An outing with my soon-to-be-married couple friend was due and the female (also my girlfriend) wanted somewhere affordable and at a restaurant that’s not too shabby. As such, I thought of Concetto.

Taken from their website, Concetto is the brainchild of two people who discovered the need to provide quality fare at affordable prices. After Saveur, Concette was their second restaurant but offering Italian cuisine. And I must say, they have succeeded in their branding. When one wants quality yet affordable cuisine, one would think of either Saveur and Concetto. Which also explained why the dinner venue was settled as Concetto.

And from the menu (pages 1, 2, 3, 4), we ordered:-

1) Seafood soup, $8.90 (above) – A rich shellfish broth with a selection of luscious seafood. The presentation did not look too impressive, but this was not too bad. The groom-to-be was worried the soup would tasty fishy, but this was no where near that. Instead, it was rich and flavourful.

2) Concetto pasta, $6.90 (above) – Chilled capellini tossed in lobster oil & seaweed; served with crab & shrimp tartare, finished with lobster foam & ikura. It did not exactly impress but this was okie for its price tag.

3) Pork ravioli, $11.90 (above) – Sphere-shaped pasta filled with minced pork belly & smoked scarmozza cheese; served with pernod fennel cream sauce, aged parma ham & onion confit. The filling within was marinated very well. Very tasty. However, the dough was a little thick. And at the corners where the dough was pressed together, it was a little uncooked.

4) Squid ink risotto, $11.90 (above) – Arborio rice cooked in shellfish broth, butter & squid ink; served with squid brunoise, pan-seared squid & crispy rice cracker.

5) Cod, $22.90 (above) – Pan-seared cod; served with clams & white wine broth; fennel salad & puff pastry. Did not really like this. The various elements (cod, puff pasty and salad) did not manage to come together as a dish. And the broth somehow tasted like our Chinese’s salted vegetable soup instead.

6) Pistachio panna cotta, $6.90 (above) – Pistachio-flavoured cooked cream served with pistachio crumble & salted pistachio.

7) Grapefruit dome, $7.90 (above) – A dome of orange and grapefruit; served with lemon meringue, grapefruit confit, honey mint sorbet and grand marnier. This was a little bitter since grapefruit was the main object for this dish.

8) Tiramisu, $10.90 (above) – A la-minute composed; homemade sponge, mascarpone cream, tanariva chocolate mousse. Looked impressive on the plate, but I did not really like Concette’s deconstructed rendition of tiramisu. That taste of coffee was missing.

Generally, Concetto makes a good place for an almost-there-fine-dining experience. The dishes offered at Concetto are what one would most likely see in fine-dining restaurants. But offered at wallet-friendly prices at Concetto. Which also explained why reservation is a must.

My friends reached at 6.15pm on a weekend evening without knowing that I had made reservation for 7pm. And he was told the next available slot for walk-in was at 9pm! So yes, thankfully I made a reservation on their website (which beeds to be done at least 3 hours in advance). And it was great that we were promptly allocated a table even though we were almost 30 minutes early.

However, it’ll be good to request for a table on the upper tier. The restaurant has two levels, and we smelled after our dinner as we say at the lower tier which wS just beside the open-concept kitchen.

But it’s a personal preference that I rather dine elsewhere as I do not mind paying slightly more for better executed food. While Concetto gives a good deal where one need not dig too deep into their wallets / purses, some of the dishes seem to be misses because Concetto is restricted by the budget in order to keep their dishes affordable.

So it’s really a personal choice. Good deal or value for money. Good deal is where one scores something at a very good price (that’s known in advance) while value for money is where one can gets more than what one expect. While, at least that’s how I define the two terms. =)

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Dinner @ Saveur Art Dinner @ FOO’D by Davide Oldani Dinner @ Ricciotti Dinner @ inITALY Dinner @ Fratini La Trattoria