Italiannies

Nice cosy spot for italian in orchard~

Decided to give this a shot after reading about it and liked the fast that it's in orchard but far away from the maddening crowd. Our group of 8pax was the biggest group on a Tuesday evening with maybe 4-5 other tables occupied. We were hungry so we ordered many things to share:

Complimentary bread - served with balsamic vinegrette, the plate had both normal crusty white bread and foccacia. The bread was cold but the balsamic vinegrette was very good, which kept the bread going.

Bruschettona ($10) - Homemade toasted focaccia stuffed with tomatoes, capers, onions and topped with arugula leaves and parmesan cheese. - didnt try this but it looked very good and the presentation was quite nice, on a wooden board.

Fried Prawns and Calamari ($16) - Deep-fried hand-battered prawns and calamari, served with our special sauce. - fresh prawns and calamari although the batter was abit hard and overcooked resulting in tough seafood. They came on a bed of mini onion rings which was rather nice too. The accompanying cheese sauce was average really.

Sicilian Chicken Salad ($15) - Diced chicken breasts, mangoes, red grapes and pine nuts, tossed in Lemon-dijon dressing on crispy romaine lettuce. - I felt the dressing was too much resulting in limp vegetables, and it tasted more like chicken cesar salad.

Seafood Pizza ($18) - Tomato, mozzarella cheese and mixed seafood. - nice crust, although not as thin as I would like it to be. Serving of seafood was tad miserable though, but overall taste was not bad. The 12" was bigger than I thought it would be too.

Salmon Fettuccine ($18) - Fettuccine pasta tossed with vodka, smoked salmon and spring onions in a pink sauce - had a bite and quite liked it, the only grouse was that the sauce was too creamy.

Mushroom Risotto ($15) - Arborio Italian rice mixed with mushrooms and parmesan cheese. - very nice! The risotto was nicely infused with the flavour and the mushrooms was very good too, very earthy and woody taste / smell. Portion was huge so note to share.

Tomato Seafood Risotto ($16) - A combination of seafood in tomato sauce. -had a bite too and it was good too without the sauce being too tart.

Gnocchi with Onions and Mushrooms Alla Panna ($15) - Potato dumplings in onions, mushrooms and parmesan cream sauce. - everyone liked this although I felt the gnocchi itself was tad bland. The mushrooms saved the day. But this is best eaten hot as it gets a bit hard when cold.

Service was nicely adequate but maybe because the place is not quite filled up; we were the only table left by 9:30pm. We had a bottle of red wine and some beer as well which may be the reason why the bill is much higher than I expected. But I'll be back to try their pastas!

Oh the place also has a small bar for drinks with high stools.