Ristorante da Valentino, Jalan Bingka

Woah, that was quite a bit of good food here down at Valentino's (11 Jalan Binka, S588908, tel 6462 0555). I daresay it's one of the better Italian places around in terms of cost and appreciation value ratio and certainly was very encouraging for a return visit. And it's taken me such a long time to come down for this first time. This must be one of those places that lives up to its hype eh? Since almost everyone has good things to say about the restaurant. Thanks to fatpig for organizing the dinner.

Service here was a notch up in the warmth that was also very discreetly patient towards a table of people whom were late for the reservations and was taking some time with deciding on what to order. For a rather busy restaurant, the magnanimity of the host was unquestionably obliging. That aside, I enjoyed the food.

The table started off with some ubiquitous looking loaf with an excellent emerald green dip of what I made out to be pesto with parsley, anchovy and garlic along with some cheese based starters and then, some imported vongole which came in a delicious spicy sauce that formed instant kinship with the bread on the table. I was quite impressed by the small meaty shellfish. Following closely were the mains of pizzas, pasta and a very good tenderloin that's made itself quite unforgettable in my books.

pan fried, tormino cheese sheathed in Parma ham

This was very good, if rather small for the cost. Tasting rather delicate of that usually stronger goat cheese aroma (or pungence if you will), it was certainly as tasty as it looked cloaked in that crispy prosciutto de Parma and the combined grease or both ham and cheese.

buffalo mozzarella and Sicilian cherry tomato

I must say that this twisted looking bundle of lightly flavored and chilled creamy mozzarella was both appetizing and refreshing with those sweetish tomatoes. Enthusiastic and hungry, I really couldn't find anything that I could complain about with this. I realised that the last statement shouldn't be viewed in any negative light despite how I said it.

fettucine al granchio

Valentino's crab and squid ink pasta in tomato cream sauce easily makes itself up to one of my personal top few in preferences. This was at least on par with that tomato cream tagliatelle from Da Paolo plus the bonus of small chunky bits of crab meat.

Filetto Di Manzo al Gorgonzola

The tenderloin drenched in a mild Gorgonzola sauce was definitely my highlight of the night. I was initially a little apprehensive at the estimation of 170-200g steak, but I guess the choice paid off well tonight based on the satisfaction level. The creamy sauce seeped in its identifying flavor wasn't overpowering of the blue cheese and the tenderloin was expectedly, tender. In the right doneness of medium rare too. What else can I really say except that this was really a steak well done and with consistency prevailing, I would have no qualms ordering it again even though the cut is of one that is normally smaller than what I would normally go for. A nice side of small potatoes there and I had to just mop up all the sauces with the salad.

Bismark

porcini, rucola and prosciutto de Parma

The pizzas here were quite tasty, but nothing really in the leagues of being remarkable. Expectedly, it had a generic thin and crispy crust that was barely able to support the toppings they had. I personally preferred the aroma of the bitterish rocket on Parma ham versus the bismark of bacon and egg. Not that any one was in any way inferior to the other, in fact, the runny yolk certainly scored quite a bit in my eyes for the latter pizza.


There was more than a handful of desserts going around the table so I'm going to just touch on what made the deepest impressions. The house made profiteroles was decidedly the one that reached out to me despite them being the simplest cream bolstered choux pastry coated in a milk chocolate that wasn't too sweet. Apparently, their profiteroles used to be brought in frozen, but are now made here. Couldn't have asked for much more out of these actually. Well, they could do with more chill, but these were quite enjoyable. A chocolate and pear tart didn't quite turn out quite as delicious as I had hoped. With a light whipped chocolate and a limp buttery crust, the tart tasted tired and felt like it's been around for a little too long. The slices of pears were amazingly thin though.

Great coffee here too.