La Strada and their Carbonara

La Strada
#02-10 Shaw Centre
1 Scotts Road
Tel: 6737-2622

La Strada and their carbonara. Or maybe it is just me and the a few weeks of a slight manic obsession with la strada carbonara. I’m an eggy person. I usually can’t resist not ordering any dish off a menu that reads “… with a poached egg”. And whilst gleaning through the usual blog roll I came across a picture of La Strada’s Carbonara and I was sold. I love pasta. I love ham and the truffles were a bonus. But it was that precariously perched poached egg on the mount of tangled noodles that really what caught my attention.

But it was not meant to be. For two weeks in a row I’ve gone to La Strada but in vain. Out of sheer determination, I’ve been suggesting La Strada as the dinner location to friends for dinners but alas, I haven’t ordered the carbonara.

Just last week I suffered a bout of sickness that is a little gross to describe so let’s just call it a bout of sickness. Sick I was but I had a dinner appointment with people whom I really wanted to meet so I still went out to dinner with strict instructions from the doctor, for the next few days you cannot have any chilli, dairy and eggs and porridge is the best form of food. To which I replied, “NO EGGS?! I love eggs.” After which the nurse just laughed at me. Oh well. So to La Strada but no eggs and no dairy, hmm… ok no carbonara for me.

As for this week, I am well and healthy and consuming a healthy amount of an egg a day but ivn ordered it for his pasta dish … so for variety sake I ordered the hand-cut pasta with mud crab that is sautéed in olive oil, garlic, fresh chillies and white wine, a worthy substitute.

I, however my second visit, have finally tasted this pasta that I have been coveting. I had two generous forkful twirls of the pasta that had a smooth mouth feel and truffle scent that then easily glided down my throat.

Ok, that was worth the wait and a return.

* credit to ivn for the photos.

Pasta, Pasta, Pasta

After about a few months of contemplation, I finally bought a pasta machine. After a week of pasta production of different shapes and lengths, I am proud to say I have not bought another kitchen white elephant. Inspired and longing to eat at Babbo again, I thought that it might be a great idea to re-create a pasta tasting dinner/lunch at home, so emails were sent out for the pasta luncheon – slow food, fast drinks style.

I nearly cried when I made my first pasta, ok I exaggerate, but I did squeal in delight and had a smugness about it since my brother looked on doubtfully and my mother could not understand the need for a pasta machine and went on to preach to me about the merits and goodness of dried pasta. Freshly made egg pasta has its merits, its silky softness and its richer taste that is beautiful for ragu and it really is not that difficult to make.


My first handmade pasta!

All you need to remember is this: 1 egg to every 100g of flour that you use, salt it, knead it for 10 minutes and then let it rest for about an hour before rolling it out.

Here's the brief pictorial report on our five-pasta-course-four-hour lunch:


Warm chocolate mocha tart that was made by Mia


Capellini with chorizo oil and broccolini


Pumpkin tortellini in the process


Bolognese, made with a mix of pork and beef mince


Pappardelle with bolognese

* I didn't pictures for the mentaiko pasta and the homemade fettucine with braised lamb shanks.

Buono!

27 Lichfield Road
Tel: 6733-5646
www.buonopizzabar.com



If you like Italian food for these reasons for the main reason of the family-comfort feel, Buono is perfect.

The first thing that you will probably notice is the leopard print slip covers that are on a random number of chairs among the eclectic selection of furniture. They are really cheesy, but (and I hate to admit this) I really like them. To me, it gives the whole place some character and a very unpretentious feel about it.

The second thing I liked about it is the personality, Chef Salvatore Buono. He has got a warm smile and is personable. And he makes good food!

The menu is rather large. On our first visit, to the amusement of Chef who took our orders, we ordered a hodgepodge of dishes from all sections of the menu: calamari, seafood soup, sausage platter, buono pizza, curry seafood pasta and lamb rack with gorgonzola sauce.If you want to go all out and have an antipasti, a first course, second, side and dessert or either just a serving of pasta or pizza, the menu is large and flexible to accommodate your preferences.

Take note that the kitchen includes a fire wood oven, produces lovely fresh bread and thin crusted pizzas, hence this place already has the right foundation to be a good pizzabar.





