More Miznon

Back at Miznon. Tried the abu kebab pita which was stuffed with beef and lamb meatballs. Meatball's generously salted and I tasted pepper. Texture was coarse and the flavour's nice but I couldn't tell the beef and lamb in it. 

This red prawn pita's relatively new I think. Tasty spicing with a bit of smokiness on those firm meaty bugs. I like this better than the abu.

Revisiting Wild Child Pizzette

Yes we wiped the plates as a ritual of appreciation for the food. We enjoyed it that much at Wild Child Pizzette.

Spaghetti with almond pesto; there's also pine nuts and the cheese in there. Pesto was aromatic, savoury and nutty with a creamy texture that clung onto the noodles. Nicely done and those noodles had a nice bite to them. The white stuff on top was chilled stracciatella. 

Pizza asparagi which was a pizza bianca from the specials menu. This was topped with fior di latte, baby asparagus, caramelized onions and their salsa verde. Of the latter, I detected loads garlic, a good dose of anchovies and I'm almost sure there's coriander. Flavour's sharp, herbaceous and well salted. Now that I'm back at this, I've also noticed that their Neapolitan styled crust was different from the ones at Zazz or Casa Vostra. It's pretty good.

Another one of their specials was affogato with salted vanilla gelato. I appreciated the subtle variation with salted vanilla which didn't bring the original taste out too far. Where it didn't succeed becoming memorable was the coffee which lacked a rounded robustness.

Allora Ristorante & Bar, Crowne Plaza Changi Airport

 

This was our first time eating at Crowne Plaza at Changi Airport. The hotel and their food has never piqued our interest previously but Allora Ristorante & Bar (Crowne Plaza Changi Airport, Changi Airport Terminal 3, 75 Airport Boulevard) has caught our attention recently.

Rosemary and black olive flavoured tonic water was actually pleasant. Then again, YMMV.

Their peach tea was odd. Tasted of jasmine and apple and there was too much syrupy sweetness. Pretty sure there was no beverage on the menu that had jasmine and apple.

Bread's forgettable but the tomato dip was chilled and refreshing.

This was their pizza tartare - a pizza bianca topped with Mozzarella, Castelmagno, Australia Angus beef tenderloin tartare and baby sprouts.

The tartare's not bad. Tasted like a milder rendition of French tartare de boeuf. Could taste capers. As a whole, the pizza was delicious with the combination of savoury cheeses, especially so for the toasty bits. The sprouts I suppose, was a green vegetal foil to the rest of the flavours. We liked this pizza.

The bruschetta mantecato which featured cod whipped in olive oil and flavoured with whole grain mustard came after the pizza. Had expected this to come first since it was bruschetta. This one not bad tasting.

Their lobster squid ink tagliolini sounded good and wasn't expensive for a lobster pasta. The menu even mention that it has "bisque".

Flavour from the sauce was mostly tomato with a hint of seafood; definitely not bisque as we imagined. I wouldn't even use the word 'crustacean' or 'seafood-y' to describe the flavour. It didn't taste bad though and the texture of their handmade black ink noodles was nice. What wasn't was the lobster. Size of the meat was a third of the tail and was a little mushy. The claw also had little meat.

So in retrospect, this was kinda expensive.

Their rendition of tiramisu was named Alloramisu. Tacky if you asked me. Savoiardi is homemade apparently. They wait staff trolly-ed out the ingredients and assembled it tableside, layering the coffee gel, mascarpone in cream canister and the biscuit that was drizzled with espresso before the topping of cocoa powder and flakes.

My thoughts? This was weak. Coffee gel's weak. Mascarpone's airy and weak. We could still get the crunch from the biscuit so it was obvious that the quantity of espresso was sorely lacking. It's a bit of flair and little substance.

Casa Vostra, Raffles City

We've been waiting for Casa Vostra (#01-49/50/51 Raffles City, 252 North Bridge Road) to open for a while. Have read about the accolades of Antonio Miscellaneo and being ranked 57th in the world for best pizza didn't sound like a mean feat. Sounded like it was worth taking a look into. Since we have never had the chance to try his food at La Bottega Enoteca, we were looking forward to this one.

First, espresso tonic. Nicely done with double shots of an aromatic brew they use and Fever Tree tonic.

Porchetta - more thinly sliced than I imagined. Each of those slices with a bit of chew along the edges with the rest of it mostly tender and infused with the liquorice accents from fennel; and I think sage. By my estimates, this was possibly 2 slices of Marutama's charshu worth of porchetta. For $18.

Not bad tasting tagliatelle with crab. Noodle texture's nice and portions were a little small. Could taste olive oil and butter in it but the pasta wasn't exactly buttery nor was the olive oil fruity. Crab meat had passable flavour. Nothing in the ingredients stood out in particular except for one; the sweetness of the tomato confit was nice.

Tagliatelle Bolognese was delicious. The ragù was meaty, beefy and not drowned in tomato flavouring. Would not mind coming back for this. 

We were looking for a place that might be the equal to Zazz for Neapolitan style pizzas and Casta Vostra's Newpolitan sounded like it could be that. Turned out that this was a different thing entirely. The airiness of the puffy cornicion surpassed what we've had at Zazz. Our pizza crust was the lightest we've ever had; that and on some pretty delicious tartufo and funghi toppings on a creamy rich Taleggio. Nice.

