Ristonarante Da Valentino

The words "rustic", "warm and homely" and " genuine" comes to mind when you take a step into the restaurant. We were warmly greeted by one of Valentino's family. The interiors of the restaurant were decorated with ornaments from Italy and cherry-brown leather chairs and pink table cloths. I got the feeling that I was in the home of a Italian.

I've been to Ristorante Da Valentino before but it was probably about two years back. At that time, as I couldn't get a seat inside, I was seated outdoors with my companion and it wasn't all that a pleasant experience.

This time was entirely different. I was taken into all the little ornaments as though they could tell me their story or experience. At that moment, I dreamed of exploring Italy and its fascinating food culture.

As our waiter high-lighted the specials of the day, I was listening but I thought that I already know what to order from their menu. When he said "porcini", my eyes lit up and when he added "truffle oil", I was totally sold. So I ordered the day's special of ravioli with porcini mushrooms and truffle oil.

J was also attracted to one of the day's special- King prawns with Linguine. Though he isn't a big fan of prawns, I think he was fondly reminded of his king prawn and risotto that he had at Garibaldi not too long ago.

After taking our orders, we were served warm rolls with bail pesto sauce. The basil pesto was way amazing- well-mixed with anchovies, parmasan, olive oil, pine nuts and of course basil leaves. You could tell that it was freshly made and it served as my inspiration to start getting my lazy butt off to making my own basil pesto.


Bread roll and basil pesto

We shared an appetiser- Parma ham with melon. I was craving for this particular dish even though I ate it at Pregos last Sunday. The presentation of the dish was simple- They simply laid the parma ham over the melon. Despite the barely attractive appearance of the dish, it was lovely. Just imagine the thin, transparent slices of meat fanned out around a sweet orange melon. The parma ham is delicate and soft with details of fat which contributes to its unique taste. Lovely.

Parma ham and melon

Our mains looked as unadorned as our appetiser. The ravioli was so tasty that I just remained silent as I dug into it, forgetting to ask J how his pasta was. I was reminded how I love the taste of porcini mushrooms. Their intense, rich, meaty flavour is like no other and they pair really well with truffles or in this case truffle oil. I could eat another plate of this, seriously.

Loveliest ravioli

J had the king prawns linguine. The prawns for one were really huge! They were the most succulent and sweet. However, the linguine was disappointing. It was kind of bland and somehow to J and I, it seemed like it was a cross between a spaghetti and linguine.

J's tiger prawn linguine

Now, moving on to desserts. I was eyeing the dessert trolley the moment I stepped in. Since i have never seen the dessert trolley in any Italian restaurant in Singapore, I wondered what its mystique was about. In actuality, the reason why it is fascinating is because the waitress introduced the every dessert that was on the trolley. The desserts were mostly simple-Polenta and marzipan cake, fig tarts, Chocolate rum and raisin cake, the chantily cream cake. I was choosing between the chantily cream white chocolate cake and the chocolate crumble cake.



The dessert trolley

I have not seen a chocolate crumble cake so I was interested in finding out how it tasted like. We settled for that and had no regrets. The top part of the cake was made of chocolate cookie like crumble (for some reason, it reminded us of Korova cookies) and it was topped with amaretti cookies (I love). The base was made of a dense chocolate velvety texture. This was way lovely- Way better than the Dark chocolate I had at Laurent's Chocolate Cafe the evening.

This meal brightened up my entire Saturday as I embraced my Italian romance.


Chocolate crumble cake