The menu has accents of Salvatore’s imagination. The signature buono pizza, topped with both mozzarella and cream, along with sausages and rocket is deluxe comfort food, but a little too heavy for me to stomach on my own, so have this but share this. Intriguing ‘fusion’ dishes such as the curry seafood pasta, spaghetti along with a generous portion of prawns and scallops is tossed in a mild creamy curry sauce, is again comforting and perhaps a potential differential dish for the restaurant.

Along side the more imaginative and distinctive menu items, Buono also present good versions of familiar and classic dishes. The fried calamari, simple but well fried to produce a good crisp with no odours of stale oil is good, and their seafood soup that they should hold up with pride is simple divine.

The food is good enough reason to go back, and another good reason is that the prices for a good meal here will not break the bank. What I like most about this place is that it has got a nature of a good friend. This place is not stocked with designer furniture or starched white table cloths for that matter, but its down-to-earth nature and the personality has got my attention, and I think this is one of those places that I’m going to make mine.

*See the whole set of pictures here.

Finding Wow at Le Papillon

I dine out quite a lot. Thankfully, for the high proportion of my pay check that I plough back into the economy through meals, I usually have good meals. Occasionally, after walking out of a restaurant I feel that I overpaid and the worst case scenario is when I simply feel that I was cheated of my time, money and calories, in those cases I'm usually really pissed and will whinge. But most of the time I’m satisfied, and every once in a while there are moments when the only appropriate reaction I can muster is ‘wow!’ The greatest thing about these ‘wow’ moments is that you never really forget it.



One of those moments happened when I was at Anderson Ho’s restaurant Le Papillon. It was my third visit there, and I was dining with a close friend and fan of Anderson’s who always has a special chef’s menu planned for him. Amongst the seven courses that were planned for the night was a pasta course of prawn oil penne with arugula salad, parmesan and bottaga and it was a showstopper. Not just I, but all four of us around the table at one point or another (probably after about two bites) uttered ‘w-o-w’. It was divine – annoucing its arrival with enticing aromas and depth of flavour that hit many notes and remained well composed. Enchanted, I emailed chef the next day and gushed about it and he very kindly assured me that it was going to be in the next menu and it still remains there today (yay!). Since that day, I’ve become a fan.

My last meal there, the delicious pasta, as I have discovered, currently has evolved and now takes the form of rigatoni with crustacean and seaweed, bottaga, arugula and parmesan. But this time we had a slightly varied form, substituting the bottaga with grilled mentaiko, a hand-carried gift from Japan from Sam to me, and it was still absolutely divine. That was still my favourite dish, but it was also surrounded by other great tasting courses such as its prelude of fresh mud crab salad with tomato gelée and gazpacho espuma appetiser that was had gentle breezy flavours and a good lift from the Tabasco, refined and refreshing. The main courses of skate with lobster emulsion and morels , smoked chicken with onion gratin and braised beef shin were good but I generally prefer appetisers to main courses.

When Le Papillon first opened in 2006, most foodies and culinary critics who had frequented Fig Leaf were excited about the return of Anderson after his ‘sabbatical’ from the culinary scence at SATS. Whilst it opened to positive feedback and reviews, there was a general consensus and I agree, many felt that it had not reached its potential. In addition with many new places, it has it teething problems and a fair share of on and off day, but it is now coming into its form, finding its definitive voice and slowly reaching its potential. At the moment it serves great food and some absolutely brilliant dishes that have developed into signature dishes and found a permanent spot on the menu such as the pesto and feta on watermelon, arugula salad and pedro ximenez reduction, and I think its only going to get better. For me, I feel that in him I have found something that I really relate to in terms of taste. Anderson is grounded in classic French techniques, he understands the local ingredients and he has this wonderful ability of combining flavours that evoke feelings of familiarity and nouvelle in me.

Le Papillon
Red Dot Traffic Building
28 Maxwell Road
#01-02
Tel: 6327-4177
www.le-papillon.com.sg

* See the whole set of photos here.

In Praise of Eggs

I’ve gone a little eggy. On Monday I bought a tray of regular chicken eggs, eight salted duck eggs and a dozen preserved duck eggs or what are also known as century eggs. Today is Thursday and I need to go shopping for more. Short of a heart attack diet, I have averaging a consumption of 4 eggs a day, excluding egg traces that might be found in confectionary, cakes and spreads. Other than consuming runny egg yolks with my own homemade chilli-spiked tomato sauce and scrambled eggs, I’ve learnt to utilise the other types of eggs a little more.

