Buko Nero
This petite Italian restaurant located along Tanjong Pagar Road has been serving fine Italian cuisine with an Asian influence for a quite a while now. The intimate 20-seater restaurant is run by a husband and wife team, Veteran Chef Oscar helms the kitchen while his better half Tracey takes care of the dining room.
I tend to judge higher-end restaurants by the amuse bouche served. However, I was not expecting any complimentary nibbles during this visit as we ordered their 3-course set lunch ($38) instead of items from their ala carte menu. So we were pleasantly surprised and impressed when we were served 2 beautiful morsels and a basket of freshly baked Italian bread that delighted our senses even before our set lunch commenced.
The crab meat bisque was not overly rich and creamy with a generous portion of crab meat. The bisque was given an Asian twist with beaten egg white wisps like Chinese egg drop soup.
Of course you cannot go wrong with the classic caprese salad when the very fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil leaves were used. The pickled shallot provided a nice refreshing tang.
Pasta is a common “primi” dish in Italian meals. For our primi, we had Mezze Rigatoni. The short, tubular pasta worked really well with the meaty beef cheek ragu. Humble and comforting dish.
Personally I always feel salmon is not the most exciting dish to order in a restaurant but Chef Oscar cleverly served the perfectly seared salmon on a flavourful consomme of clams and raisins.
Refreshing white peach sorbet and chocolate hazelnut cake provided the perfect sweet ending.
The experience we had with this amazing lunchtime offering tells a lot about the way Chef Oscar and Tracey take pride in their food and service. We shall be back for more.
