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2011-06-30
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Name of restaurant: Al Dente, Soho, CentralDate/time of visit: 29/6 Wednesday 2:30pm Reason for going: Following our visit to Epoch Coffee Bar at Wanchai last time, we were keen to search for a better plate of pasta, somewhere that served traditional Italian pasta. After some thoughts, we agreed that Soho of Central had a great variety of western restaurants. Most of them were owned by westerners and the quality of food must be of a high quality to serve the higher class of residents living near
Date/time of visit: 29/6 Wednesday 2:30pm
Reason for going: Following our visit to Epoch Coffee Bar at Wanchai last time, we were keen to search for a better plate of pasta, somewhere that served traditional Italian pasta. After some thoughts, we agreed that Soho of Central had a great variety of western restaurants. Most of them were owned by westerners and the quality of food must be of a high quality to serve the higher class of residents living nearby. We therefore decided to try our luck there.
The lunchtime of that day was raining dogs and cats. It was horrible. The rain was not heavy but it was the wind that made the matter worse. We could barely walk as we needed to fight with the wind. Unfortunately, we were bad navigators: we totally missed the long escalators connecting the Central MTR station and Soho. We took a longer path by climbing the steep streets instead. As a result, we were soaked by the time we arrived the restaurant after a 45 minutes walk from the MTR station. What a great start for lunch!
Atmosphere: The restaurant was located in Staunton Street of Soho. It was quite a small restaurant comparing to other big ones nearby, yet we found the setting very homey. As the size of the shop was extremely small, the tables were closed to each other and seats were not comfortable when your shoulder is just a few inches away from the person by your side. Luckily, due to the rain, when we arrived, there were a few unoccupied tables. We were able to sit somewhere not too near to other customers. Food: We arrived at 2:30pm; we were just in time for the lunch set which lasted until 3pm. We chose Soup of the Day, Pasta of the Day and Tiramisu with ice cream.
Soup of the Day (Cream of Mushroom) The soup was served immediately after we had placed our order, probably because there were not many customers. A basket of bread was served alongside with the soup. We did not wait to taste the bread. To our surprise, the bread was soft and moist. It was warm and smelled of finely chopped fresh onion and herbs. We dipped the bread into some olive oil and black vinegar to enhance the taste – it was perfect. We gave the bread a score of 9 out of 10. The soup had a fine taste, and the bread crumb in it had a herb flavor. However we found the soup too powdery. It was not smooth enough and did not blend with other ingredients. We preferred a thicker and creamier soup. Therefore we gave this soup a score of 6.5 out of 10.
Pasta of the Day (Linguine with Chicken and Mushroom in a White Wine Garlic Sauce) The pasta was splendid! When the pasta was served, the smell of garlic combining with white wine sauce was instantly released from the dishes and straight into our nostrils. It was a very pleasurable virtual appetite without even trying the dish. The ingredients, chicken and mushroom, were cooked very well. The texture of the linguine was just right and we liked it. The portion of pasta was good enough for our appetite, we were not bloated when we finished. However we would recommend the dish be made less salty so that customers needed not keep drinking water. For the pasta, we gave a score of 8 out of 10.
Tiramisu with ice creamExpectations do not necessary get fulfilled when you have your hopes too high. This is true to our dessert. We anticipated a great ending to our meal – however, the dessert was too small comparing to our previous courses. The tiramisu was not smooth enough, not moisturized and not creamy at all. As for the ice cream, it was awful! It was the worst ice cream I ever had. A three-star hotel’s tea buffet would do better than that. The vanilla ice cream was below average as it easily melted and tasted very artificial and had absolutely no vanilla taste at all. We gave this course a score of 3.5 out of 10.
Service: The service was very good! The staff was nice and friendly. Most of the staff were Italians and were passionate about the quality of food and servicing. We could feel their genuine and sincere attitude. However, towards the end of our meal, we were rushed to leave as they had to fix their lights. It could have been better if we could stay longer to dry ourselves before we fought with the rain again.
Overall, I think Al Dente was a good restaurant. I would like to visit it again to try out other soups and pasta of the day if I happen to pass by since there is no distinct aspect that attracts me to travel all the way from Kowloon.
张贴