The century egg that might seem vile and strange to the uninitiated can be a little unnerving. In addition to that, the free publicity that it had received on it, was not at all positive as seen on Fear Factor, and I personally have been stared down at tables with the worst response being “Are you really going to eat that? You know they use horse pee in the preparation right?” honestly, I don’t know if they use horse pee, but it did put me off those black eggs for a good 6 months of so. Nonetheless, they are still delicious and they are a Chinese delicacy. They might smell funny to some, but the yolk is rich and creamy and the resulting preserved egg white turns into a springy jelly-like substance. Yes, it might be stinky, but durian is also stinky and last I checked so is a long list of cheeses and they are all still considered delicious. During the course of the week I’ve also taken a page from Xi Yan, in using the century egg in its preparation of its house signature salivating chicken, and it really does help in keeping the mouth flames at bay.

The salted egg is also something that I’ve learnt to cook with. Before this week I had only known how to use it through boiling, peeling and eating the yolk as it is with tofu and rice, but this week I’ve added another step, sautéing! This additional step actually enhances the fragrance of the yolk, a very useful kitchen tip.

Now since I had acquired new found knowledge about salted duck yolks, what should I do with it? I had a few ideas but that got derailed when I could not say no to my rare chance of scoring fresh crayfish from my fishmonger. All I needed was to find a way to tie the two ingredients together and here’s a dinner dish that I came up with: Spaghetti with salted eggs and crayfish

Spaghetti with salted eggs and crayfish
Serves 4



Ingredients:
8 salted duck eggs
2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
4 crayfish, cleaned and halved
300 g dried spaghetti
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
200 g Chinese flowering cabbage (choy sum / cai sin), washed and trimmed
Salt to taste
Freshly cracked black pepper to taste

Method:
1. Bring a pot of water to the boil. Gently lower duck eggs and boil, uncovered, for 10 minutes. Strain eggs and whilst still hot, halve eggs and scoop yolks unto a bowl. Discard egg whites and shell. Mash yolks with a fork and set aside.
2. Pre-heat grill to 180°C. Mix 1½ tablespoon yolk with butter and spread over crayfish meat. Grill for 8—10 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, bring a pot of salted water to the boil. When it comes to a rolling boil, add pasta and cook as directed until al dente, then drain.
4. When the pasta is 2 minutes from being ready, heat oil in a large saucepan over medium low heat. Add egg yolks and sauté for 1 minute. Add flowering cabbage and sauté for another minute. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
5. Remove saucepan from heat, add pasta and toss well. Divide equally into 4 individual bowls, top each bowl with 2 halves of crayfish and serve.

Final cooking in 2006

I spent a good part of the last few days of 2006 in the kitchen cooking for family, friends and for myself. I had another embarrassing failure of an over-salted salmon fishcake that some first-time guests were too polite to not finish, while I could only swallow one bite of my own, and thankfully the rest were better. I’m also as happy as a clam at the fact that most of my dishes that I cooked on the eve of 2007 turned out pretty damn good after spending a good part of the year perfecting a handful of dishes with numerous disasters edible along the way. Alongside these, I’ve also had beginners luck with these two dishes over the past week.

Spaghetti ai ricci di mare (Uni pasta)
Serves 4



1 tray of sea urchin roe
2 tablespoons + 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
5 sprigs Italian parsley, chopped
2 - 3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1/4 tsp chilli flakes
salt to taste
400 g dried spaghetti

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and cook pasta according to the timing indicated on the package until al dente.
2. Meanwhile, gently mix sea urchin roe, 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil, parsley and salt to taste together in a large glass bowl.
3. Heat 3 Tbsp of extra virgin olive oil, garlic, chilli flakes and a pinch of salt until the garlic turns a darker yellow but not brown, about 5 minutes.
4. When pasta is ready, drain but save about 1 Tbsp of pasta water. Add pasta and reserved pasta water to the urchin roe mixture then pour over garlic and chilli oil. Toss well and serve.

Crab Wontons in Lemongrass Broth
Serves 8 – 10 as an appetiser



Lemongrass broth:
2 litres chicken stock
3 stalks lemongrass, trimmed and chopped
Peels from a lemon
3 stalks of spring onion, cut into 5 cm lengths
1 tsp sugar
Salt and pepper to taste

To make stock:
1. Bring chicken stock to the simmer.
2. Add remaining ingredients and simmer, uncovered for 20-25 minutes, then strain. Check seasoning and set aside.

