Jalan Tanjung Tokong
10470 George Town
Pulau Pinang

We heard there was a new Irish pub in Penang, so this was a must-visit for us. Mr ND was craving an Irish breakfast and Shenanigans sounded like just the place to get one.

It’s situated at Jalan Tanjung Tokong about 200m north of the junction with Jalan Fettes, with plenty of parking space, if you’re driving there, or easy taxi drop-off. It’s a big place and looked very promising.

Unfortunately the reality didn’t live up to the promise. We found it spacious, clean and new, with a very flexible space which would be good for meetings, parties and events. But it was somewhat impersonal, empty and not Irish at all. Perhaps it’s the wrong theme for the space.

The owner (or manager?), who didn’t appear to be Irish (maybe Australian?), didn’t even say “hello” or attempt any of the other pleasantries that are usual in an Irish pub. You’d think that having such a new pub he might have tried to engage in some conversation, even if only to elicit feedback.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say we felt unwelcome - but we didn’t really feel welcome either. Shenanigans lacks the warm hospitality one usually gets in an Irish pub.

The menu was rather uninspiring too. And they didn’t even do breakfasts! Mr ND couldn’t believe we’d come to what’s probably the only Irish pub in the world which doesn’t do breakfasts.

The music wasn’t any better, with a somewhat tedious cacophony of Shitney, Whitney etc.

Time to leave, we thought, but we had a quick check of the facilities before we left.

Gents: Mr ND reported that the throne room wasn’t clean and smelt of piss, with unsavoury splashes on the seat. A separate room behind a closed door had two (mismatching, possibly second-hand?) urinals which smelt every bit as bad as the throne room - they clearly hadn’t been flushed recently. But at least the handwash area was clean and stocked with soap.

Ladies: there were two cubicles, both dirty. OK, so presumably customers made it so but the place obviously isn’t checked for cleanliness by staff. I declined to use it. I suppose if one was desperate you could “go” in there, but you’d have to clean it first. Yuk!

We visited at about 2pm on a Sunday. You’d think that an Irish bar would be throbbing with people at that sort of time, but there were only about eight customers in total in this huge, empty barn of a place.

We left immediately after finishing our pints of Guinness (the Guinness was fine, at least) totally confused as to why anyone had thought to call the place an Irish pub - or indeed why the owners had chosen an Irish theme for a building that really didn’t lend itself to an Irish theme at all.

Having read about Shenanigans on various other blogs, I also discovered that they’d served only Malaysian food at their opening party. It seemed like a lost opportunity to show what was on offer. But perhaps not, since there’s very little Irish about the place anyway other than its name and a couple of retro Guinness posters. Hmm, that’s not enough to make a good Irish pub.

Our rating: The Guinness was OK, and apart from the grotty toilets there was nothing wrong with it. But there wasn’t much right either and we wouldn’t go back. I suppose we could stretch to 2 out of 5.

Federal Hotel (lower ground floor)
Corner of jln Bintang/jln Bulan 1

Wandering around Kuala Lumpur looking for somewhere to have a drink can be a slightly trying experience, at least if you’re more used to the relatively generous supply of bars in cities elsewhere in South East Asia. But it’s not all bad news. Most of the hotels have bars attached, some of them really very comfortable. So it was that, early one Friday evening, fresh off the ‘plane and strolling around Bukit Bintang, we came across Delaney’s on the lower ground floor of the venerable Federal Hotel, built just in time for Merdeka (independence) in 1957.

OK, so to a certain extent Delaney’s is typical of the sort of Oirish pub you can find anywhere in the world. (You can certainly find them in Bangkok – there’s a Delaney’s there too.) But it’s a pretty good bar in its own right, with comfortable chairs, a selection of magazines to read, a big-screen TV for whenever there’s a major sporting event on (we saw several dozen stools stacked around one of the walls, so it must get pretty busy when there’s a big match on!) and very friendly and helpful staff who are happy to engage in a bit of banter with the customers.

As luck would have it, we arrived during Happy Hour, and the Guinness was flowing. Guinness (and stout generally) is relatively cheap in Malaysia – or is it that lager’s relatively expensive? Whatever, we settled down to pouring a few ebony mind-changers down our throats.

But when the beer arrived, it came in the company of an extra waitress with a basket full of tickets. Both of us were invited to draw one each to see what we’d won in the special prize draw Delaney’s were holding that evening. We won a pack of playing-cards (very handy, as we’d forgotten to bring any on this particular break) and a lighter (mine was running fairly low), so we were feeling pretty pleased. To our mild surprise, when we’d finished our first pints and ordered the next we were invited to draw again. Another pack of playing cards, but this time we also got the star prize: a set of three Guinness whisky tumblers in frosted glass, with the Chinese characters for “Bravery”, “Health” and “Prosperity” marked on them. Nice!

Encouraged by our experience of the Friday night, we went in again on the Saturday. (No draw this time; sadly, we were told that it was on the Thursday and Friday only. Oh well, we’d already done pretty well out of it, and there are only so many games of cards that require multiple packs. Some more glasses might have been nice, though…) We were feeling pretty hungry, so we decided to see what was on offer on the menu.

We ordered one fish and chips, and one steak and Guinness pie with chips. (It’s always worth hedging your bets – if one of the meals is lovely but the other one’s mediocre, then at least we can share the good meal.)

The steak and Guinness pie was a good deal better than expected. In particular, the pastry wasn’t yer bog-standard industrial pastry – it appeared to be made on site, which was nice. Lovely tasty gravy contained a good supply of mushroom and onions. The beef was not bad either; a bit dry, but there was nothing boingy about it.

The fish was pretty good too, with an excellent light, crisp batter. The tartare sauce wasn’t really tartare sauce, more like flavoured mayonnaise, but it was pretty tasty all the same. The chips were the standard frozen crinkly things you seem to get everywhere these days – not very exciting, but at least they were hot and edible.

Our rating: 4 out of 5
The food was good, as was the beer, but it was the staff that really made the place. In fact, they were so helpful that they’d come round to warn us before Happy Hour finished at eight o’clock.