La Strada – Lunch | Hungry Bird

If I’m not wrong, La Strada was recently renovated and perhaps there were some changes to the menu as well. In my impression, I think the prices actually went down.

The ambience was rather cozy with the wooden theme, from the floors to the ceiling. It didn’t have the uptight formal ambience as though you can’t relax while having your meal, yet it didn’t look too sloppy and casual like starbucks. (the colour theme kind of reminds me of starbucks/ coffeebean)

It seems Christmas came early at La Strada with such decorations and a fully decorated Christmas tree. Paired with the wooden interior, I felt a festive holiday vibe the moment you step in, as though I stepped into some log house in the woods. It would have been perfect if it was snowing outside.

For lunch, they have the ala carte menu and the set lunch menu at $35++ for 3 courses, and $45++ for 4 courses.There’s also a separate list for the December specials. I decided to go ala carte as one pasta would be enough for me.

There was nothing special about the bread. However, I would like to mention that after having the bread, our table was full of crumbs but the disappointingly, the waiters did not bother to help us clear it.

Vitello Tonnato – $24.00++

Oven roasted milk fed veal rack in light tuna sauce, Quail egg, capers and marinated blue fin tuna

We had this as our starter. I love how pretty it was laid out. I especially liked the quail eggs for having a runny yolk. The veal was very soft and it actually feels like ham. The tuna sauce had a very strong tuna smell, like the smell you would get from canned tuna. Overall this was good, but if I could choose again, I would rather get another serving of pasta instead of this, because the pastas here are fantastic!

Carbonara – $26.00++

Fresh chittara, crispy Parma ham, egg confit and parmesan

This carbonara is very unique. It’s not cooked the common way, where you can easily identify cream, bacon and a yolk. When this dish was first served to me, I could smell a very strong aroma. I’m so glad it tastes as good as it smells! Instead of downright cream, the “cream” here seems more like an emulsion to me. I could taste a truffle taste (I had xiao long bao with truffles just yesterday and the truffle aroma is still fresh in my taste buds’ memory) in this and I suppose they really used truffle butter for it. The sauce itself was heavenly and can easily be the best pasta sauce I ever had.

Bacon was not in abundance but crispy Parma ham was. Instead of an egg yolk it had a whole egg confit.

The egg was like half boiled egg and it was in a semi solid state, which mixed well with the pasta.

The chittara was just right for me, done just the way I like it to be. I’m not inclined towards soft noodles and while this wasn’t soggy soft, it wasn’t hard to the extent that it would stick onto my teeth, so that’s good. It’s just right. I highly recommend this carbonara!

Vongole – $24.00++

Spaghetti with clams, cherry tomatoes, white wine, chili and garlic

Like carbonara, vongole seems like a very common pasta creation where you may think it’d be about the same everywhere. However, this vongole was the best we’ve tried. The sauce was different from the usual ones found elsewhere. I only had a mouth of this so I’m not sure how to describe it, but the sauce made all the difference to it. I’d say it’s worth a try, if you appreciate pasta sauces. The clams were given in abundance, which is never a bad thing.

However, it’s apparent that service isn’t the most attentive here as a bowl wasn’t provided for the empty shells. I wouldn’t say that the overall service was bad, because it wasn’t, but it just wasn’t as attentive as other restaurants.

*****

Ambiance: 8/10

Food: 9/10

Value: 8/10

Overall: one of the best Italian pasta meals I’ve had! I highly recommend this place.

*****

La Strada

1 Scotts Road

#02-10/11

Shaw Centre

Tel: 67372622

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