Italian Osteria

TGIF finally after 4 long days hard at work. Time to let your hair down and chill. Italians are known to love a good gathering over good food so having Italian food on Friday is a fantastic choice.

The Italian Osteria is located at the residential area in the West. Nestled amongst many private development at Hillview, Osteria is surprisingly popular.

With modest wooden furniture and chrome lighting, the entire restaurant emits a warm feeling of a modern family restaurant. The restaurant is quite crowded by 7 pm.

Serving a wide range of Italian delights, the price ranges from below SGD 20 for starters and snacks and below SGD 50 for mains.

The kitchen salad at SGD 14 is a substantial serving with green apple slices, walnut chunks, cheese slices as well as mixed greens. The vinegrette dressing was very light and the salad was crunchy and refreshing

The crispy golden seafood at SGD 12 was basically a platter of fried battered shrimps and calamari. The batter was slightly thick but no doubt very crispy. The chilli sauce dip was the thing that really brought this dish to life. If not for the sauce, the seafood was very general.

As a fan of arancini which is fried rice ball filled with tomatos and minched meat, I had to try this rice suppli which was very similar to arancini except the sauce was a minched meat sauce. I was quite disappointed with this dish as there was not enough cheese and the rice was slightly dry and falling apart.

The baked bacon rolls at SGD 12 were baked till crispy and dark brown oozing with delicious bacon fats that complements the pork meat which was only lightly salted.

The mixed grilled fish and seafood at SGD 26 for small and SGD 50 for large had pan grilled scallops, calamari, prawns, fish and bell peppers. The seafood were grilled to perfection especially the calamari and prawn with the nice smokey flavour. The fish was a little too tough and dry.

One of the popular main dish here is the risotto with castelmagno cheese and Barolo wine reduction which looks just like oat meal porridge. Drizzled with a string of wine reduction, the risotto was very thick and cheesy. The main taste of the dish was cheese with a light sour after taste which I am not a fan.

The recommended pasta of the day included this pasta which looks like thin tubes with meat ragout. The pasta is very light with a saucy creamy meat sauce which is like a traditional home cooked sauce; nothing too spectacular but quite comforting.

The last pasta dish is the sheet pasta with a tomato based meat sauce which was very savoury like a light broth. The consistency of the gravy was just nice as it coats the pasta nicely making it a nice companion with the pasta.

When it comes to dessert, there is the bailey cheesecake which is quite heavy on the chocolate mousse but the bailey taste is hardly detectable. The consistency of the cake was quite dense and the cheese was quite nice.

The pistachio tiramisu was very different from the usual with a nutty topping and creamy filling. The taste however was missing the liquor taste and the overall cake only had strong cream cheese and nut flavours.