This is gonna be a short write up
as there is nothing much to write about this meal. It was Italian again!!!! And
I somehow felt that CC had sloppily selected this place for want of better
ideas. It's one of those, meet the minimum spend and stay clear of the samolah
level kinda food.
So we arrived at around quarter
past 12 to the magnificent and beautifully restored Alkaff Mansion. Whilst
walking to the restaurant entrance we could see groups of people busily working
the grounds for what seems to be preparation for an indian wedding. We were
escorted to the second level of the restaurant (the entire mansion is the
restaurant actually), and were seated at one corner. The view outside was a
lusciously lovely sea of green all round owing to the fact that the mansion was
situated in a park.
So we got on quickly to ordering,
and were given a $55 cap on the spend as Jon had a 15% off deal with the
Maybank credit card (but only with the set lunch). We decided to pool our
excess budget towards ordering 2 additional portions of oven baked lamb rack to
be shared amongst the party with the exclusion of Jason Lau since he had
forfeited this privilege by ordering 2 ala carte pastas instead.
Jason had requested the waiter for a spaghetti
carbonara, which was NOT on the menu. Adding to that request he asked if he
could have another pasta, but within the total budget of S$50 for both pastas.
The waiter agreed to do an additional portion of Aglio Olio for him.
Personally, I had my doubts on Jason's selection.
Moving on to the sets, we were
confronted with 2 choices for starters, i.e. the Caprese and the soup of the
day which was a lentil soup. Without much to choose from we thus ordered 3
capreses and 2 soups. As for the mains, we had a choice of a creamy mushroom
tagliatelle and a seafood spaghetti with prawns. The last main that was on
offer required additional supplement for which we had no budget for.
For desert, there was no choice
except for an orange cake, owing to budgetary reasons as well.
So where to start....
Jason's Aglio Olio was ok.
Standard fare nothing to scream about with a dish that is just about as basic
as one can get with barely half a dozen ingredients required to make this dish.
The pasta was al dente, but aglio olio is one of my least favoured pastas.
As for his carbonara, this was
definitely the better of the 2 dishes. I would give it a 5 out of 10. Probably
a mid ranking carbonara in my view. Better than the awful one we had at
Osvaldo, but worse than the Il Lido one, and not to mention a far cry from our
all time favourite carbonara by La Strada. In fact, even the Italian chain
Carluccio's in the UK does a carbonara immensely better than this for about
half the price.
Moving on to our starters, the Caprese was ok. Again,
it was buffalo mozzarella imported from some place in Italy, and taken out and
put on a dish together with what I figure is some locally purchased momotaro
tomatoes that were second grade. The cheese was standard fresh, and the
tomatoes were somewhat sweet, but not of the best quality, and nowhere close to
real quality italian tomatoes.
Our lentil soup was again very
average. I agreed with Dann that the chick peas were a little too firm for my
liking, but the texture of the split black beans were ok. The flavour of the
soup was rather bland though, and I can only say that they would have been
better off making an italian white bean (cannellini) soup instead if it was a
vegetarian soup they were after. I think it would have been much tastier. In
fact all the white bean soups i've tasted in italy even for a work man's set
lunch beat this soup pants down.
As for the 2 pasta mains, the
prawn spaghetti was acceptable. The pasta was al dente, and the overall flavour
was ok. There was a generous serving of shelled prawns with the dish, but as
Dann correctly pointed out, the quality of the prawns were not great. Possibly
frozen farmed variety.
The creamy mushroom tagliatelle
was thankfully much better. There was good mushroom flavour in the cream sauce,
and the pasta was also well cooked al dente style.
Then came the lamb rack. I was
surprised at the portion. There were only 3 small ribs laid out per serving.
And mind you it cost S$44 per order, so with tax and service that's like S$50
per plate for 3 measly ribs. Gosh! The meat was really tender though, and the
flavour of the lamb was not too strong despite there not being a lot of
marinade. I suppose this is really chops from a spring lamb. The lamb was
cooked medium done, which was to my liking, although for some, that could be a
tad too raw.
Finally, we were served our
dessert, which was a simple orange flavoured cake topped with cream and a
dribbling of orange sauce. Taste wise it was nothing out of the ordinary, but
okay.
At this point, a waiter came out
with a serving of tiramisu topped with a candle and presented it to Dann. Well,
apparently they got whiff of us commenting on Dann being a birthday boy in our
conversation earlier (which was totally untrue!), but heck without even a wink
of an eye we all played on and started clapping and singing the happy birthday
song to Dann loudly.
Dann seemlessly played his part as well smiling cheekily
and making a wish before blowing the candle. In any case, this is the second
establishment which we have gotten a complimentary birthday cake (and in both
cases, there really wasn't a birthday!), but I suppose since Dann's birthday
was going to fall sometime the following week that it was close enough to
qualify. One more thing, we all actually came to the conclusion that the
complimentary tiramisu was better than the dessert cake we got.
By: Club Scribe
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