Fusion Italian

sinochip(67)

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The other day I met up with a friend for coffee as it's been a while since I've seen him. After coffee it was nearly dinner time, and we decided to have dinner together. The coffee shop owner suggested a restaurant just round the corner and we went over. The place is called Ā mǎ fēi Private Kitchen. If it wasn't for the big sign outside, this looks just like a normal home.

This is run by a lady, and it's like home cooking style, that's why the inside isn't like your typical restaurant set up. The cuisine is Italian pasta with a local touch. There are only 4 four tables, of which the lady's son was sat working on one. In total it would only site about 10 people. Nice and homely.

There is no menu in the shop, but the owner uploads all the dishes on her facebook page. She took us through all the pages on her iPad, explaining each of the dishes, the ingredients used and the background behind some of the ingredients. The pasta dishes weren't the run of the mill spag bol or carbonara. There were no prices under the photos either, but looking at the reviews, no one was complaining. She was very friendly, and in fact really passionate about going through all the dishes.

In the end, the three of us choose two pasta and one risotto dish, plus 2 soup as a starter. The owner then suggested perhaps we could change one of the mushroom soup to a mushroom side dish, and she'd upgrade the other soup to a larger portion at the same price for us. Sounded like a good deal.

By the way, here's a few more pics of the interior. I said it was very homely.

Here's the sweet potato and crab meat soup, and the bowl of mushrooms. The soup was very good, with sweet potato base and chunks of sweet potato and fresh crab meat. It was more than enough for the three of us. The bowl of mushroom was cooked in a nice creamy sauce, but I felt at over USD11, it was very over priced.

These are the mains we ordered. The first one is preserved mustard cabbage in with pork pasta, a fusion dish. The preserved mustard cabbage is home made by the owner's family and she said is only available for a short period. I've had preserved mustard cabbage before in Chinese cooking and they're normally cooked with meat. This was similar only they added to pasta and it was a nice change to have it with rice.

The second pasta is with pan fried chicken. The owner said she doesn't marinate the chicken at all, and just rely on the flavour from the meat, and the fat rendered from the chicken skin. When she served the pasta, I could immediately smell the pan fried chicken, and the pasta had lovely chicken aroma from the skin fat.

The final main is a mushroom risotto. The owner is just a normal Taiwan divorcee (there were no other customers so we had a good chat with her after dinner), she has not travelled aboard before, nor has she been exposed to many western dishes. Surprisingly, her risotto is very good, on par with some I've had in properly Italian restaurants before. Hats off to her for that.

Overall, this was a very good meal, and the three of us each had our own different favourite dish. You wanno know the damage? I've told you that the small bowl of mushroom cost USD11 already. The soup was the same, but she said she upgraded it to a larger portion for us, and it was larger than normal. USD11 for a smaller plate of soup would be on the expensive side here. The other three mains ranged from USD15 to USD20. Western food is generally a bit more expensive here, so these were acceptable as western food, especially since they were pretty damn good.