Tag Archives: Alfresco Gusto
Great Food & Ambience @ Kith Cafe Park Mall on 30Jun2015
crabmeat linguine in tomato sauce
a RI friend is a proprietor of kith cafe at park mall & sentosa cove (kith has another outlet at robertson quay). kith does all day breakfast (till 5pm) and seems like a good coffee place too.
after our may G20 dinner at peach garden @ metropolis on 26.5.2015, we all agreed we should be young again & be spotted at kith. so this friend volunteered or was volunteered to organise the june dinner at kith cafe @ park mall on 30.6.2015. 🙂
we had 15pax. 🙂
i didn’t know if kith meant anything in particular, but after googling i found out that kith was like kin or kindred or –
a cafe for friends – good name!
a few friends went early & took a short walk at fort canning park. the rest of us got a tour of our friend’s high end office chairs & system furniture shop adjacent to kith cafe.
watermelon & lychee smoothie
the friend ordered watermelon & lychee smoothie for a few of us. it was good, refreshing, quenching, not too sweet. not particularly a favourite for me though.
some ordered ABC – apple, beetroot & carrots me think…sounds healthy. i will try that one next time.
sweet corn soup
couple friends ordered a soup. think it was the soup of the day, maybe a sweet corn soup. looked ok.
calamari
my friend ordered some calamari & 2 pizza to share, and each ordered our own pasta dish.
calamari was good. squid was very slightly tough, batter was good.
calamari
this a common dish in many restaurants, and it’s quite competent here. 🙂
gong bao chicken pizza
the gong bao chicken pizza was better than i expected. we all liked the thin crust pizza.
gong bao chicken pizza
gong bao chicken may have sounded cheesy & chinatown like but it was actually good – no sticky sauce, taste was not too sweet & combined quite well with the pizza. 🙂
parma ham pizza
parma ham pizza was competent also. pretty ok. 🙂
parma ham pizza
pizza not particularly my favourite but it is an excellent dish for communal dining & i do enjoy a slice of good pizza (i shared 1/2 gong bao chicken & 1/2 parma ham pizza with a friend) to start the dinner.
spaghetti alio olio
the spaghetti alio olio was good!
good helping, very flavourful, good garlic flavours & lots of shiitake mushrooms. I shared 1/2 of it with a friend who shared 1/2 of my squid ink pasta. not a usual dish i would order as i like meat or seafood. 🙂
linguine gamberini (garlic prawn)
the linguine gamberini (garlic prawn) looked good. i will order that next time.
carbonara
carbonara. looked ok. somehow looked a bit like hokkien mee. egg was mixed in the pasta. i think it would taste good as most pasta here were good. though i am more used to the look/colour of carbonara at alfresco gusto.
bolognese
i had a try of the bolognese, and the tomato sauce was good. meat sauce/ragout preparation not my favourite but this was good.
vongole
did not try the vongole. it looked fine. 🙂
vongole
they said vongole is a test of a pasta chef. the lala (littleneck clams) have a distinctive shellfish taste & if the linguine is done al dente the combination is quite excellent. my own vongole linguine here.
veal spinach tortellini in tomato sauce
the veal spinach tortellini looked interesting.
veal spinach tortellini in tomato sauce
& looked yummy! i must try that next time. 🙂
squid ink spaghetti with seafood alio olio
my friend the proprietor ordered the day’s special, a squid ink spaghetti with seafood alio olio.
i tasted. it was good.
squid ink pasta
i liked my own squid ink sauce pasta better though. it was more intense & flavourful, though my immediate reaction was it was a bit salty. my own squid ink seafood spaghetti here.
the friend who shared 1/2 my squid ink thought it was very salty, and that the alio olio was also salty. i was good with the alio olio, & salt does bring out the flavours (though too much would kill it).
my friend the proprietor ordered 2 more pizza – a duck & mushroom ragout & a special – with sausage.
my phone died so i did not have photos. duck ragout was good & had some meat pieces. i liked the sausage special pizza a bit more, sausage very flavourful.
yuzu cheese cake
the pastry chef among us went to select the dessert.
i didn’t think much of the yuzu cheese cake nor the biscuit base. probably i was programmed to think anything yuzu must be specially good. this was average so-so to me.
tiramisu
didn’t think much of the tiramisu either. i had a small teaspoon scoop near the top, somehow thought it felt like penna cotta.
tiramisu
that did not prepare me for interrogation by our pastry chef. she asked if i tasted the lady finger biscuits. seemed that i didn’t (i guess that’s why i thought it tasted like penna cotta – soft, light w/o the tiramisu texture) nor did i tasted coffee or liquor.
our pastry chef thought it was good, and she said there was liquor at the bottom & she didn’t take coffee anyway, so that suited her. guess i have to defer to pastry chef!^^
anyway my palate a bit hesitant, not very sharp like my daughter…give me excuse to try a few more times.^^
lemongrass chocolate cake
the lemongrass chocolate cake looked really pretty, but it’s not my thing.
lemongrass chocolate cake
my least preferred of the 3 dessert.
i had a flat white afterwards. it was good. but didn’t feel that it was in the chye seng huat, dutch colony, or the assembly coffee category.
it was really enjoyable evening. company was super fun, outdoor ambience was cool & nice open space, & food was great. i will probably come back with my family. 🙂
c.h.e.f andy
Nice Food & Ambience @ Ochre at Orchard Central on 25Feb2013
antipasti platter
a friend close to me now resident at Cupertino California with his family came calling and a few of us arranged to have a quiet 5pax dinner. I had an expiring 50% discount voucher from Kitchen Language which owns Ochre, Salta, Kumo etc so decided to do dinner at Ochre @ Orchard Central. 🙂
Ochre has a nice dining setting & ambience. It was one of the restaurants that had earlier offered palate discounts so I frequented it quite a few times then. The food was good for the price after palate discounts and as Ochre does not charge service, I used to provide the equivalent 10% in tip to the waiting staff.
For this evening, we had 7 dishes-
- antipasti platter
- beef carpaccio
- seafood linguine
- meat-eater pizza
- sous vide beef cheeks & kurobuta pork
- osobucco on a bed of risotto
- funghi risotto
using UOB Kitchen Language 50% discount voucher, we paid S$124nett for 7 dishes for 5pax, so its just S$25nett pax, truly great value for such food quality & ambience. 🙂
the anitpasti was good & substantial – with buffalo mozzarella, parma ham with rock melon, smoked salmon with caviar, artichoke. olives & cherry tomatoes with feta cheese.
the beef carpaccio with rockets & parmesan shavings was also good. the seafood linguine though was really average. I think I consistently do mine better!
the meat-eater pizza was again very average (pizza not my thing but currently I like quatro fromage (4-cheese) pizza after trying a very good one some time back at Alfresco Gusto)- which is not saying so good for an Italian joint to have very average pizza & pasta..well, can’t have everything cheap & good I guess..
the duo sous vide beef cheek & kurobuta pork was quite ok, and actually my friends quite liked this savoury dish.
the osobucco was the usual good for osobucco in most italian joints, but the bed of risotto not good – not creamy & “pang” (fragrant”) as it should be. clearly they were not good at risotto as the next dish – a funghi risotto which like a vongole dish should define good risotto & pasta dishes – was mushy & not fragrant, again below par!
The restaurant was maybe 40% full on a Monday night & we had a good quiet table though likely not for the other diners as we were laughing quite a bit & quite noisy. 🙂
after dinner we moved to the lobby level and had a nice cuppa to continue our chat. 🙂
c.h.e.f andy
c.h.e.f 