Spizza, Harbour Front

I heard that this place is run by the same people that did Senso. I've actually been eyeing it for a while and today, I finally managed to get the opportunity to come by. This restaurant was packed to the brim at about 7.30pm. With a short queue forming at the door. But it was a holiday's eve after all. 

We started dinner with some antipasti call Nerone and the Suberbo salad.

Suberbo

The Suberbo was a very simple salad. Frankly, I was quite disappointed that it did not go beyond anything more exciting than a small mound of shredded lettuce. I counted three average sized mussels and a couple of shrimps. I think they could have done a lot better with the miserable seafood portions. When I read prawns on the menu, I expected real prawns and not just small shrimps things. On the bright side, this salad was appetising. The dressing consist of just some black pepper and lemons. Simple, refreshing and it really made me more hungry through the 20 minute wait for the pizza. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing.

Shrimp No.1 and No.2

Nerone

The Nerone was simply mixed grilled vegetables, mozzarella cheese and some Parma ham as described in the menu. The quality of the cooked vegetables here are sadder than that of Riciotti. I was honestly quite disappointed by this poor show. Those grilled vegetables lacked even the char aroma. I mean, it says grilled vegetables on the menu. If I had known that this was it, I'm pretty sure I would not have ordered it. The saving grace of this dish for me were actually the sun dried tomatoes and the mozzarella cheese. Imagine that. The dressing here was likewise simple with just olive oil and some pepper.

The highlight of dinner was the pizza. And this was Isabella.

Isabella

I was very relieved that Spizza actually did pizza nicely. From the crispy thin crust to the gooey cheese. What the menu described as rucola salad is actually just some leaves that were layered on top of the pizza. Sprinkled over the top were some black pepper. This one was actually the large sized pizza at $19.00. I'm pretty sure I could have finished it all by myself. It's that good. Unlike Pizza Hut that basically loads you up with their thick oily crust. I think I don't mind coming back for Spizza's other pies.

Dessert was tiramisu. I think I've mentioned a couple of times that they tend to have variable standards and is often disappointing for me. But occasionally, I take a leap of faith. For some reasons.


Comparing to the one from Menotti, this has a larger cream to cake ratio. The cake wasn't not as liquor soaked, but it was quite pleasant. Enjoyable, but nothing that really wowed.

Pontian Wanton Noodles, Yishun 81

One of the wanton noodles stall which had something to say about what's special about their brand of noodles. Pontian is located at the Yishun 81 coffeeshop at the Central, about 5 minutes walk from the bus interchange. Having not seen this particular stall before, I decided to give it a try.

I don't know if any of that 60 years of history had any real bearings on things. Or for that matter, if anyone in the past 60 years have been eating there and liking the food. The front of the stall is patched with signs with the usual claims of having noodles that are handmade and blah blah blah..... I ordered a bowl with a serving of 14 fried wantons.

The wanton noodles come in two sizes. A serving of the fried wanton goes for $2.50. So for 5 bucks I managed to get the following one of each.

The basic $2.50 bowl of noodles came with 2 fried and 2 soup wontons. The portions weren't very large. But decidedly, it was quite good. There was definitely something different about the noodles that gave it better texture. Didn't leave a residual after taste which I personally dislike about yellow noodles in general. The noodles also comes with the option of chilli sauce (which isn't really very spicy at all) and a bowl of soup containing the another 2 soup wontons. The mixed sauce gave the noodles a spicy tomato flavour which didn't quite taste like the usual ones. I don't know why's that. I had meant that positively.

Those were the fried wanton. These wantons though small, were very tasty. The fried skins are light and crispy. Not what I had expected. I had thought them to be hard shelled and oily. They were really easy to eat and a serving of 14 wantons can easily be finished by one. Despite appearances, it tasted freshly fried. I will be back for this again.

Dessert at Menotti

Menotti, aside from being the grandson of Garibaldi is also located at the first floor of Raffles City. This place, being part of the Garibaldi Group is sister to Riciotti just down at Riverwalk. Just for those of you that do not know, there is a 50% off cakes and pastries at this place after 10 p.m.. Which makes their offerings a very sweet deal (excuse the pun) if you're within the vicinity at that time and have a sweet tooth.