Crab wontons:
350 g crab meat
2 tsp olive oil
11/2 tablespoon finely chopped coriander
2 tablespoons finely chopped spring onions
½ teaspoon soy sauce
¼ teaspoon five-spice pepper
1 teaspoon grated lime zest
35 wanton skins + extras

To make wantons:
1. Combine all ingredients except wanton skins.
2. Place ½ a teaspoon of crab mixture in the middle of the wanton skin then dab the edges with water. Fold the wanton skin to make a triangle, then take the base edges and turn them about 45 degrees till they meet. Repeat till all the crab filling is used.

To assemble:
1. Reheat soup.
2. Bring another pot of water to the boil, then drop a few wantons in at a time. Remove as the float to the surface and transfer to serving bowls.
3. Ladle hot soup over wantons and garnish with sliced spring onions and serve immediately.

Orange Orange Obsession

A friend once told me, the orange is like the earth. Like the earth, which is composed by 3 elements—crust, mantle and core—the orange also has 3 distinct portions: the zest, the white pith and the juicy centre.



The juicy centre is what I like best. Best when eaten raw, either cut into wedges and stretched before eating or simply halved and gorged out with a metal spoon. Nothing beats nature’s clever design of cramping thousands of tiny sacs that squirt flavour when bitten into. The other thing I love is juicing oranges. I find the process of rolling then to break the sacs, halving and then squeezing them for juice is not only therapeutic with a drinkable end product that is gratifying and refreshing.

Other than its core, I’ve re-discovered and learnt to appreciate another aspect of the orange, its zest. Although I’ve mindlessly followed recipes, which have called for orange zest to be added into stews and baked goods, I guess I never really did stop to consider the real oomph that gives to the foods it is added to… until last week. Inspired by a Homemade Spaghetti with Lobster, Basil and Orange Oil dish that I had in Union Square Café, where the orange oil played a primary role in lifting the dish and giving it subtle citrus accent, I started off my orange-obsession weekend by infusing orange oil. Once I started zesting, the scent of the natural orange oil was addictive, I could not stop! I started looking for other ways that I could transform orange peels that I normally trash after extracted their juicy pulp. After an afternoon of zesting, cooking random orange zest recipes, cleaning out my fridge of my leftovers, I'm quite chuffed that I managed to put together a rather pretentious Union Square Café wannabe home-cooked lunch dish what I now call my Double-Orange Capellini with Prawns and that took me nearly 2 hours to complete.

Double-Orange Angel Hair with Prawns
Serves 2



Ingredients:
1 Tbsp Olive oil
1-2 cloves Garlic, peeled and chopped
½ tin of whole Roma tomatoes, crush tomatoes
6 Prawns, shelled and minced
150 g Angel hair
5 Basil leaves, chiffonade
Orange oil (recipe follows)
Orange zest confit (recipe follows)

Method:
1. Heat olive oil in a frying pan and sauté garlic until fragrant. Add crushed tomatoes and 50 ml water, then simmer, uncovered for 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
2. Bring a pot of salted water to the boil. Cook angel hair until al dente, then drain and save some of the boiling liquid.
3. Heat a frying-pan with butter, sauté prawns, and then add sauce to heat through. Remove from heat, add pasta and basil, then toss and mix well.
4. Drizzle with orange oil and garnish with orange zest.



Orange oil
Makes about 250 ml or 1 cup

Ingredients:
250 ml Olive oil
Zest of 1 orange
¼ tsp black peppercorns
Pinch of salt

Method:
1. Combine all ingredients in a small heavy-bottom pot and bring to a simmer on medium heat.
2. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes.
3. Set aside to cool completely, then use as required.

Orange zest confit

Ingredients:
1 orange
100 ml water
30 g sugar

Method:
1. Peel orange zest using a potato peeler and julienne.
2. Place orange zest in a colander. Pour boiling water over to blanch and then run under cold water. Repeat process 3 times.
3. Bring water and sugar to the boil, reduce heat to a dimmer, add zest and simmer for 20 minutes. Store until ready to use.

A la cuisine!

