How The Mighty Have Fallen

It may look trendy, but the shabbiness is getting evident.

When Swensen's first came to Malaysia in the Eighties, with its stained glass lampshades and long ice cream counters, it really was THE place to go for a treat. Great food and ice cream all in one place. It was thrilling to the kid I was at the time. A lot of good memories are still associated with the place where the first Damansara Jaya outlet was: from my dad dropping us off, money clutched in hot, little hands, so we could order take away cones while he circled the block. Dad would always ask for a scoop of yam ice cream in a cup.

I think the franchise died in the early Nineties. It came back in the Noughties, but it was never the same. A visit to the then new Subang Parade outlet showed that there was no longer two sizes of scoops available. In the past, the Swen-size used to be a man's fist-sized scoop of ice cream. Regular was what other ice cream kiosks did. When the brand was re-introduced, that was gone. And so was a lot of the old-fashioned San Francisco ice cream parlour feel. Sure, the old favourite sundaes like the Coit Tower and Stars N Strawberry Stripes were still on the menu, but in response to the times, the decor had changed to a more trendy, cafe-style look. No more dark booths with wood panels, or scarred wooden tables.

The food was so-so, but unforgivably, so was the ice cream. The last time I had an Earthquake (eight scoops of ice cream topped with assorted sauces and whipped cream), it was more like a tremour. This was in 2012. We had four people sharing it, and we had to order another one. This would have been unheard of in the old days. Inflation has caught up too, with the smaller scoops commanding a bigger price tag. That sundae cost over RM50 after taxes!

It's looking like a ghost town in here.

After a long abscence and thinking to revisit an old friend, Kit and CVS made the call for Swensen's instead of Baskins, after a hot and spicy lunch. The outlook was not good from the get go. The trendy cafe has deteriorated into uncool shabbiness. It was lunch time, but despite the promo boards outside advertising set lunches, there was only one other table dining.

After I looked at how it took three wait staff to load a tray of their signature crunchy cones into the freezer, and further noted the connumdrum that developed when the cones began to fall apart, I decided I was not going to blow any money. Basic sundaes were around the range of RM15. A scoop was about RM5. I was not about to fork out money to find the ice cream was old or had melted and refrozen. Turnaround did not look good, and I was not ready to gamble.

The wooden booths have become this.

Frosted Chocolate Malt sundae.

Kit ordered the Frosted Chocolate Malt sundae. It was RM19.90. Thankfully, what I had remembered as a RM10.50 treat was still the same size. Another plus was that it still tasted good, with its malt ice cream, fudge and marshmallow syrups and malted chocolate balls.

The badly assembled cone, already breaking up upon being delivered.

Does this look like vanilla?

CVS' Classic Vanilla crispy cone, however, was a disaster. While the size was close enough to what I remembered, and the chocolate coating was still liberally studded with sliced almonds, it was terribly assembled. It tilted at an angle, and the vanilla was anything but. The yellow concoction inside was definitely too yellow to have come from an addition of eggs in the ice cream. It tasted like someone had scraped the dregs of mango sherbet, vanilla ice cream and orange and disguised it as vanilla. That was a RM10.90 screw-up if there was one.The total bill of RM33.90 could have fed a field trip of kids with cones from the Golden Arches! And I bet, with no complaints,

Safe to say I won't be returning to Swensen's in a long while. It took me two years between visits last. Let's see if they will still be around in the next two years!

Swensen's Subang Parade
G30 5 Jalan SS16/1 Subang Jaya