In case you haven't noticed, Malaysians love to queue. We will queue for good food, hipster cafes, over-priced limited edition UT shirts, sneakers and even a McDonald toy. We are undoubtedly a very patient lot but let's face it. When waiting in line, we are literally wasting away precious time that could be used for something else.
Case in point, queueing for food. Take Korean chicken specialist, Kfry in 1Utama for example. I remember walking past it several times when I was shopping there and there was always long line outside it for lunch and dinner. Of course I was intrigued because if there is a queue, it must be good.
And it was.
A quick glance around the crowded restaurant told us that their signature cheesy fried chicken bumbuk was the thing to order. We went with the honey mustard flavour in anticipation of the cheesiness and was treated to a show of the oozing mozzarella cheese being melted and wrapped around the boneless fried chicken by the staff. To keep the freshness and texture of the cheese, half the chicken would wrapped up first and once you're ready, the staff will come back and do the second half.
Another dish I recommend was the Ju Meok Bap aka korean rice balls. We ordered the ham and cheese mix and once again, the staff helped us mix and roll it up into mini bite-size balls. I personally found it to be so yummy with its explosion of flavours and textures that I ended up taking home the leftovers. The rice balls was perfect as a snack.
The sizing at KFry are massive and if shared between 4-5 people, the bill works out to be quite reasonable and you get to try out a lot of different dishes. The Tteokbokki came with a generous portion of seafood, cheese (yes, more cheese!) and between the three of us and the aforementioned dishes, could not be finished in one sitting. This also was packed and taken home. Having anticipated the consquence of their portion sizes, Kfry was ready with containers for us to take home our food. Maybe if you're planning to eat here in future, bring along your own containers :)
Now what would dinner be without dessert. No matter how stuffed we were, there was always space for dessert and upon the staff's helpful recommendation, we tried the super refreshing and super yummy orange bingsu. OMG, forget full. It was like our stomachs opened up again to accept this cold milky citrusy dessert and the best part was, it came in a mini size chilled metal bowl to maintain the finely shaved ice.
I understand now why there was always a queue outside KFry but thankfully for my experience, I could skip the physical queue. Instead, I used the QueQ app on my phone to secure my spot in line while I went to my car to drop off some stuff before dinner. All I needed to do was pick the restaurant, in this case, Kfry 1Utama and key in the number of people in my group and just keep an eye out of the calling number on the app. The app even shows how many numbers are ahead of you in the app which is a helpful indication of how busy the restaurant will be. As for me, the timing was perfect because just as I was walking up to the restaurant, my assigned number appeared on the screen and my group was quickly ushered in.
I will admit - there is a rush of glee to see the looks of envy of those waiting outside. I wonder how many downloaded the QueQ app after that. For now, the app has limited vendors on board with only a few eateries like Kfry, Yut Kee (!) and Dotty's Pastries and Coffee. However, I look forward to seeing the popularity of the app pick up once they have more well-known restaurants and events available online. I do know of several restaurants that could benefit from this (cough pizza mansion cough).
Another aspect of it that would be useful to the community would be its usage in hospitals and civil service offices. Imagine using the app to queue for you when renewing your passport. Hah, no need to wait outside the doors before office hours.
QueQ is available on both the
Google Play Store for Android users and
App Store for iOS users. For more information, go to the
official website.
Disclaimer: This post was an invited app review by QueQ with its partnering eateries one of them being KFry but all opinions here are unbiased and are entirely my own.
