Pasta De Gohan - Novelty Strikes Once

We decided to have our little getaway and make our way to our "fairy-land" once more (albeit a short 2 month absence).

We spotted "Pasta De Gohan" which looks uncanningly like Pasta De Waruku in Singapore.
After further investigation, we realised that it is the M'sia branch by Pasta De Waruku in Singapore.

We had wanted to visit this eatery boasting of Japanese Italian (wafu this, wafu that) food for the longest time, seduced by the many yummy looking display, typical of Japanese restaurants.
So without much consideration, we had lunch here.

We ordered the

1. Squid sphagatti
This was the most outstanding dish in the display and having read quite a bit abt squid ink pasta, I figured I need to at least try it once to see if this is something I will like.

It looks erm....very black and gives a dirty feeling to the dish.

Taste wise, it has got an interesting taste somewhat close to a cream sauce without the heavy feel. I won't mind eating this again.

2. Cabonara pizza
Do you like thin crust pizza?
Look at the thickness of this crust. I think the term "paper-thin" is very apt to discribe this.

Taste wise, the cheese is flavourful and the bacon and egg is a good combi accentuating the taste of the spread. The paper thin crust has practically no taste but adds a good crisp to the pizza.

3. Lemon squash and *can't rmb name*
Lemon squash is very sour and the other drink is quite forgettable.

This is the most expensive meal we had during this visit RM75. The novelty of Japanese Italian is probably worth visiting once but not somewhere I'll be looking forward to visit anytime soon.

Pasta De Gohan

Sunway Pyramid

LG2

Pasta Mania - Lousy pasta and lousy system

Well, I'm sure you can tell this is going to be a review full of gripes from the title.

We went to Bugis Junction on Friday night for dinner which I guess is the 1st mistake we made. Being a weekend (yes, Friday is weekend to me) night, the place is swarmed with people and the carpark is full, we had to wait 15-20 mins before being let in to the carpark, then another 15 mins driving around to look for a parking space.
By the time, we finally managed to get out of the car, I am already famished.

First stop - sketches as we wanted to eat pasta. Long queue outside, we were told there is no available table and that they will call us if we leave our contact # once they have a table for us. So we did. Walked round the premise and found that with the exception of fast food outlets (which are also packed), all restaurants have queues forming outside - even seoul garden!

So we decided to split resources - Father-in-law (FIL) queued outside Sakae Sushi (as the nephew requested) while Mr HB went round to PastaMania (2nd mistake). After about 20min, Mr HB called out to me to say that he's got a table for us. We settled down to our table and start looking at the menu.
At this time, Sketches called and tell us that they have a table for us but since we have just seated ourselves and by then we are all hungry and could well do with a "quick casual dinner" (3rd BIG mistake).

We hurriedly placed our orders - 4 pastas and 2 10" pizzas (for 4 adults, 1 kid, 1 toddler and 1 baby, I'm sure u can tell we are hungry at this point).

Upon returning to the table, Mr HB said that their system was down when he was placing his order and he is afraid that our orders are not captured.And boy was he right.
We sat and waited and watched pasta and pizzas being served to all other tables except ours.
So after ~40mins, we finally decided that something is wrong and went to enquire about our orders. We were told our orders are not captured in the system after some checking.
The restaurant manager promptly apologised to Mr HB (who was making the enquiry) and said that she will prepare our pizzas personally while giving instrutions to prepare our orders to the kitchen.

We were given complimentary garlic bread to curb our hunger while waiting (somemore) for our food to be served.
By now, we are all extremely hungry and hungry man = angry man.
For the rest of the interactions, Mr HB was rather sacarstic in all his remarks.

Finally after about 10mins, our pasta are served. I cannot really recalled what pasta was being ordered but what I had was bland (pestos in tomato herb sauce) though the pasta serving is huge (I believe they gave us large portions to try to make up for the time we had to wait). I only finished 1/4 of it. The pizzas followed shortly after - Hawaiian and Mushroom pizza. It is quite apparent that we were given extra large toppings as both the pizzas are literally overflowing with ham, pineapple and mushroom.

OK, onto the taste, the hawaiian pizza is just normal but the mushroom pizza is WAY too salty, we only finished 1/2 of it despite the generous ingredients.

Overall, I would say that don't expect good food here but the service is commendable. Despite the boo-boo made, they did try to make our dining experience more bearable by giving us complimentary stuff - we were also given a complimentary mango pizza (dessert) and 2 pizza vouchers and extra ingredients for our orders.

Pasta Mania
200 Victoria Street, #02-47/48 Bugis Junction, Singapore

Pasta Fresca De Salvatore - Are you a vegetarian

It's eat out on company expense day again but this time with a little challenge.
The 2 customers I am bringing out for lunch today are vegetarian.

Immediately images of green veggies and beans come to mind.
Now don't be mistaken, I like my greens but I don't think I can survive on non-meat meals ever.

