Ballsy?

So apparently, the local fast food joints of McD and Burger King are suddenly embroiled in some form of competition in an attempt to measure which has the larger e-peen in the form of their quad stacked patties in their burgers. Damn, didn't anyone notice how many 'in's I had used in the previous sentence? I was (being me) nonetheless intrigued despite somewhat knowing what to expect out of them and here's the supposedly ballsy option from BK which features 4 patties and their crappy turkey bacon slices. It didn't quite pack the satisfaction as the triple whopper did and it's probably because there wasn't any onions. Then again, the triple whopper didn't have so much cheese. They probably would have won McD hands down if they had used real bacon, but that aside, really, it's cheaper to just eat this. Doesn't take a lot of balls really.

Ristorante de Parma, Kensington Park Road

This particular entry sure took quite a while to be completed due to other "pressing engagements" which I've had over the past fortnight. Heh. Anyways, this is a long overdue post on my visit to Ristorante de Parma (14B Kensington Park Road, Serangoon Garden Estate, tel : 6281 3380 / 6280 1096) down at Serangoon Gardens. One of the numerous outlets of Italian places secluded amidst some private housing estate which I've been hearing about and haven't quite made the effort to visit until now.


We started off lunch with some pomodori al forno and a mixed mushroom soup with pine nuts. Despite it's regular sounding name of the tomato starter, it contains bits of minced crab meat on the insides of the fruit and topped with a very token amount of mozzarella cheese. The portions of the crab could have benefitted with more generosity. Mushroom soup's creamy and comforting and was really quite decent. Appreciably, the pinenuts added an additional fragrance to the taste of the soup once you bit into them.


Truth to be said, I didn't personally find the selection for the mains here too exciting (in the realm of my humble opinion and taste naturally) and we managed to pick up the 4 cheese tagliatelle and pizza di menzo which turns out to be the most interesting items after scouring the menu a couple of times. I've to disclaim that I'm not actually griping over the sauces and having comparisons to be made, I did feel that the light sauce on the pasta, though flavorful of the gorgonzola didn't quite pack as much punch I had hoped. Your mileage may vary of course. Not much to say about the pizza except that it was decent, fairly meaty as well and certainly turned out noticeably better than the ones back in Finalmente Gastronomia.


Not that I was really expecting it, but the tiramisu was actually not bad despite the glaring lack of alcohol flavor. This is probaly one of the better done ones around being creamy and moist, yet not overly so. It would have been great if I could taste the marsala wine.

Screening Room, Ann Siang Road

I suppose I can say that I've found another place for pretty good steak down at the Screening Room (12 Ann Siang Road, tel : 6221 169) along Ann Siang Hill and it happens to be at a rather unsuspecting looking location that does proper restaurant food along with gastrobar snacks along with movie screening options to go with your food. It must be coincidence that a place like this is located within proximity to Les Bouchons and L'Angelus which serves very decent steaks as well.

What I'm talking about here were their wagyu new york strip and boneless ribeye (both at a decent 340g) from Australia. Admittedly, I had expected a little more flavor out of the cattle type that the meat is gleaned from and the servers weren't even informed of the meat marbling grade. Since it was suppose to be wagyu, I would presume the grading to be much lower than they had claimed, but it still didn't stop them from being the properly medium rare done hunks of juicy pieces of cow, professionally browned on the exterior without char while the insides remained prerequisitely pink and moist. Not that I mind a little bit of char at all for the fragrance.

Clean and straightforward with a little salad on the side with extra options for side orders which we then decided to go for the duck fat potato cake which was basically a hefty potato lump patty deep fried in duck fat and seemed to be infused with a very distinct flavor of rosemary. I'll say all these warrants a return in the future.