That above is the Riciotti. The menu describes it as a "luscious and creamy cheese cake made from the finest" ricotta cheese." This actually tastes like a dense pound cake with little other flavour. The only resemblance to cheese cake or ricotta is probably in the texture of the cake, but it is otherwise quite unremarkable. The top of the cake has some pine nuts which have become soft. The taste of the pine nuts is barely discernable, if existent and really doesn't accomplish much but serve as an afterthought.

Glossy is the dark dome of the Cassata Siciliana. Lol. It's another ricotta cheese based cake with bits of citrus fruits embedded on the inside and coated with a shell of dark chocolate. The top is overlaid by a strip of preserved orange skin and pistachio marzipan. I don't think much at all of marzipan. Apart from being overly sweet, I don't see why anyone would like to eat that thing. This pistachio marzipan tastes the same as the regular one. That means no pistachio flavour in it.

The Cassata Siciliana was however in my opinion a better cake then the Riciotti in terms of textures and flavor. The bits of embededed fruits do add a pleasant distraction to the ricotta and there's also small chocolate chips inside.

If your astute observations haven't yet activated, that is the Tiramisu. I've been trying to avoid them in most places because it mostly disappoints and since this place is Italian, I decided to give it a go. Just subtle variations and this is one of the liquor drenched ones with a creamy mascapone spiral top blanketed with cocoa powder. Oh, and it's pretty good surprisingly. This place is one to consider.

The total bill for desserts is $10.10. So there you go for the past 10 offer. Makes you feel less disappointed when you make bad choices from being more adventurous too.

Astons Specialties, East Coast Road

This dinner was organized by fatpig of Timeless Facade. It was also a first opportunity for me to attach faces to some names that I have been making various forms of correspondences to. Included in tonights first run to Aston, are also a very lovely trio of ladies from CozyCot. If I was asked, I thought the restaurant was a mixture of hits and misses. Read on....

Astons is located along a row of shop houses at Katong - address states East Coast Road. It's \somewhere across the street from Roxy Square. We arrived approximately 5-10 minutes before the reservation which was made at 8p.m. Apparently, no one  in the restaurant registered the reservations. And that was the scene at our arrival.

We were addressed appropriately for the inadequacy of failing to record the reservations very quickly by the busy but friendly counter staff. Managed to get the next table after about 20 minutes of wait. Which I thought was a nice job instead of putting the reservation into denial and making us wait with the queue. I'm sure I would have left if they did but I guess they were serious about their business.

The interior of of the restaurant was decorated in warmish shades. The seating space looked like it could accommodate about 50-60 people. Maybe. With the entrance wide open and ventilation from just a couple of ceiling fans and 2 air conditioners - one can imagine how comfortable it can be to have to wait in line. Not exactly the best of places for making conversations unless one typically enjoys humidity and heat. Would have been great if there was better air conditioning.

The menu was placed at the counter of the entrance. That was also the place which orders are made. The counter guy was kind enough to oblige taking our orders for 8 at our table which I thought was a nice gesture. Pic the right is the menu. I wasn't really sure what to expect because there were no pictures. You would have to hope that what you ordered looked like how you imagined it. Junie mentioned something along the lines of that also taking away the option for us to rant if the food didn't arrive the way it looked. Lol. The only item I thought sounded nice was their Burgundy Roast Beef. But we agreed as a group that what we would be going for tonight was Aston's wagyu steak which we were hoping that they didn't run out of. We managed to make our five orders.

Astons serves also IBC Root Beers which we ordered in a 6 pack. Never had IBC before but then again I'm not so much into sweet fizzy beverages. I've heard people saying that it's pretty good root beer. Tasted pretty much like regular root beer to me. Still good considering the fact that we were a couple of notches away from sweltering heat. 

IBC has an interesting bottle which features emboss onto the dark glass instead of the usual print or wrapper. You can see from the right that the labels aren't really obvious. Which made me want to scrutinise what was on the bottle. More than what I would usually do for bottled drinks. Maybe that was the intent of the bottle design?