That panna cotta was small. Could have been just a two biter for me. The olive oil and basil was brilliant with the strawberry + sauce and creaminess of the panna cotta though. Yummy.

Burning Melanzana, Moussaka and what intimate plate at Miznon

Back at Mizon.

The complimentary pita with chilli and tahini is always welcomed. Great to load up with if not for the fact that we were already ordering more pitas. 

Got a couple of eggplant pitas today.

• Burning Melanzana - eggplant with a slab of toasty fried mozzarella. I couldn't taste much of the eggplant. It was mostly the mozzarella and yeah, I liked it.
• Moussaka - beef ragout, eggplant, tahini, chilli and pickles. Also not getting the eggplant but the rest of it was delicious. Loved how the meatiness from the ragout came through. Wouldn't have known there was eggplant in it if not for the menu.

Ironic how we had gotten eggplant pitas and it was the other stuffings that shone because......eggplant. 😅

Their Intimate Plate was not memorable. I've seen it on the menu for a while now and it was basically the short rib that intrigued. In retrospect, the slightly stringy short rib was right at the bottom of the list on the plate. Not the fatty flavourful beefy short rib I imagined. Will not be getting this again.

All that Zazz had to end

Quality appears to be fluctuating at Zazz Pizza (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九, 十, 十一, 十二) as we approach the end. The boss wasn't in today. Which wasn't usual.

The balance of their bufala pizza didn't feel right but I don't know if that ratio of ingredients was intentional. I would have imagined that people got this for the milky richness of the buffalo mozzarella. The cheese was buried under the flavours of the other toppings. Pity. That being said, this was not a bad pizza. I enjoyed it.

We've had their saffron fettuccine the first time we ate at their restaurant at Short Street. Today's plate was lacking much of that saffron flavour that impressed us from that time.😔

You know it.

Smoky chipotle prawns, pizza quattro formaggi and seppia nero tagliolini con frutti di mare at Zazz Pizza

This visit was proof for us that Zazz Pizza (一, 二, 三, 四, 五, 六, 七, 八, 九) is optimal at their restaurant instead of delivery. Sadly, the quality of the food suffers noticeably in transit as we found out from the last time.

We've never had these prawns in spicy Italian sauce before and hence never realized that we've been missing out. Until now. What were we missing out on? The umami smoky rich sauce with chipotle which I was later dipping the cornicione in.

Prawns were firm, fresh and deveined with their texture and taste as proof of quality. Also easily removed from the shells using utensils without much finesse. They're sizeable as well.

Today's pizza was quattro formaggi. Possibly the cheesiest one I've ever had with the crust folding from the weight of the cheeses. My only gripe was that it didn't have as much Gorgonzola as I was hoping for. Otherwise, this reinforced our assessment of their pizza being so much better fresh from the oven.  

We also haven't had their squid ink tagliolini in squid ink sauce and frutti di mare. Seafood was of good quality. Prawns, clams, mussels, scallop and squid if anyone was wondering, blanketed over the velvety obsidian noodles with an outstanding squid ink flavour. 👍🏼

Sultan Kebab, Maxwell Food Centre

Not that Sultan Kebab. That's ancient history. This was a relatively new stall at Maxwell Food Centre (#01-86 Maxwell Food Centre, 1 Kadayanallur Street).

This was a plate of mixed beef and chicken on pesto penne. Pretty generous portions of meat over the buttery pasta. Not bad tasting but they also weren't very different from most of the other kebab stalls since all of them pretty much sold the same things.

Pastaria Abate, Neil Road

This was our first visit to Pastaria Abate at their current location (86 Neil Road). It's been a while since we've eaten in the restaurant. What has noticeably changed was that there's table service now and that prices sure have gone up. This was us reacquainting ourselves with their food again by ordering a bunch of stuff off their specials board.

Polpette con uova - literally meatball with eggs. I don't remember being impressed by their meatballs previously but this one was nice. Savoury meatiness and a nice bite without being drowned in cheap dried herbs. Even the tomato sauce it came with was meaty tasting. Loved those eggs x 3 draped over those meatballs. Speaking of which, said eggs were described as Japanese golden eggs. 

Had a spaghetti seppia nero - this one had large chunks of cephalopods in a delicious lightweight sauce of cuttlefish ink con pomodoro. Very satisfying served piping hot. Why did I say cephalopod? Because I didn't actually know if it was squid and I suspected it was cuttlefish. Tender ones at that which kinda reminded us of Ink-Redible Calamari.

These were ravioli stuffed with prawns and mascarpone in a brown butter sauce. Could taste what I thought to be blue cheese in it as well. There's a whole prawn inside each of those ravioli. Not bad. 

Limited serving osso bucco with a buttery mash. Sauce was rich and also a bit spicy. I even got a piece of chilli that had a bit of burn in it. Parts of the meat around the bone was filled with tender bits of gooey broken down connective tissue. 👍🏼 Too bad the bone was tiny. 👎🏼

We had no more room for desserts at this point so it's a Himalayan salt latte. Coffee's flavour wasn't what I'll call robust but there was a pleasant aroma and the latte with the light saltiness was pretty smooth. Went down easily and we enjoyed it.