Johnny Rockets first set foot in Malaysia in the last quarter of 2013 and have recently expanded to it's 5th branch in Pavilion KL. It's very first branch opened in The Curve followed by KLIA, Avenue K and Sunway Pyramid. I considered visiting a branch when I heard of the hype of dancing waiters but their locations were rather out of reach till this branch in Pavilion opened. Unfortunately, the dancing waiters only appear at night so a lunch visit would be rather quiet.
The All-American restaurant was bright and eye-catching with it's retro diner decor which left me reminiscing my holiday in the US where I had one too many burgers and decadent desserts every night.
Even the straw holder was an original replica of the old days.
The milkshake is made in a metal flask before being poured in a tall glass. Any extras are given to you so you have a drink and a dessert at the same time. My chocolate milkshake was so thick to the extent that it refused to budge up my straw. I have no doubts that they use a lot of ice cream for your milkshake as it's evident in its sweetness. Although it was rich and creamy, I found it lacking the richness of chocolate and way too sweet. My guess is that they use chocolate syrup so there was additional sweetness to the already sugar-laden ice-cream.
My colleague's cookies and cream milkshake was better. I liked the chunks of cookie crumbs as it gave the milkshake some texture and some bitterness to counter the sweet. I would order this over the chocolate milkshake anytime.
Because my colleague is vegetarian, she ordered the grilled cheese which came with thick cut fries and purple cabbage slaw.
It looks pretty decent but I felt it was not worth the price paid. This was RM15.90 I believe?
I ordered a Rocket Single which came with a salad and fries. I was thankful that my salad didn't have onions but the dressing on top tasted like an awful mix of mayo with ketchup.
The bun was huge and thick - bigger than the burger patty itself. But because the patty was the same width as the bun, it made it seem as though the patty was large. I probably got full because of the bun and not the patty.
The patty was grilled to medium well but wasn't juicy or charred so I wasn't too impressed.
As far as 'service with a smile' goes, I had trouble hailing a waiter a few times and most of their workforce seemed to be made of foreign workers whose grasp of English is rather poor.
I'm rather indifferent to their food as it's neither good nor bad and their service, mediocre. I will however, leave you to decide if their fancy decor is worth examining upclose.
Perhaps the experience would have been better with dancing waiters.