The wagyu steaks were the highlights of the dinner. Think they weighed approximately 200g. There were some inconsistencies in the doneness. Some were more charred and others looked pink and juicy. The orders for our table also came at different times. The last two portions were served only when everyone else had almost finished their dinner. No one was elated about being put through the lengthy waits.

So the steaks themselves - each order came with a selection of two sides. Steak also came with a salty mushroom sauce on the side. The meat was fatty and well flavoured with each juicy bite. I liked it. Though it was a little small for me. Will give it credit for the flavour if not the portions. While it's not the best of grade Wagyu, I don't think anyone else actually offers something similar for this price point. $38.90. I just wished that it was bigger. Would have made it more satisfying.

That's the SuperShiok burger. It looked fat and juicy, laced with barbecue sauce and cheese along with sliced tomato and lettuce. At $12.50, one wouldn't expect less. I only managed to get a morsel which tasted okay to me. Patty's a little too dry. I don't think I'll come all the way here just for this.

Mr Bean, Selegie Road

It's been about 12 years since I last ate here and I recall having a good memory of their Seafood Marinara. Well, 12 years is some time and recollections can be fuzzy. I could have been misled. In fact, I could've been totally wrong

What is being passed off as Seafood Marinara looks like something that can be whipped up in an oily wok at a hawker centre. Spaghetti stir fried in some spicy tomato broth with a couple of mussels, some prawns and shrimp and a few small pieces of squid. The prawns weren't even deshelled properly and I had to spit fragments out of almost every piece. For $14.90, it costs to much. Now armed with the hindsight , I don't think it would be worth half that amount. Really, if you want decent pasta, head down to Basil Alcove in the vicinity which serves something at less than half the price and more than twice the quality.

Serving the Turkish Beef Wrap on a square plate doesn't detract it from the fact that it looks and tastes like the Chicken Foldover from McDonalds. The supposed paprika beef strips came in small chunks. I could barely differentiate the yoghurt from some regular salad sauce. Nothing about it really taste Turkish. Mr Bean here has succeeded admirably in making their offerings taste like mass produced fast food items.

I'm not normally too picky over service at places like this, but I have really got to mention a couple of things this place. Service at this restaurant is at a bare minimum. They are apparently more interested in doing whatever it is that they were doing instead of looking out if anyone actually required some attention. The request for ice water took long minutes of waiting when there was only one other customer and what was eventually served, was wasn't even chilled water. Really, these guys aren't interested. And I intend never to return.

Botak Jones, visita Numero Dos

That was the the queue at 6.18p.m. today at the Kopitiam located at Block 325 of Clementi Ave 5. To beat the dinner crowd, one would obviously have to be earlier than that to avoid their peak hour waiting time. Judging from the crowd it would seem too that Botak Jones is most of the business of the coffee shop in the evening employing as many staff to manage their queue and tables. Just like the outlet at Ang Mo Kio. After months of buzz, complaints and attention from the media, this place attracts swarms of people. There has got to be something about their food that buys over the hearts (or stomaches) of so many people. Novelty?

I mentioned previously that I would be returning to try something from them again. So here's us at the Clementi outlet getting that Cajun Chicken that I only managed to get a mouthful of the last time round. For a moment, I was worried that it would be a letdown from expectations but I was glad that wasn't. I had too mentioned before that Botak Jones beats the crap out of e.BlackBoard in terms of taste. While taste is personal, I still maintain my stand that this place wins hands down. In any situation. For a start there's no cheap herbed flavour which I thought didn't suit the chicken and really made whomever cooking look like they was trying too hard to make the dish appear to taste exotic.

The Cajun Chicken here was probably the best grilled chicken there is around for the price. For $6.90, I haven't had or seen anything else that beats this. Fries were a bit disappointing. Dried and over fried. As I bit onto them, the thoughts of MSG recurred in my mind. Apart from this, the chicken was as good as I remembered. Someone mentioned that the chicken was probably made of more than a piece of compressed breast meat since chicken breast doesn't usually come such thickness and the middle section really split apart with ease. It was also quite tender for chicken breast.

I managed to get a shot of the juice oozing out of the hole left by placeholder stick on the Botak burgers. Look it.

And that below, is the Fish Burger with Chez. Whatever Chez is.

A rogue!!!