Soprano

I was pretty sad that WAY wrote a review in the Sunday Times on the Peranakan place that I've been wanting to try at Biopolis, so when I called them up for a lunch reservation this afternoon, I was told that they were full and there wasn't a table till 2pm. Just 2 weeks ago, there were super empty at 1pm! And so we decided to try Colbar at Portsdown, but since we were so 'lucky', Colbar was closed. I was pretty scared tt we'll have to end up eating at Pietrasanta cos I've been there 4 times previously and I was looking forward to trying a new place. We chanced upon Soprano cos we were walking around the Portsdown area looking for other restaurants. It's run by the same management as Cicada, which is now closed. The restaurant just opened 2 weeks ago, and is pretty empty, probably because it's still relatively unknown.

Complimentary appetisers - caramelized onions, pickled onions, olives and crusty (rather hard) restaurant bread. I really like restaurants that serve iced water - especially if they refill my water quickly.

Sopranos has a rather interesting menu - it lists it's pasta based on the type of pasta, and in the same page, a whole variety of sauces. So it starts with spaghetti, linguini, squid ink linguini, penne, ravioli etc etc (I didn't really look at those raviolis behind the Ravioli stuffed with truffle paste page, cos I saw truffles and zoomed straight onto that page).

I tried Lunette al Tartufo (Moon-shaped Ravioli filled with Truffle Paste) with the Al Funghi di Bosco sauce (4 varieties of wild wood mushrooms in Creamy sauce) since I'm crazy over truffles. My ravioli was cooked just right, and each ravioli was stuffed with cheese and morsels of truffle. The truffle scent was not overwhelming, but I was still able to taste it in nearly every bite. For $16++, I felt that this was really worth it, especially since most restaurants charge a preimum for filled pastas.

Our waitress actually recommended having the truffle stuffed ravioli with the bolognese sauce, but since I don't eat beef, she recommended the next best sauce which was the wood mushroom. I think that the raviolis would taste great with a meat sauce - imagine the tomatoes and beef mixed with the cheesy truffle paste!

They have lots of other stuffed pastas, which are around the same price (<$20) - I'm eyeing the ravioli with pumpkin! There's also cheese stuffing, crab&lobster etc etc (Photo from itkz cos mine was too blurry)

Linguine al Nero di Seppia (Squid Ink Linguini)with the Al Cartoccio con Frutti de Mare sauce (Mixed seafood sprinkled with white wine, chili, garlic, parsley in tomato sauce wrapped in Cartoccio) for $15++. This was recommended by our server. The sauce was pretty spicy and tangy, and there were little bits of seafood such as baby squid, baby octopus, prawn, and clams.

It has to be eaten with great caution, since the squid ink splatters and I was pretty glad I wasn't eating this cos I was wearing a white top.
Squid ink linguini with the All' Aragostina sauce ($15++), which has a baby lobster, white wine, chili, garlic, parsley and tomato sauce.The 2 sauces tasted very different from each other, even though we thought that they would turn out tasting roughly the same.

White Profiterole, compliments from the restaurant. It's a profiterole filled with chocolate mousse and topped with some very sweet and creamy sauce. Actually, we didn't even intend to eat desserts cos we were so stuffed from our pastas (I was so full I could barely finish the last few pieces of my ravioli, even though it had truffles!). I found the profiterole too sweet for my liking, but then again, I was really full. Maybe I'll try the tiramisu next time - They don't really have a dessert menu - it's more of a refer to our daily specials for dessert.

The service here is quick, efficient and friendly. Our pastas came our pretty quickly - we were done with the bread, waited for about 5 mins and our pastas came. Hope they're able to maintain the same standard of service and efficiency when they become more crowded.

I also liked the ambience - brightly lit, with a blue, white and black colour combination (I really like this colour combination). They also have a pretty big al fresco seating area - I think it'll be nice to have dinner on their wooden patio under all the tall shady trees. Soprano is all set to give Pietrasanta a run for its money. (I like competition - makes food cheaper and service better!)

Ok I'm kind of regretting blogging on Hungrygowhere... I bet it'll be flooded, and they're gg to jack up the price and have an inversely proportional drop in service standard. Oh well.............

Soprano

7 Portsdown Road

Tel: 6472 2100