Sheng Rong Tng

Review of Abate' Italian Seafood restaur...

TLDR: mediocre food, don't bother coming here. No ...

TLDR: mediocre food, don't bother coming here. No idea how this place is rated above 4 on Google.

Long version: We had made a reservation for dinner on a Saturday, but found that the reservation was unnecessary as it was only half-full. This should have been a big warning sign.

The restaurant is a casual, self-service establishment. No tap water is served, you have to pay for a bottle of still / sparkling water. Alternatively, you can choose from the available wines, though do note that the housepour is served in a regular drinking glass and not a proper wine glass.

The meal started off decently with the jumbo meatballs (3/5). However, it went downhill from there.

Next came the Carbonara Roma, which the waitress had recommended with dried pasta (linguine). This purported to be done in the "original" Roman style. Having just returned from Rome, I was really looking forward to this. Instead, we were served with a plate of pasta swimming in a thin, watery, pale yellow liquid which looked like drain water, and tasted like a very weak and watered-down version of the adulterated "carbonara" cream sauce which is usually served in Singapore. The pasta itself was obviously overcooked as it was way too soft, and that was using dried pasta! Absolutely horrible, 1/5.

The mixed seafood pasta (homemade tagliarini) was very average. The pasta sat in a pale grey sauce of a similar watery consistency to the carbonara. The taste was average and entirely unimpressive. 2/5.

Finally, we had a tiramisu which the waitress extracted from a tupperware box stored in a fridge below the cashier counter. At $6.80 per serving, this was by no means cheap. It tasted far too solid, like the lady fingers / biscuits had not soaked long enough. There was insufficient mascarpone cheese and there was no taste of liquor / brandy at all. A travesty. 1/5.

If I had to identify something positive about this restaurant, it would be that the average price of a main is below $20. That said, even at that price point, this was not value for money at all.

Do yourself a favour and walk 100m down the road to Pasta Brava, or any one of the other 20 Tanjong Pagar restaurants selling Italian food within a 5 minute walk. At least there you'll get what you pay for.