Finding comfort

jon laa wrote on February 20th, 2010, 12:09 pm

Dinner at the coffee nations was pretty good. The pasta was pretty phail. It’s impossible to understand how can anybody phail at aglio olio. I think I preferred pasta mania’s better.

I requested for aglio olio with pesto (because I saw that they had another pasta dish with pesto) and it did come with pesto. But it came with chili fakes which I didn’t want though it may be part of the aglio olio than part of the pesto. It wasn’t stated in the menu that it comes with chili though but the pesto dish they had comes with them.

And the waiter said, “spicy aglio olio …” when he served it. Like, uh, no?

The friend decided to try some after realising how unimpressed I was with his recommendation (of the cafe, not dish) and insisted on getting the dish changed, which I refused. Quite insulting to the chef, it was not inedible but it was probably just lousy to the extend they can’t help it.

The pesto was tasteless. If two pieces of fresh basil leaves can overpower a few cloves of minced garlic, I don’t see how can pesto be completely overpowered by a few slices of a garlic or at most two?

I couldn’t taste the supposedly fragrant olive oil as well.

The friend thought the pepper (if there was any) and chili was too overpowering.

Eh, we got the waiter to add extra servings of pesto and olive oil instead of changing the entire dish - a compromise we reached amicably.

Okay.

The pasta came back more green, which got me excited. But it tasted as bland. No heightened favours. The pesto was still somewhat missing. There was some favour to suggest the presence of olive oil but it was still pathetic la.

There are a few possible reasons for that - 1) the pesto was not fresh, 2) the pesto was substandard, 3) the proportion of basil in the pesto was too little (and how is that actually possible?), 4) the olive oil is some lousy kind, 5) we are paying too little for them to get anything of a better quality.

They charged us an extra dollar for pesto.

I am going back for the same dish again. And I hope I wouldn’t be disappointed.

They can 1) get better pesto/make their own and 2) getting better olive oil or drizzle fresh olive oil (preferably at least virgin olive oil) over the pasta before serving.

:)

The chicken thigh was quite nice. I love their fries, I think it may be the sauce. The pineapple that came with it could be more caramelised, if that was the intention. It came slightly brown without tasting any different from pineapples fresh (how ironic) out of the can.

No, I can’t remember the chicken thigh dish name because it was not my meal. Bleah!

On a side note, they should probably change the title of their webpages. I am sure the friend will do for them for a complimentary drink. They should also edit the grammatical errors in their menu, which I will gladly do for a complimentary set meal. I am more greedy.

But in actual fact, he is.

:)

It was awesome company, besides for the major hiccup in the day. Damn it.