Gattopardo - 1st November 2011

It was Jason Lau's turn for our BML, and in usual fashion (its always either Chinese, Italian or European), he selected an italian joint. Gattopardo, which was his selection for the week focuses primarily on Sicilian style Italian cuisine.

So we arrived and were seated nicely in a corner of the restaurant. Upon receiving our menus,
Jason "el cheapo" Lau proclaimed a spending cap of S$55 per pax. After much deliberations between the rest of the members and with reference to the menu, we decided to pool our restricted budget (yup... this is how far the club has fallen over the years) in order to afford some of the better recommended dishes.

With our limited budget, we picked 3 mains, namely the Branzino al Sale, which was an 800g salt baked sea bass, the Costata al Manzo alla Fiorentina, which was a large bone in ribeye done fiorentine style, and a Porchetta Cotta al Forno a Legna, which was a roasted pork belly (this was really to satisfy Dann who was protesting that he did not eat beef).

For the starches, we ordered a Bucatini (a holey spaghetti), Tonnarelli al Granchio, which was a squid ink pasta with King crab and cognac sauce and an Arrotolata, which was like a smallish Calzone stuffed with mozzarella, suckling pig, porcine mushroom and rocket leaves.

Upon taking our orders, we were served the standard complimentary bread and olive oil. At this point, Jason Lau waved to the chef and requested for butter, to which he got a firm retort of "NO!" no butter here. Ha! Now thats keeping up with the Sicilian way of having your bread. Better chance at a Northern Italian joint next time businessman!

Following this we were served our 3 starches in quick succession. As usual owing to the meagre quantity, someone had to be appointed to "fairly" apportion out the food for all members. And as per our club rules, in order to encourage proper apportioning on the part of the apportioner, the apportioner is made to select his portion LAST!

I must say, all 3 dishes were good. The bucatini is really a typical sicilian pasta dish. Having been to Sicily myself, I've had such tube like pasta dishes in several forms there. I've had even larger tubes, but I reckon that the smaller tube sizes are more to my liking, as the big ones tend to be too starchy for me. The flavour of the sauce was good and the texture of the pasta was perfectly al dente. Anyone wanting to try a sicilian pasta should select this.

As for the Tonnarelli, this was another good pasta dish. The sauce was very flavourful and there was 6 pieces of crab meat still in shell (luckily there was 6 and not 5 or 7!). The pasta was cooked perfectly and the crab meat was tasty too. You could say this dish was gone in 60 seconds.

Then came the Arrotolata. This is one italian dish i have not had. But it was good! It had a pastry like outer crust (yup, like a Calzone), and inside the outer crust was the oozing goodness of mozzarella, stuffed with pork and mushroom.  You could tell before eating that this was gonna be good. It's like a baked pork pie, only better as it had mozzarella with mushrooms as well. A real treat, but a good choice to be shared as having a whole order to yourself would be a little too much.

Next up came the 3 mains. First off, we had the roasted pork belly (Porchetta Cotta al Forno a Legna). What can i say.... it was okay.... I wonder why we always order the pork belly at every establishment when we always would prefer to have pork belly roasted the cantonese way with 5 spice and all! In any case, I'm not sure if this is really a sicilian dish.  But overall, it was acceptable. The meat was tender, the skin was ok crispy and there was no over powering porcine flavour/smell.

We were then served the beef. This was  a large bone in rib steak char grilled to medium doneness. This was definitely not Sicilian, and the name gives it away since Florence is in the north. In any case, for anyone thinking of travelling for a dining adventure in Sicily, the local food fare tends to focus more on the starches (I've had some of my biggest pastas there!) and maybe seafood, with less emphasis on meat based dishes which you find more in the centre and northern parts of Italy. 

Back to the beef, it was standard fare. Tasted pretty good, was fairly tender, but overall not mind blowing. Somehow i think that the cut could have been a third of an inch to half an inch thicker as the outer edges of the meat seemed a little overcooked.

Finally, we were served the salt baked sea bass. The dish was served at the side still encrusted in a salt cover. The waiter then removed the salt shell and proceeded to have the fish skinned and filleted. We proceeded to each take our share, and whilst some of the boys were not impressed, I have to say that on hindsight I actually really enjoyed this dish. The meat was tender and delicate. The bass was fresh and there was just a nice tinge of saltiness in the meat. The oil that was drizzled with it gave it that additional smoothness. Upon my recollection, i think this dish was done in (and seemed a bit plain) partly because we were served the stronger tasting beef just prior to it.

With no further budget for ordering dessert, and with many of our bellies still hungry, we quickly paid up and headed for ya kun kaya toast. The damage after a 10% discount came to S$353.80.

As Erap II was the only one who drove, and Jason Lau was too cheap to flag a cab, we proceeded to do the impossible. As Jon was the biggest and heaviest, he had the luxury of sitting in the front passenger seat. Collin had quickly positioned himself at one end of the back seat, whereas I on the other hand had the misfortune of being wedged between Dann Sim on my right and Jason Lau on my left. The entire 10 minute ride (not helped by the complimentary parking ticket having issues getting the car park barrier arm lifted, thus extending my agony by another 2 minutes) was pure agony, being wedged between 2 men with child bearing hips squeezing the left and right side of my own hips and draining the blood out of my legs.

All in all it was a decent meal and Gattopardo is one of the better italian joints here, although not quite just Sicilian.

By: Club Scribe