Food binds people. Food binds my family. I spent many after school hours watching English dubbed Iron Chef and their re-runs with my brother. It was one of those programmes that we never fought over for the television remote controller. We spent many hours enviously watching the tasting panel, listening and laughing at the badly translated platitudes, fantasising how the food tasted and talked about our own mini Iron Chef type of competitions we would have. Our competition never took place, but my brother once attempted an Iron Chef Day with lamb shanks, that day is etched in my memory, but not for delicious reasons. After that day, I think we decided it was best to experience the Iron Chefs (culinary dreams of dining at all of their restaurants before we die) rather than trying to BE the Iron Chef. At one stage of my life (I think I might have been 17) I was convinced that the judges were predisposed to vote for the Iron Chefs since they were the victors 85% of the time but now on hindsight and first-hand tasting experiences, at Morimoto by Masaharu Morimoto (Iron Chef Japanese) and at Babbo by Mario Batali (Iron Chef America Italian), I now am a little older and hopefully, wiser.

Morimoto by Masaharu Morimoto


Foie gras chawan mushi with shabu shabu duck

This 3 month old, 160-seater, über chic restaurant’s deco is quite something. We arrived 15 minutes before our reservation so they first led downstairs and sat us at bar area. The furniture was interesting to say the least—the sofa looked like a cool-but-not-very-comfortable plastic white sofa but it turned out to be some sort of foam that was firm and soft—it was fascinating. The thing that really blew me away were the super-tech-savvy toilet seats where it had auto-flush, auto-seat-warming and auto-close functions among the others that I could not quite make out. It is crazy, no?

The place looked cool and so did some of the dishes on the menu: morimoto tempura with gorgonzola cheese sauce, oyster foie gras, kakuni (ten hour pork, congee, soy-scallion jus, duck, duck, duck (foie gras croissant, roast duck, soft duck egg and red miso sauce) and tuna pizza alongside the sashimi and sushi list. We elected for the morimoto omakase and a carafe of one of Morimoto’s sake.

Dinner started off with indulgence. Specifically, an o-toro tartare in a bamboo box with condiments: puréed seaweed, crème frâiche, wasabi, shiso, avocado purée and rice crackers, and accompanied by dashi soy, a bamboo spoon and a mountain berry to finish off. It was fun and yummy to eat. Use your bamboo spoon/paddle and mix o-toro with varying amounts of condiments to your own taste. First I did a tasting of how each individual condiment tasted with the o-toro. Second I mixed a few combinations of condiments, and then finally I figured that it tasted best with everything. It was fatty tuna goodness with creamy and crunchy textures.

Two dishes in one arrived next. The waiters placed a raised plate of sashimi on the table then lifted the sashimi plate of young snapper, and stripped bass to reveal two gems of kumamoto oysters, one with cocktail and the other with citrus sauce. The ingredients were super-fresh and yummy with the richer tasting dashi soy.

The third courses was poached lobster salad with diced potatoes and pumpkin purée. The cooking technique demonstrated was excellent, the lobster was poached to perfection, retaining its natural sweetness and tenderness. It tasted fantastic on its own, but was even better with potatoes the sweet pumpkin sauce.

Next up was a morimoto maki—tamago and tuna maki wrapped with procuttio—with dashi foam. It was a good balance between the sweet egg and tuna, and the salty stronger tasting proscuttio and the dashi foam was a good and airy substitute for the usually soy sauce.

The intermezzo was a black sesame macaroon and individual mini tea cups of matcha that was graciously prepared with traditional bamboo whisk at the table.

Next up was foie gras chawan mushi with shabu shabu duck breast, fresh wasabi and sweet soy sauce. The foie gras chawa mushi was rich and but was a light mousse texture. The shabu shabu duck breast brought the richness to another level and was well balanced by the wasabi.

Following we had a plate morimoto “surf and turf” (as I term it) of grilled kurodai (red snapper) and wagyu beef. The snapper flesh was sweet and the sweet melt-in-your-mouth teriyaki wagyu was balanced with the slightly bitter bok choi. To finish off the savoury section, we had a sushi platter of chu-toro (medium fatty tuna), hamachi (yellowtail), sayori (needlefish), kanpachi (amberjack) and anago (sea eel).

For dessert, the Chocolate cheesecake with lychi (wolfberries) and pear that was served was ok. The chocolate tuile was nice, but other than that, the whole dessert was too sweet for me to finish, but then again, I don’t think desserts were his strong points.

It’s a pity we never got to sit at the omakase bar (someone has on numerous occasions!), nonetheless this is one of those meals that will be etched in my memory.

Babbo by Mario Batali


Fernando’s Pyramids with Passato di Pomodoro

With the empire of restaurants that Mario Batali has, we were not quite sure on how to tackle this iron chef. With too many choices and too few days, we narrowed our choices down to either Lupa or Babbo and decided to go with the latter since it is his flagship restaurant with a unique and legendary pasta tasting menu.

