La Braceria

I usually have business lunches with customers over at La Braceria as it is one of the good restuarants nearest to my office.  It used to be at Greenleaf area but moved over to Greendale Ave maybe about 1-2 years ago.  The location is a great choice as business has become so much better for them especially during dinners.  Advisable to make a reservation if you are going for dinner.

Tripes

I usually order dishes that I feel are consistently of high quality.  I ask them to do anti-pasti, fish carpaccio, beef carpaccio, mushroom risotto, seafood linguine, tripes (oh yes) and if we have about 3-4 persons - the T-bone steak (yes, yes, yes!).  Of course, I rotate the dishes every time I go there; how to eat so much??? The heart cannot take it!

T-Bone Steak

(poor quality of this photo was a result of the photographer being too hungry to snap a better picture;-))

Once I brought a lawyer from Switzerland to La Braceria and when she took the mushroom risotto, she said to Fabio (one of the owners) that it was the best risotto that she has ever eaten.  She can't help saying that it was ironical that she was eating this in Asia.  Ya, the risotto is consistently very good but I think she was also a bit tired and very hungry after a whole day of contract negotiation with me !!! ;-).

Chocolate Lava with Fiery Flame

Of course, cannot forget the dessert.  Must always save some space to take the chocolate lava.  It comes with a fiery flame.  So watch out for your hair when they bring it over your head.  It is shouting good.  Soft and creamy in the inside and crispy on the outside.  The ladies will love this! However, I am not sure if this is a true Italian dessert. But who cares!

They have a range of pretty decent and reasonably priced Italian wines.  Singaporeans are beginning to discover Italian wines.  They are still relatively cheaper than comparable French wines and of course they go very well with Italian food.  If you are taking the meaty stuff, go for the amarones ;-).

Raw Fish Carpaccio

A side note on carpaccio.  I bought this book "Why Italians Love To Talk About Food" by Elena Kostioukovitch from my recent Melbourne trip.  It is interesting to read that carpaccio is a relatively recent addition to Italian food cuisines.  This dish first appeared about 50 years ago  in Harry's Bar in Venice(No joke! Didn't know that Harry's Bar existed then!  Blur me, thought Harry's Bar started in Singapore).  The name of the dish was taken from a Venetian-born painter, Vittore Carpaccio (long dead at that time), whose paintings were enjoying enormous success at that time the dish was born.  The dish was made by Harry's Bar's owner, Giuseppe Cipriani, for a very prominent Venetian lady, Amalia Nani Mocenigo, who was prescribed by her doctor to eat raw meat to combat anemia.  It's kind of funny how some dishes come about!  Carpaccio (the dish I mean) is now so famous that there are other versions of it such as raw fish carppaccio and mushroom carpaccio.