Al Forno

linguine vongole; linguine with clams tossed in white wine and olive oil - 5/10


its been awhile since i had dinner with chickb (aka fatty aka brian - don't ask me why he's called chick b. it just spanks his monkey) and my mom so we decided to have a nice quiet dinner, just the 3 of us, somewhere near my place. i've always wanted to try al forno's. partly coz its in wine and dine and partly coz its really near my house and i love italian. so off we went to al forno's. we got there jsut as it opened at 6.30. they sat us down next to the window (by the way there's really good hokkien mee next to al forno's at the kopitiam) and we checked out the menu. they have a pretty extensive list of pastas and pizzas. additionally, they have rissotto and other mains.

risotto fruitti de mare - 5/10

i heard the vongole was good so i got that. and chickb got the uber creamy carbonara (how boring). but then again carbonara is always good. who doesn't love cream and bacon anyway. a fat boy's favorite. mum's perpetually cutting (aka dieting) so she said she'll just share with us whatever we got. so we decided to get the risotto with seafood. and the 4 cheese pizza. the risotto was alright. very creamy and cheesy. sort of like a carbonara/fettucine sauce with the rice. the rice wasn't flavorful enough though. could have been better.

linguine carbonara - 6/10

the linguine carbonara was standard. not bad, but not great either. i guess its hard to do great carbonara. but then again its hard to make carbonara taste bad. its just lots of cream with eggs and bacon. i ended up eating quite a bit of chickb's carbonara. it was better than my vogole.

quattro formaggi; tomato, mozarella cheese, gorgonzola, parmesan and emmental- 7/10

the pizza was pretty good. very cheesy with a nice, fluffy yet crispy crust. my mum loves cheese pizza and she ate 4 slices. so much for cutting. my vongole turned out to be a disappointment. i guess its a little too light for my liking. the pasta was al dente, but other than that the pasta was kind of bland and not too good.

overall, the place wasn't as good as i expected it to be. definitely not wine and dine standard. i don't know how it got in. but nonetheless, a decent close by relaxing eat.

Al Forno - along East Coast Road, next to Margarita's
Price - about $20 per main