We turned dinner last night in to a family outing at Kuta. Walking along Jalan Katika Plaza, the S.O. commented, “You know, if I try and imagine it, I can believe that I am on holiday in Bangkok or Koh Phangan!”
We were undecided on what fare to fill our tummies with: Indonesian dishes from Warung Warung, or Italian from Il Cielo. The S.O. decided on the latter, sold by the traditional names of Ortolana, Dinamite, and Capricciosa on the pizza menu.
Opposite the ristorante is Queen’s Tandoor, and last night, there was a group of people banging out rhythms on drums. Pair the drumming with noise from the passing traffic, and you will probably also opt to dine on the second level of the restaurant, like we did.
As you can see from the above photograph that I snapped on my iPhone, the quality was not ideal, so I have to request that you try to imagine things as best as my writing can convey. And for those curious minds, the eatery in the background is Daddy’s Cafe.
Settling in, we decided to share the Fiorentina al Gorgonzola pizza (tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, spinach, Gorgonzola cheese, oregano) on top of having a Spaghetti la Carbonara (him) and Spaghetti al Pesto (me).
The first sign that something was wrong when the waitress appeared with all the dishes at the same time – if baked in a wood-fired oven, pizza should take at least 20 minutes to prepare while pasta dishes should arrive at the table first.
Next, a look at the Spaghetti al Pesto revealed an alarming amount of green tinged liquid in which the spaghetti was swimming in.
As my fork dove in to the tangle of spaghetti, I immediately noticed two things: one, the spaghetti appeared dry, and two, the pesto sauce appeared to have been prepared without using Parmesan cheese, thus the sauce was not sticking properly to the pasta at all.
My suspicion about the spaghetti being dry was confirmed the moment I bit in to the first forkful – it was overcooked, and dry. So I guess whoever prepared the dish tried to cover this mistake by drenching the pasta with olive oil. They were also slightly stingy with the amount of basil leaves used in the preparation of the sauce, thus the flavour of the herb was really faint.
As for the Spaghetti la Carbonara, while the pasta was not dry, it was overcooked and the cream sauce appeared too runny to be the correct consistency.
The (slight) saving grace was the pizza. Although not of a “wow” standard, it was well above average and quite appetizing.
Overall, dinner was quite a disappointment, considering that previous mentions of the restaurant over the Internet were laden with praises about their food. Although we were originally tempted to have dessert, we decided to skip the sweets for fear of more disappointment.
Perhaps we had arrived at the restaurant on a day when the Italian chef was away on a break, but I have a feeling we are not going back there any time soon.
