Pasta Brava

I had always wanted to eat at Pasta Brava, having heard many good things about the place. It was a "meant-to-be" moment when a colleague told me yesterday evening about the wonderful dinner she had had at Pasta Brava the previous night, with her parents. Incidentally, I had also been trying to coerce another group of colleagues to have lunch there today. My scheming paid off : )

We didn't make reservations, but there were fortunately a couple of empty tables near the entrance. The tables in the other section (to the right of the photo) were all taken up though.

I was initially inclined to settle for the set lunch since it was better value for money, but when we found out that the normal pasta dishes use dehydrated pasta, we decided to go for the a la carte home made pasta options instead.

One of my colleagues had the Ravioli Con Carne Di Manzo ($21), or the "square shaped pillow pasta filled with minced beef". It's usually served with a gorgonzola sauce, but she had it changed to a tomato sauce instead. The beef ravioli was very tasty, with real minced beef pieces inside (I am very fearful of some of the powdery beef-flavoured nonsense that other places stuff in their pasta), and the tomato sauce went well with the pasta - not too rich, and not too sour.

I ordered the Stracci Al Gamberi E Capesante ($21), or "thin pieces of fresh pasta with scallops, prawns, green peppercorns, white wine with saffrom cream sauce". The fresh pasta had a good texture, although I would have preferred it slightly more al dente. No complaints though. The cream sauce was nicely balanced - any richer and it would have been more difficult to eat - and it was well-flavoured. This dish was a winner!
The owner - nice friendly Italian chap of around 70 years old came by to chat with us before the food was served. Suddenly he came out with this plate of roast duck - they have specials that change everyday, and their special for the day happened to be roast duck with cherry sauce. This was lovely. The duck was tender with absolutely no gamey smell, and it went really well with the cherry sauce.

Another colleague ordered the salmon - it was really substantial. As far as grilled fish is concerned, this was fairly ordinary.

I was told by the same colleague who had been there 2 days prior to try to Tiramisu ($10). This was nice and unfaultable, but ordinary.

On the whole, the experience was very positive, warranting a follow-up visit to try the other dishes.

Pasta Brava

11 Craig Road

Tel: 6227 7550

www.pastabrava.com.sg