Last weekend, Momo's group of ladies friend invited her for a birthday dinner. I was invited to join in too (hmmm coz they are also my friends? haha)
As usual, they said no identity or no face pic please. So let's give them all Japanese identity today. There was Ms Honda, Ms Suzuki, Ms Mazda, Ms Yamaha, Ms Kawasaki. Ms Toyota fell ill that day and could not join us.
Ms Honda suggested this place because she came her before and thought the rest of the ladies should try it too! Gattopardo at Legends at Fort Canning. She was right, it's a nice place!
The building the restaurant is located is partially under renovation. It's being transformed into a heritage hotel. If you safely navigate through the construction site, you will see this nice Italian restaurant!
As expected, if you have a few ladies coming for dinner, you can expect some to be late!
As per usual procedure, we don't penalize people who are on time, so the early ones make decisions and do the ordering! We decided that we shall go 'communal', so everyone can taste more things.
*** friends from Italy ***
Aha... just as we decided to go communal, Andrea our service staff for the night, came to us with a platter full of fresh produce that has been flew in from the Mediterranean Sea! We were like wow! They were all so big!
Andrea is this Italian guy from the island of Sardegna or Sardinia (English name). He's such a nice guy and he even showed us on his iPhone where his hometown is!
Lobsters, fish, bamboo clams, calamari all from Italy! That bowl with plastic wrap on it is white truffles! With his explanation and description how it's best cooked and eaten, we were salivating!!
*** Grilled Calamari ***
The 'sotong' that was on the plate above became our food! Perfect! The grilled calamari $38.
The grilled calamari was delicious. Cooked with perfect timing, it was tender and juicy! There was a sprinkling of salt over it, the way I remember tasting when I was in Italy!
**** Special Bufala ***
Andrea said something like (coz I can't decipher his Italian English haha) the mozzarella just came in that day or day before. He asked if we would we like it with some prosciutto and rock melon. (Now when he said that, I understood perfectly! haha)
Ms Honda, Ms Suzuki, Ms Mazda, Ms Yamaha and Ms Kawasaki all went "はい" (hai).
The Special Bufala ($48) was excellent! I could have eaten all of it!
Ms Yamaha does not take cheese, so the rest got extra portion of it!
These ladies, they can switch from talking about food to handbags the next second!
They were having bufala, the next thing I realise, they were all talking about Furla.
(No, they were not talking about Furla, but they were talking about some red bags from NYC. Why did the conversation just switch?)
*** Tagliatelle Proci ***
The tagliatelle porci. ($114) This was 3 portions in one big terracotta serving dish. It's so simple looking and yet it taste so luscious! We regretted not ordering portion for 4 or 5! They looked and tasted home made! We think it is freshly made!
We ordered it because Andrea said the white truffles goes well with their pasta when he showed us the seafood platter in the beginning. But I guess there was some miscommunication and our orders were not the ones with truffles.
The miscomm was a blessing in disguise? The truffles we were told earlier was $15 per gram! We were prepared to try, but since it came without it, it did shave quite a bit off our bill too! LOL
*** Pizze Arrotolata ***
It was either Ms Honda or Ms Suzuki that was saying that we got to try the 'Sucking Pig' pizza here.
So we ordered the Pizze Arrotolata. It's Smoked Mozzarella, Suckling Pig, Porcini Mushrooms, Grape Sauce and Rucola Salad. ($24).
Yes, it's wrapped pizza! How interesting right?
Crispy crust as you can see. Melting mozzarella and the suckling pig! The grape jam tasted a bit like goober grape! (any fans of goober grape here?) It was such a nice combination.
*** Zuppa di Pesce Gattopardo ***
This is another dish that I can't which Ms Japanese said must try. It's their signature gattopardo seafood stew in terracotta pot. ($38)
We can't wait to dig in! It's served as it is shown above! I did not move the ingredients inside around to take this photo. It's a big pot by the way. Looking at it now makes me hungry!
The ladies had a challenge for Momo. She was given 3 months to master and replicate this dish. The ladies would later on self invite themselves to her house to try it. They sure want to get something back for treating her this dinner!
*** the birthday cake ***
The folks at Gattopardo were so nice! Andrea said they know everything and who the birthday girl is. He came out with this complimentary cake!
(Sorry the cake is not listed in the receipt, so I don't know the name haha..)
The cake was quite good! We cut the cake into 7 portions to be shared.
I was with a group of 6 ladies and these ladies all want desserts. So here goes...
*** Il Baba ***
Rum "baba" sponge cake topped with Fresh Cinnamon Cream. ($14)
Ms Mazda's favourite. We think she's a 'jiu kui' that's why she liked this! haha... Sponge cake soaked with rum, lemon sorbet that was so sour yet refreshing and a shot glass of watermelon puree.
*** Il Tiramisu ***
Their signature mascarpone & espresso tiramisu cake with sicilian bitter cocoa. ($14)
Hmm.. All of us thought it was just normal. Nothing special.
*** Il Cannolo Siciliano ***
Crispy Espresso-infused wafer filled with sweet ricotta cheese. ($14)
This looked interesting. But the wafer gets soggy very quickly. So eat it quick! Don't take photos! The gelato on the side was nice too!
Note: it gets very messy if you share this dish. Everything is soft!
*** Il Biancomangiare ***
The toasted almond pannacotta with bitter chocolate mousse and pear confit. ($14)
Of all the dessert, this is my personal favourite! The Almond Pannacotta mixed with the pear and the (oooo.. so super delicious) chocolate mousse was heavenly! The bitter chocolate mousse was not bitter but very sweet and rich! I liked it!
It was followed by coffee and tea.
By the way, the tea they served is not Italian, it's Singaporean! The famous Singapore TWG tea. ;-)We really liked this place. I guess it just became the top of the list for our best and favourite Italian Restaurant. Chef Lino went from table to table at the end of our meal to ask how the food was!
Gattopardo
The Legends, Fort Canning Park
11 Canning Walk
Singapore 178881
Tel: 63385498
Hours: 12 - 3 pm (lunch), 6.30 - 10.30pm (dinner) daily
