Pietrasanta @ Portsdown Road

My turn to host lunch with the girls today, and I decided to take them to PietraSanta, at Portsdown Road cos I thought it would be interesting to try a new restaurant.



However, I should have heeded the general sentiment of other food bloggers about this place - they really weren't equipped to handle the crowd, so we ended up waiting too long for our food. On a weekday lunch, that was unacceptable because we all had to rush back to work afterwards.



Me and PC and our basket of complimentary bread.

Camera-Shy PL looks like she is making roti prata with her napkin.

The well-reviewed and highly recommended Trippa - cow tripe in rich tomato and cheese sauce. Chewy, well-infused with the taste of fresh tomato. I liked it. No strong smell of offal either.

This is escargot - cooked in some sort of vegetable tomato soup I imagine. I think it costs the same as the tripe. It's quite nice, but I prefer the tripe.

PC's choice. We expected a stew of liver and red onions served with bread, but instead it was served like this. Oh, I see, you mean they are canapes. Well, they were still very nice. Sauteed Chicken liver pate is always nice. The onion was tangy and cut through the richness of the liver and the other dishes. My favourite starter of the 3.

This is the squid ink pasta. Originally supposed to be served with crab meat but they ran out of crab meat so they substituted with scallop. The scallop, if I recall, were rather tasteless. Not sweet. PL also said so.

The expensive osso bucco risotto (SGD45). Rich tasting and quite nice. but not meaty enough.

This is the sausage pasta - and surprisingly our favourite main. It was also the cheapest and doesn't look like much. But the sausage was very tasty and flavourful and the pasta (I cannot remember what it was) was thin and chewy. We all liked this best.

The lunch in total cost SGD150, which I thought was pretty expensive since we didn't have any drinks or dessert. I didn't realise the osso bucco was that expensive either. Most of the other stuff on the menu cost between SGD25-35.

Food wise, it was quite nice and I liked everything. Only thing is, we waited a really really long time for our mains, because the kitchen couldn't cope with the full house. It was a weekday afternoon, and for a restaurant in such an ulu (out of the way) location, I was surprised to find that all the tables were FULL. I mean, no buses or mrt station here! you gotta drive to find this place! wow.

Postscript: PL went back to the restaurant with her hubby and friends... and she tells me that the wait for food was still very long and that they lost her reservation, and that the drinks list (although comprehensive) was misleading cos all the drinks were not available except house white and house red cos they haven't found a suitable bartender yet! So, all in all, you might want to wait for them to settle in before you come.