KL's best Italian restaurant is well worth visiting this month, as chef Samuele Alvisi presents a special menu for January that features gastronomic masterworks from his home region of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy.
Amuse bouche of deep-fried mozzarella cheese, before the real fun begins.
Available for only two more weeks: Pig's trotter stuffed with goose liver & served with lentil salad & sweet saba sauce. Award-worthy comfort food, with a brilliant blend of warm, mushy meat, gelatinous skin and fatty liver. Chewing optional.
Octopus terrine. Another one-of-a-kind recipe; lots of tentacles and other cephalopod parts bashed together to form thick, disc-shaped blobs. Pleasantly chewy and briny.
Homemade cappelletti stuffed with Squacquerone cheese & served with Parma ham, shallots & 25-year-old balsamic vinegar. Luxuriously light and silky, filled with gooey cheese that flowed like lava when we pierced the pasta.
Chestnut fettuccine with jumbo prawns & broccoli. Simple and straightforward; not bad if you want a fuss-free pasta dish, but tasted pretty run-of-the-mill.
Pork belly confit with garlic mashed potatoes & black truffle sauce. Similar to Chinese siew yok, with Italian flourishes. As succulent and flavorsome as meat can get, though the caramelized crackling was less crisp than we had anticipated.
Lamb shoulder stewed with herbs & Albana white wine. A basic meat-&-potatoes dish, nicely executed. Tender, rich-tasting meat, not gamy at all.
The traditional chocolate-&-vanilla bread pudding with Alchermes liquor had the texture of tiramisu, surprisingly, and a medicinal flavor that may be an acquired taste.
Peacocktini (rum, vermouth) & Mint Juleep (bourbon, mint). Possibly the most intoxicating cocktails in town. One glass and we were flying.
Robert Mondavi Rose Woodbridge 2007 & Hugel Riesling 2008.
Harvey's Bristol Cream & Taylor's Fine Tawny.
ilLido Italian Restaurant + Lounge,
Jalan Mayang, Off Jalan Yap Kwan Seng, Kuala Lumpur.
