Passione Ristorante Italiano

The best tasting dish of the night. Light and sweet tomato sauce coats the beautiful handmade pasta perfectly.

A simple and light salad to start the meal, and probably one of the better dishes of the night. Love the honey mustard dressing, but again, the portion was a bit small for the price.

They ran out of tagliatelle on my visit so we had it with spaghetti instead. The handmade pastas here are really good – nicely al dente. The wild boar tomato sauce though, under-seasoned and a bit dry. Also, the meat portion was very little. Just a little bit more salt and more tang from tomato would have made the dish better.

Soft launch was yesterday and the official launch is on 1st of July, so we're getting in early alright.
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Bread: quite crunchy crust, very soft innards. The typical Gardenia-bred Malaysian will love this. Snarkiness aside, it's not too bad actually. Soft but it doesn't become gluey, thankfully. And it came with an alright-ish puttanesca sauce.
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Wild boar tagliatelle: I hate parsley-garnish on plate rims. The boar needs more seasoning and could do with a longer braise. Bland, not much flavour, and all that effort is just wasted, really. The pasta itself is alright. Good for Sri Petaling, at least. The sauce, though, is slightly watery and again, a tad bland. It's made in-house but it does need a bit more richness. At RM35 too, you're looking at something a good deal pricier and worse than, say, Basil Pasta House.
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Seafood linguine was much better. Nice, al dente, linguine. Squiggly squid offset by alright prawns. A good plate of pasta.
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And speaking of plates, the plates are so old fashioned here. And the food came out in a very strange order. We were halfway through our mains before the starter finally arrived. Huge kitchen though.
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Gamberi croccanti alla catalana: interesting filo pastry on the prawn (lovely texture) but unfortunately it completely overwhelms the prawn. Can't taste much of anything inside. And the diced vegetable base just doesn't work. Looks awfully 'cheap', the celery overpowers everything, and a softer base would be a better textural contrast.
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The rest of the menu does look promising (porchetta salad, fusilli with chicken-pork ragu and white wine, 200g grass-fed Angus rib-eye for MYR 70, calzones), though artificially pricey for the area. And the ingredients and execution don't quite justify it so far. Early days though. We're keen to follow its progress, given our office is so nearby. And if it doesn't work out, there's always Sourakuya a couple doors away. Now if only Sourakuya would drop their prices back to what they used to be!
#foodgazer #instayum #italiandining #italianfood #pasta #burpple