Best known for their Fiorentina steaks, Tuscan steakhouse Bistecca is no stranger to huge crowds and meat-lovers. I know dining here will be a little hard on my purse strings so only special occasions call for a splurge like this! We came by on a Sunday evening to celebrate a birthday. We were greeted warmly by every wait staff as we made our way to our table, which we reserved a few days prior to our visit.
Once we sat down, we were asked if we wanted sparkling or still water and we placed an order for a bottle of still. While we deliberated over our dinner options, which took around ten minutes or more, we noticed that our still water did not arrive and we asked for iced water from the server who was going around topping up glasses.
For a place renowned for steaks, they sure impressed us with their selection of pastas. The Tagliatelle ($28) comes with oxtail ragu which was tender and bursting with flavour and we guessed that it must have been braised for a really long time. The texture of the handmade tagliatelle was remarkable too!
The Tortellini ($35) was really special. There's braised rabbit, cubes of foie gras and black truffle in the unique dish. It has quite a cheesy edge to it and while it was pretty tasty, I preferred the Tagliatelle.
We had the Fiorentina on our minds but it wasn't available, much to our horror. Isn't this their signature? We opted for the 1.1kg Costata ($188) instead. We didn't go for the usual medium rare and decided on medium for the doneness for our steak. The steak took pretty long to arrive, but we had no complaints. I mean, good things are worth the wait right? Unfortunately, one quick look at the steak will announce that the steak was at best, a medium rare. What happened to our medium steak? I was secretly pleased because I usually like my steaks medium-rare. However, about 20% of the platter turned out to be rare. We abandoned the rare parts and they were quite substantial. I know we could probably send it back to the kitchen to have them rectify the situation but it might be another 45 minutes wait. The medium rare parts were, no doubt, delicious though.
We also ordered the Funghi($13) and Fritte($13) to share. The mixed mushrooms and potato gnocchi were a surprisingly tasty treat and the entire dish was polished off in no time. The rosemary Tuscan fries, while armed with a nice crisp, could use a little more salt in my opinion.
The Chocolate Mousse cake was served with a tangy passionfruit sorbet and crunchy pistachio bits and the combination was truly a splendid one. I loved how all the flavours melded together like a sweet symphony!
When we received the bill, we signed it immediately. However, upon scrutinizing it, we realised that we were charged for the bottle of still water that never came. We alerted the waitstaff about it and he asked if he could refund us $10 (the cost of the bottle). We would have been okay with it but there were taxes involved and stuff. The server seemed pretty reluctant but he voided the bill and sent us a new one. While he apologised, we didn't feel that he actually was sincere. True that it was our fault for not checking the bill before signing it, but I thought that they could have dealt with it a little better on their end too.
I had a discussion with a friend a couple of days later about her experience at Bistecca, and she told me that she had problems with her steak too and there were issues with a couple of her other orders. I'm not sure whether its a recurring problem at Bistecca, but they might want to look into it.
25 Mohamed Sultan Road
Singapore 238969
Tuesday - Sunday : 12pm - 2pm, 6pm - 10pm
---
Love, K
No comments:
Post a Comment