Al Borgo Italian Restaurant

My friend whom I hadn't met for over a year introduced me to an Italian restaurant named Al Borgo Italian Restaurant where we had our dinner tonight. Al Borgo is located at 383 Bukit Timah Road #01-92 Alocassia Apartments which is on Robin Lane just off Bukit Timah Road. For a weekday night (Wed night), there were quite a number of diners (mostly caucasians) and the seating capacity of the restaurant isn't very large (say about 50max). Therefore, one is advised to make reservations. The telephone number for Al Borgo is 6737 3546.

Al Borgo has quite a comprehensive wine list and offers everything italian from pasta dishes to pizzas to rissotto to meat (veal, beef etc) and seafood (crayfish) main courses. There is of course a range of italian dessert and drinks (coffee, hot chocolate, juices etc) The appetisers (cold and hot) alone take up two pages of the menu. Iced/warm water as well as bread and the bread's olive oil dip is complimentary and served shortly after the menu is provided to a diner. One should note that it is wise to ask the service staff for recommendations as there are dishes which are not listed on the menu.

My friend and I had one hot appetiser - a cheesy something (the names of the dishes are in Italian with the descriptions of the fishes in English). The Slog Reviews: 8/10. The cost of this dish was more than SGD 10 and there were only 3 pieces of the cheesy stufff. I mean, there were 2 of us and it would have been nicer if they had served 4 pieces of the bite-sized cheesy portions instead (given the price and the size of each portion, that shouldn't have been a problem). The stuff in the middle is mushrooms.

We also decided to share a cold appetiser - parma ham with melon. The cost of this dish was SGD 16.50. The Slog Reviews: 8/10. The ham was "saltishly" good but again, there were only 3 pieces to be shared by 2 pp. The melon was very sweet and went well with the parma ham. Definitely worth trying but I'll say the price is really steep for 3 thin pieces of parma ham only.

I ordered the risotto with mushrooms and cheese. This is how the dish looked like - not very impressive for SGD 22.50. The Slog Reviews: 7/10. I had risotto at La Braceria about a month back and that was really good stuff. What I had tonight I am afraid, doesn't come close. If you like eating hard individual grains of rice, then maybe you might like this dish.

I ended the meal with the lava chocolate cake for dessert.The cake in a dish is set in front of you, some sort of fluid poured over the top of the cake and the waiter lights up the same with a lighter. The result: a flaming (the blue flames flare up pretty high) chocolate cake. The fire goes out after a min and the cake becames a molten oozing chocolate mass beneath a fine crust of chocolate The Slog Reviews:8/10. This dessert was SGD 9+ which was pretty reasonable.
I heard from my friend that Al Borgo doesn't advertise itself much but depends on regulars and word-of-mouth business. Judging from the crowd (which appeared to be very well-heeled from the luxury cars they were driving) that night, this restaurant appears to be doing pretty well catering to those with deeper pockets and a taste for finer dining. The head waiter is really friendly and keeps coming around to ask how the dishes are. We are of course polite and tell them everything is great because he appears sincerely concerned about our dining experience. The italian chef himself came out to ask us how the food was too. Well worth a visit at least once for the superb service and wide selection of genuine italian food cooked by italian chefs.