats here.
Verdict: 6/10

Food
Well so far I haven’t personally tried the food here but I think it would be rather moderate. I mean if you want to come here, it must be more for the drinks! Beer lovers here get to enjoy their beers ranging from RM7-8 for a Tiger, Skool, Jazz, Carlsberg, Royal Stout and est. For coffee lovers? Well if its not for the coffee then the prices would sound good! How about a white coffee for RM2 huh? Not bad eh? And I thought these place because of the tourist and all will katok us kau-kau on their pricing! Lemon and English tea for RM2 as well! Wow….For all you cheap skates out there and not-so-cheap-skates, who would enjoy a good cheap drink and free WiFi, this is close to your paradise cafe! Well but you know what they say, if you pay peanuts, you get peanuts, and the drinks that you pay cheap for, comes cheaply. But I guess that wont be a problem for chin chai people like us Malaysians, anything also boleh one right? =D

And there’s a guest house here! The prices are also quite reasonable as I think an air conditioned room is like RM35 and a non is like RM 25. How you want to use it,I don’t know. Hmm…interesting though!

Verdict: 5/10

Service
The service here is actually not bad, well of course we came in while football was on and the guy reluctantly left his undying gaze at the big projected screen on the wall (With no volume, yes that sucks as well) to serve us. Well the service is generally okay, not much to comment on that. The workers are pretty patient as well. After warning us several times that the shop was closing as we sat still and unmoved, he then moved to read the news paper! Was quite considerate of him la, and I thank him for that.
Verdict: 6/10

Marketing
Marketing! Well, first of all, there’s nothing much to market here. Among the other row of shop houses along this street, this shop doesn’t really stand out, unless if you want to judge the shop by its bigger size and wider space among the rest. This shop has nothing about banana to it as well, but the name somehow still fits in here though. The thing which I hate is that it closes at 1 a.m. on a Saturday….come on! 1 a.m. on a Saturday??? That’s really crazy wei! Who would want to close up at one on a Saturday? Are you trying to chase your customers away? (Or should I say new potential customers) I was so going to introduce this place to my friends but now, nada, not a place to go if you’re the late/early birds of the night!)
Verdict: 4/10


OVERALL VERDICT: 6/10
Well, this place is generally okay, but improvement on the closing time would be good! Really good! Also if they prepare their powdered drinks better, I think the quality of this place would really shoot up!

Okay I really have to go now, its after closing g time and I think the waiters are really waiting, I’ll leave first and do hope the other tables would be considerate enough to follow me. (They still have a lot of unfinished drinks on the table). See ya!

Fancy Spanish League football for all you Spanish footie fans , I suggest you go home or watch it at a 24hour mamak stall . Barclays Premier League at 1am kick off , I would also suggest you go to a 24 hour mamak stall. Good Night =)