Pietrasanta at Portsdown

Was looking for something new to take my folks out to lunch on a Friday, and I happened to remember this new Italian restaurant right in the heart of Portsdown Road in Singapore. Not exactly the lunch crowd gathering spot, so I figured this would be a quiet place for a family meal. We reserved a table inside the cozy restaurant adorned with simple homely decorative items, which reminded me a lot of the old Cantina restaurant down the road from where we stay.

The menu was quite extensive, covering everything from appetizers and soups to entrees with pasta, seafood and main courses of meat, pizza and specials of the day. The only thing that seemed to be missing from the menu was carpaccio. Maybe there was a reason, but I didn't ask. The waitress went on and on about the specials of the day, and I lost track of what I wanted to order from the menu. We ended with most of the special dishes - burata, grilled portobello, chestnut flour crepes and the squid ink pasta with crab meat in tomato sauce.

The appetizers of burata, served with parma ham and arugula, and the grilled portebello with minced meat topping were both equally good. But it was the mains that we liked best. The chestnut crepe was filled with layers of ham, mushrooms and cheese and baked till crispy. It had a most unusual flavor and tasted amazing, My squid ink pasta dish was even better, the tomato sauce was a good tangy complement to the sweetness of the fresh crab meat. Needless to say, we cleaned up our plates and left no room for dessert. So that will have to wait another day. I'm very impressed with the quality of food at Pietrasanta, it's definitely a much better choice that Soprano's across the driveway.

Pietrasanta is located at 5B Portsdown Road, next to Klee and Soprano's.