Al Forno (East Coast) Pte Ltd — Restaurant in Singapore

first time leaving a google review because the service that i had received today was atrocious.

came in at 5.30 pm, and was greeted warmly by the female staff on shift that day, and was the first table to place an order to the kitchen. We received our starter that came at 5.48 pm ( reasonable waiting time), and had to wait another 20-30 mins for our pastas and pizzas to arrive. Even though we were the first table to place our order, please tell me why did the other tables that came in later had received their pasta and pizzas before us?

I clarified with the only male waiter that was working that night (who took our order and was semi friendly at the start , but everything went down hill when we started questioning our orders and the long waiting time) , and he said that their " rules " were to serve the mains after we had done with our starter, if that so, why did the table beside us had their mains come up to them when they weren't fully done with their salads ? and even if its your rule that u serve the mains after the starter, i do not believe that the waiting time for the mains should be 20-30 mins.

at around 6.28-6.30 pm, our pasta arrived. GUESS WHAT! it was a meatball pasta. we did not ordered that. we had ordered a lemon cream based, scallop pasta. Whn this male waiter came up to us to clarify about the incorrect pasta, i was greeted with " cn u show me the pasta that u ordered ?" followed by " u ordered the meatball pasta , i even repeated the order to u" in great PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE TONE. WHICH I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE. FIRST OF ALL, i clearly stated SCALLOP in my order and he had repeated the word SCALLOP in his repeated order, i did not hear the word MEATBALL from order list tht was read out. if there is any form of miscommunication on any end , im more than willing to wait again for my pasta. BUT the waiter was SO UNFRIENDLY. a simple apology would have been nice and i would be more than happy to accommodate by waiting a new pasta dish ( even though at that point i had been waiting for 30 mins and was hangry).

by the end of our meal, the 2 tables that came after us had already left ages ago.

Needless to say , because of the service that was portrayed throughout our dining, it had several damped our evening at the restaurant.

slow service. 1 unfriendly staff. much had been said.

though i really do appreciate the other female staffs who serviced us every now and then to check up on us and helping us lighten the mood.

Having experiences working in an FNB industry as a waitress myself, i understand how tough it can be at times, but i do not like portraying unfriendliness to customers and even acting snobby to make the customers feel like its their fault.

needless to say , even though the food was good/ okay , i will not be returning.

you are better off dining in other italian restaurants such as lino etc. where the services never fail to disappoint no many how many returns you make to...

We went there for a Birthday Dinner celebration on Saturday to try out this place due to the amount of good reviews, unfortunately we were utterly disappointed.

We ordered Bruschetta, Spaghetti Vongole, Spaghetti Carbonara (Original) and Pizza Cipolla E Pancetta.

We were first served the Pizza which was alright, nothing really special. Then came the Bruschetta, soggy and oily, soaked up with olive oil...it was not even crunchy but had fair amount of tomatoes on it.

What's weird was the Bruschetta was a antipasti/starters which was suppose to come before the mains, however the Pizza was served first, then the Bruschetta.

Coming to the pastas, we requested Al Dente, however the Chef clearly does not know what 'Al Dente' is. Undercooked pasta was served for both pasta dishes, one could literally taste the raw wheat.

The Spaghetti Vongole was not fragrant, drenched in oil, lack of garlic, all one could taste was oil and undercooked pasta. The clams were juicy and fresh though.

Then came the Spaghetti Carbonara, which was a disaster. We requested for the base to be Original, which is suppose to be egg sauce instead of cream, yet the order came wrong with the cream base on served.

We requested it to be changed and the Staff kindly helped us to have a new one prepared for us. After waiting for a long time, the new Carbonara with the Original base was served to us.

To our disappointment, it was nothing like Carbonara. After taking our first bite, it was so salty that the whole dish was inedible. That was the last straw and we decided not to continue our meal further and requested for the bill straight.

Personally, this place is nothing of 'authentic' when coming to italian cuisine. You'd be better off going to pther restaurants, least the dishes there are prepared close or similar to italian style with almost the same price point.

On the bright side, the Staff were really nice and helpful when we mentioned to them on the...

Kitchen way ahead of service!

We attended the restaurant at a busy time on a Saturday evening but had made a prior reservation, directly on their website. This was a second experience for me after a walk in the first time while passing by, which at the time was a very positive experience.

On return this time the waitress struggled to find the reservation and I was convinced something had gone amiss. Eventually she found it, but It was clear they had not thought about a table allocation as we were ushered into a hastily prepared table located at the rear corner right in path of access to two much larger tables and wine refrigerators behind.

I realise the restaurant was busy, but after we were seated and after a long time, nobody asked us for our order, so after a few gesticulations we managed to get a waitress to take our order.

Despite being busy, the food came out promptly and was superb; generous and flavourful. That is what we came for.

On the downside, I would suggest they could pay better attention to table allocations when it comes to 2 pax or small parties, especially for reservations. We were treated like walk-ins and seated in a location that was a tight squeeze. We had to tolerate endless traffic of staff and patrons on both sides of us throughout our stay which detracted from the experience after a while. On one occasion, a very large patron who was obviously a friend of the manager, leaned right over our table and started a loud jovial conversation (in Italian) over us with the manager located on the other side. It kind of got a bit much and I had to say excuse me, please, do you mind... I'd definitely not accept this table location again if it were offered to me.

With the kitchen doing a great job, I think if they sort out the service with attention to a few details and become consistent, it would get 5...