My previous experiences with homemade pasta have not been too pleasant. The first time I was 19 and I ambitiously attempted making my own pasta was without a pasta machine. Honestly, I don’t know what I was thinking. I didn’t make good pasta, my end product was horrible, my mother opened the pot and was horrified, “Why are there these fat worm like things in the pot?!” There has not been a second attempt that has been rain-checked until I acquire a pasta machine. Mario Batali has made all that right and has inspired me scribble making good pasta on my “things to cook before I die” list.

*Warning: the below is not for those on anti/low-carb diets.

We started with an amuse bouche of chickpea bruchetta arrived and away we went with pasta tasting! We started off the tasting menu with Black Tagliatelle with Peas and Parmigiano. The flavours were simple and light. The peas were crisp and crunchy was complemented the creamy but light pea creamy sauce. I had no problem finishing my peas in this dish.

Pasta 2, Asparagus and Ricotta “Mezzalune”, was equally delicious. Real simple and clean flavours—creamy goat ricotta, crunchy asparagus, al dente mezzalune and scallion oil—worked together well and kept the flavours light.

The next dish was served with what our server termed “wine for wimps.” She nicknamed it so because this soft and gentle flavoured wine is one of her favourites and her sommelier joked that she liked it because of it was not full bodied but rather gentle, soft, a pretty wimpy wine. “Wine for wimps” accompanied Garanelli with “Funghi Trifolati”. As the plates were sat down, the waiters returned with a large knob of cheese and microplane graters, (this is my favourite part) and informs us that the chef highly recommends that this dish is finished off with grated goat’s cheese. The funghi aroma waffled up to my nose giving me my first “taste” of it. The actual taste of it was even stronger, very earthy and smoky, which was balanced well against the fresh tasting herbs, pasta.

When the servers placed the pasta dish no.4, Fernando’s Pyramids with Passato di Pomodoro, on our plates, they stressed that it these beef-filled homemade raviolis were Fernando’s pyramids rather than Batali’s creation and topped with freshly grated romano percino cheese. The homemade raviolis were filled with a yummy braised beef that simply melted away in my mouth and served with a sweet tasting tomatoes emulsified with olive oil and fresh parsley.

The last of the pasta dishes was Pappardelle Bolognese. To finish off the pasta courses, this homemade Bolognese, homemade Papperdelle, the rich beef sauce was good comforting homemade mama’s food. The pasta courses stayed true to the Italian way of cooking, super fresh ingredients and clean-straightforward-focused-on-flavour cooking. The pastas were to a certain extent impeccable: perfectly al dente pasta and executed sauces. A side note, the courses did push us to the limits in terms of stomach space; I struggled with the last pasta plate.

The first of the dessert courses was Espresso Panna Cotta “con Amarena”. The velvet smooth panna cotta had a sensational kick of espresso. Following after was a whimsical Chocolate “Salami” with “Zabaione al Moscato”. The chocolate salami was packed with pistachios, biscotti bits and orange zest. I was not too big a fan of the Zabiaone sauce, the chocolate salami was just decadent enough to eat on its own.

For the last and seemingly final dessert, our server was so gracious to give us a dessert tasting menu within our last dessert course and the order to take and bite and pass around rotate our plates. The menu dessert of Ricotta Cake “Macchiato” with Bergamot was accompanied with its other sweet companions, walnut and date cake with vanilla sauce and ice cream, ricotta cheese cake with pineapple and flourless chocolate cake with hazelnut ice cream.

My experience at Babbo was pretty damn good. It was a good way to mark my first experience with true homemade al dente pasta. The wine pairing with the pasta tasting menu was also pretty phenomenal; we drank a range of Italian wines that were carefully handpicked to echo the flavours. To top it all the dancing service staff—armed with their microplane graters and delicious knobs and cheese—were terribly funny and friendly. The only reservation we could get was at 5.30pm, too early a time to eat dinner, but it is well worth the trouble.

Kudos to Iron Chefs.
2 Iron Chefs, check, a few more to go!

Morimoto
88 10 Avenue
New York, NY 10011
Tel: (1) 212-989-8883
Website: www.morimotonyc.com

Babbo
110 Waverly Place
New York, NY 10011
Tel: (1) 212-353-8064
Website: http://www.babbonyc.com/