Trattoria Lafiandra Al Museo, Singapore Art Museum

This place didn't not serve warm water. It didn't not serve iced water. It also did not provide bread at dinner. One of the wait staff didn't like the Italian beer in this restaurant that he recommended against it for Tiger instead. The price of beer for some reasons wasn't not on the menu so if you need to know, it's $14.50 for that Tiger. And apparently, the waiters opened up bottled water so quickly that you didn't even have the time to mouth the words 'Panna' or 'Pelligrino' before they chose it for you. Now that I've gotten those out of the way, I have to admit to being quite disappointed with the recently opened outlet of Trattoria Lafiandra (71 Bras Basah Road, #01-02 Singapore Art Museum, tel:68844035) down at the Art Museum. Personal preferences aside (I thought the pastas are pretty uninteresting), the food was unexceptional. I hadn't intended to order pizza for dinner, but ended up eating mostly that because nothing else looked particularly appealing to me.

The starter of the buffalo mozzarella and parma ham ($25) was passable. I felt that those was more nicely done at Stiff Chilli which used rockets instead of lettuce which was hidden underneath the cheese. What I felt about the pizzas was that their toppings needed work. The word that came to mind was threadbare. Their pizza con porcini had so little porcinis. A slice of mushroom pizza from Da Paolo Gastronomia had more mushrooms than the whole pie here. I shit you not. The diavola was quite ordinary featuring salami that was mildly spicy, prosciutto e fungi ordinary with pathetic portions of ham and I couldn't really get into their prosciutto crudo which was recommended. I had the feeling that everyone was expecting to see some rucola on top of the pizza but it wasn't the case. Despite the fact that all of the pizzas featured thin crust, they were pretty tough to cut (some were not portioned and some were which made me wonder why) and not crisp to boot.

prosciutto di parma con mozzarella di bufala

pizza diavola

prosciutto e funghi

pizza con prosciutto crudo

ossobuco

There was some sharing going on and I managed to try some of what was going around. The ossobuco was an odd curiosity, appearing like a stumpy phallic tower of undulating sedimentary build up of something that looked like chai por (Chinese pickled radish). The meat was very tender. Very. At certain points, I wasn't sure if I was chewing on the meat or the mash on top of it. This bone definitely didn't have the marrow which I was hoping for. The saffron risotto tasted fine and did have the saffron flavour.

Their recommended seafood soup turned out to be quite unpleasant. Not trying at all to pick on the food unnecessarily, but the smell was weird and rather off putting. It arrived with a generous portion of seafood which included clams, mussels, squid and prawn. Ingredients did not taste fresh. One seafood soup and eight people at the table, it was left mostly unfinished. I think you get the point.


This salad looking thing covered in rocket is actually a sliced ribeye steak and is probably the most tasteless ribeye I've ever tasted. In fact, it might have been a very bland cut of tenderloin since the meat was rather soft, but I wouldn't know better since I only had a bite and the menu did say ribeye. If anyone should consider their iced lemon tea in Lafiandra for $3.50, consider yourselves informed of what you are getting. This one's for you Pet, if you're reading.

Having been in operation for some time previously at Princep and also now with the capability to be in the business in the Art Museum, I had thought better of Trattoria Lafiandra. Pretty sure I can take this place out of my list now since I'm never returning after this today.