So where can I find food for my dear customers and not compromise my precious calories on food that I do not enjoy.
To top that, there is a time constraint meaning we cannot go too far from their work place.

After some hair-tearing brainstorming I finally decided on Pasta Fresca along Bt Timah where I'm sure the customers wil have some choices of vegetarian pasta while I can feast away on my choice of food.

I shall spare all of you the unrelated sales bull shit to the point we were presented our food.

Our orders were as follows
1. Maccheroni (vegetarian)
2. Crespelle Veg (vegetarian)
3. PZ Formaggi4. Trancio Spada

Other than 2 customers, I have my boss with me.
SO this means I can't go picking food off their plates so no input on how their food taste but the presentation is neat and they do look delicious esp the Crespele Veg which look like a giant curry puff filled with veggies with some savoury tomato based sauce.

The Maccheroni was penne in tomato sauce. This is the only dish that looked less appealing.
PZ Formaggi was a delicious looking 4 cheese pizza and and the portion is pretty big. My boss did a splendid job in finishing the ENTIRE pizza off by himself and it's a big one mind u!

Last but not least, my trancio spada was a piece of grilled swordfish on top of numerous peices of sliced brinjal with 2 fat grilled tomato.
A decent dish other than the fact that it is drizzled with oil.

The wait staff is attentive and prompt in topping up our glasses.

We ended our lunch 2 double expresso, 1 tiramisu and 1 cassata (vanila ice cream with fruit bits)Overall, a pleasant lunch experience with decent food

Pasta Fresca De Salvatore
833 Bukit Timah Road, #01-02/03 Royal Ville, Singapore

Restaurante De Parma - Tiramisu!

Never realised that there is this eatery in serangoon garden when I eat breakfast here almost every other day.
I was looking for a place to take my customer for lunch with decent food and not too far away from his workplace.

After browsing thru a few reviews, I decided on this restaurant.
Serangoon Garden is one of the places I avoid because of parking. The lots there generally require you to parallel park.
But I found out that there is this Serangoon Village that have ample parking spaces within short walking distance to the eateries.

It was a small eatery with nice ambience. It was relatively quiet when we arrived, infact I think we were the only customers then.
However, we were joined by a couple of caucasians shortly after.

Iced water was served immediately upon seating, followed shortly by foccacia bread decked with herbs. It has a strong taste of herbs only that it is really a small piece.

I was then informed that there is a citibank promotion that entitles me to 1 free main course when I order 3.
I was a little sad to here that as there is only 3 of us. But being the quick-witted me, I promptly suggested that we have the fourth main course - 4-season pizza to share instead of ordering apetitzers to make sure we maximize our benefits. Heh heh.

The 4 seasons pizza is delicious and flavourful with thin and crispy crust.
We then have our individual main course with me having cod fish, my customer having chicken and lamb shank.
The cod fish is very fresh, served with caviar.
The lamb shank looked delicious while the chicken served on penne looked kinda ordinary.

Everyone had no complains about their main course.

We finished off our lunch with a Tiramisu which was really lovely - wet with liquer topped with lots of choco power and coffee.

Must Tries: Tiramisu

Restaurante De Parma
14B Kensington Park Road,
Serangoon Garden Estate,
Singapore

Casa Roma Restaurante Pizzeria - Good Variety of Food

I've passed by this restaurant countless times but it never occured to me to eat here as I did not find the restuarant decor/signboard appleaing in any way. And if I were looking for Italian food, I usually head straight to Pasta Fresca.

I was introduced to this place by my GM.
It was after a late evening visit to a customer that we had out dinner at this restaurant.
Me and 3 other male colleagues who all happens to be my boss directly or indirectly. Naturally, in a situation as such, the ordering of the food was not done by me.

Starters
1. Caprese con pomodori sechi - Fresh mozzarella cheese with sundried tomato &home made pesto. I was told this is a very popular italian apetitizer but I personally did not really like this dish as I find it relatively tasteless.
2. Calamari - The calamari is well battered and fried to a good crisp.I enjoy this with the various dips available.
3.Funghi misti in padella - Panfried mushrooms with white wine & herbs.The mushroom was also very tasty and nicely pan-fried.

Main Course
Filetto di manzo al gorgonzola - Tenderloin steak with gorgonzola cheese sauce. The steak was juicey and very well executed. Served with cheeese sauce, the steak is a very pleasing to the palate.
The lamb rack looks very delicious too. I figured if I visit again, this will be the dish I will order.

Dessert
Definately tiramisu for dessert in Italian restaurant! The tiramisu did not disappoint - suitably wet with a layer of choco powder.

We rounded off dinner with coffee and 4 full and satisfied customers.

Must Tries: Tenderloin steak

Casa Roma Restaurante Pizzeria
833 Bukit Timah Road, #01-09 Royal Ville, Singapore