It was not too long ago that I reviewed Casa Verde, so I thought it was fitting only to post my thoughts of another one of their restaurants in the same group.
La Strada is their casual Italian outpost located right next to their French bistro-styled Bisto du Vin. Food aside, I quite like the decor of the restaurant – from the wooden flooring to the relatively large dining tables. I could be wrong here, but the decor presented itself in a rather semi-formal setting. But I always say, while the ambience is important, the company and the food plays a much larger role when dining out.
Dinner buddy and I organized a quick dinner catch up sometime back in June. After much deliberation, we decided on a new-ish Italian restaurant at TripleOne Somerset. From the restaurant name, I had thought of the restaurant as a pure Italian play in the restaurant scene and not as an American-Italian diner as their website so proudly states.
To tell you the truth, while I knew that the old Singapore Power building had recently undergone a retrofit, I did not know that it was to be renamed Tripleone Somerset. At least, it was not renamed as TripleOne@Somerset (noting Singaporeans and their obsessive compulsion to use the ‘@’ sign. Read this quirky, fun post for more on this bad branding.
We arrived earlier than our reservation and tables were not freed up yet. As a polite gesture, the manager offered us a glass of coke each to quench our thirsts while we waited at the bar and I very much appreciated this. However, besides the complimentary glass, service was clearly lacking. They clearly had forgotten about the complimentary bread (I’m not a sucker for free things but — just one of those things where I saw tables who arrived earlier, seated behind us getting their breads while we were not served ours.
OTTO Ristorante, in my opinion, is the best Italian restaurant in Singapore. Much like how Saint Pierre is for French. Chef Michele Pavanello and his team consistently deliver excellent pastas and main courses and promotional menus and quarterly refreshes of the menu helps to keep one going back for more. Most memorable of this visit was trying Chef’s Sea Urchin pasta creation, which I must admit, not only sounded interesting at first, it was pretty much a novelty to me.
Another key attribute that sees me returning back to a particular establishment lies in the quality of the service staff. The service here is nothing short of being impeccable. Everyone, from the lovely receptionist at the door to Paolo, the affable Italian general manager, are friendly and always seem to go the extra mile when dining at OTTO.
