Al Dente — Restaurant in Sarawak

I had a good read of the reviews before we arrived; it was a birthday dinner so wanted to see what to order and what to avoid. Luckily, every dish we ordered would turn out pretty good.

I did order the four cheese pizza and remembering something a review mentioned, I asked the waiter, “can you confirm that you have all 4 cheeses?” It would take a moment before he mentioned that they didn’t have parmigiana. That was fine I guess, but I did wonder after if they would have ever told me if I didn’t ask. 3 cheese pizza wasn’t bad, great technique, but didn’t have the depth of a good 4 cheese pizza. Not balanced.

The first dish out was the beef stew risotto, and that was a really creamy delight. Risottos are hard to get right for Asians who know rice so well, but this was really spot on.

The pesto linguine was great texture wise. Taste wise, I’ve been spoilt by a family recipe that uses Thai basil mix and much more pine nuts to get a truly incredible hit of pesto. All pestos now taste really mild/bland in comparison. But their texture was really good for Kch standards.

Pizza: fantastic technique, taste was barely a pass. They might not understand the balance of the 4 cheeses and their purpose. Hope they get it right next time.

The iberico pork collar was to die for. This was a random choice, but wow, the pork was sensational. Someone commented it was like upgraded Dayak pork. Their mash potato was really dry and bland in comparison, which I can’t tell if it was an artistic choice or a mistake. The pork was so juicy and soft, so I wondered if they wanted something more bland and dry to offset it, sort of like how white rice is perfect for something too tasty. Oh yeah it came with spinach. I wish they came up with a slightly different take on it, could be abit better. Even cold sesame oil 45 second blanched spinach might be yummier.

Overall, these are KL prices, and left us extremely happy with a meal that was a hit. The iberico pork portion wasn’t huge, but it was one of the best things we’ve had dining out in recent history. The staff were nice enough but I do wonder if they are as honest as they should be.

One shock was when a nicely dressed woman slammed her head into the glass door. Guess she didn’t see it, at night. No, she didn’t look drunk.

Would not hesitate to come...

Al Dente not on a Monday!

We went before and it was great. Went just now, ordered Stagioni as it sounded nice, artichoke, ham and mushrooms. Was told there are no mushrooms but they said will put extra ham. Ordered gnocchi but was told they don’t have Gorgonzola. So opted for carbonara.

Carbonara came and shortly after the pizza but the pizza had olives.. and no sign of artichokes.

Called the waitstaff over and asked where are the artichokes and why are there olives. They came back and said they didn’t have artichokes so replaced with olives. I said you could have told us first before replacing ingredients. What if we are allergic to olives?

No one else came to us. I wondered where the manager was. Was going to order something else but there are lots of ingredients unavailable.

I totally understand Kuching being isolated will run out of certain produce but please train your staff to inform customers of what’s unavailable and they CANNOT substitute without asking.

When paying, nothing was mentioned about the pizza and no apology. That annoyed me more so explained to her that it’s not right what they did. She said kitchen never told her they ran out of artichokes. But told us they usually do not have a lot of stuff on the menu beginning of the week. So my reply was thanks, so we should not come on Mondays or Tueadays then? Her reply was yah.

I hope the owner will take note. Maybe staff don’t care as they get a free pizza to munch on, but we left feeling...

So as far as the food goes this place is pretty decent. Especially since it's nowhere near Italy. However, this is where the greatness ends. The moment you pull up to the restaurant you'll notice that they're blasting trashy pop music instead of something calming OR Italian...after this you will wait for what seems like ages for someone to come take your order and the staff...well...just werent good. they tried to bring us the wrong thing once or twice, only brought 2/3 of our orders until after about 45 minutes and then before we were even finished they tried to take our food away (I literally had to fork a gnocchi with the plate in her hand). Afterwards we had to flag someone down to ask for dessert which was tasty but nobody asked if we wanted any...and finally at the front desk there are several American Express reservation markers so i thought "oh great i can actually use my Amex here!" wrong! The staff said we dont take Amex and when i asked why they had Amex branded stuff but didn't take Amex he said "idk, the boss just got them from somewhere but we've never taken Amex". Now i'm not saying a place needs to take Amex but seriously if youre flashing the brand around you should accept the card. This was the most inauthentic Italian restaurant experience i have had. But i guess the food was decent (not mind blowing) so i gave 3 stars. If the restaurant reads this PLEASE make...