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 was one of the better Italian places around with cost and quality taken into consideration. Certainly was very encouraging for a return. And it's taken me such a long time to visit for this first time. This must be one of those places that has lived up to its hype eh? Almost everyone had good things to say about the restaurant. Thanks to fatpig for organizing the dinner.

Service here was a notch up. And was also very discreetly patient towards a table of people whom were late for the reservations and were taking a long time with deciding 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 bread with an excellent emerald tapanade that had pesto with parsley, anchovy and garlic. Ordered some imported vongole off menu which came in a delicious spicy sauce that formed instant kinship with the bread on the table. I was quite impressed by the meaty shellfish. Following closely were the mains of pizzas, pasta and a very good tenderloin that's made itself quite unforgettable.

pan fried, tomino cheese sheathed in Parma ham

This was very good if rather small for what it costed. Tasting rather delicately of the goat cheese aroma (or pungence if you will), it was certainly as delicious as it looked, cloaked in that crispy prosciutto de Parma and their combined grease.

buffalo mozzarella and Sicilian cherry tomato

This twisted looking bundle of chilled creamy mozzarella was both appetizing and refreshing with those sweet tomatoes. Enthusiastic and hungry, I really couldn't find anything to dislike this. The last statement shouldn't be read negatively in spite of how I said it.

fettucine al granchio

Valentino's crab and squid ink pasta in tomato cream sauce easily made the top of my favourites. This was at least on par with that tomato cream tagliatelle from Da Paolo with the bonus of 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 estimated 170-200g of steak, but I guess the choice paid off tonight. The creamy sauce seeped in its flavour wasn't too overpowering from the blue cheese while the tenderloin was expectedly tender. In the right doneness at medium rare too. Amazing steak well done. I would have no qualms ordering it again even though it was smaller than what I would normally go for. A side of small potatoes were 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 out of the ordinary. It had a generic thin and crispy crust that was barely able to hold the toppings. I personally preferred the flavour of the bitter rocket on Parma ham versus the bismark of bacon and egg. Not that any one was in any way inferior to the other.


There was more than a handful of desserts going around the table so I'm going to just mention what made the deepest impressions. The house made profiteroles were decidedly the one that reached out to me despite being the simplest. It was a cream stuffed 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 in house. Couldn't have asked for much more out of them actually. 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.