Basil Alcove

Wednesday 28.03.2007

Dinner with the gals ... more specifically in favour of Rachel who has left our sunny island to seek greener pastures else where ...

The venue of choice was Basil Alcove - highly acclaimed amongst local floggers (food bloggers) for good quality Italian food at basement prices ... okay, reasonable prices. Located at Fortune Centre, it offers alfresco, no frills dining with its plastic chairs and foldable tables. To put it simply, it is fine-dining ala kopitiam style.

Upon glancing at the menu and its ultra reasonable prices, we ordered our mains and 3 starters/appetizers. A total of 7 dishes for 4 hungry gals! It was enough to feed an army!

The lacklustre ambience actually made the food shine even more, since one has no choice but to focus on the food and momentarily forget about the lack of frou frou associated with fine dining.

A fan of squid ink pasta, I ordered the linguine with clams - delish! Rachel ordered the duck dipped with vinigerette, Lak had the bratwurst carbonara and Kay Bo Cha Cha had the cod with mash potato on the side. Our starters/appetizers consisted of a mix of mushrooms, ceasar salad with generous portions of roasted chicken and a dozen mussels. Pity they didn't have a dessert menu.

Even though the staff kept forgetting that we needed spoons, service was pleasant. The only grouse we had with the place was the lack of payment options - only cash is accepted! Used to credit card payments, we had to empty our wallets to pay the bill which amounted to $90+ and thereafter we all had to scramble in search for the nearest ATM. It is a very unsettling feeling to have just 2 bucks left in the purse ya know ...

:: kinda like "in the mood for love", doncha think? ::

:: at it again ::