Lunch at Trattoria Lafiandra

This was a happy accident. I wanted to lunch at Food for Thought at SAM @ 8Q, but it was closed because it was "Full House", according to a sign outside. Well I should have taken yesterday's packed room as a sign. So we ended up at this Italian restaurant called Trattoria Lafiandra in the main SAM building, which, according to their poster at the entrance, was voted by hungrygowhere as one of the Top 10 places in Singapore to have pasta. We ordered 2 pasta dishes and shared them.

Tortelloni ripieni di funghi e formaggio (Home made tortelloni with mushrooms and cheese in gorgonzola sauce): This was rather rich, but not nauseatingly so, because the gorgonzola had quite a sharp taste to it. It's probably my favourite cheese, and I was rather surprised when I learnt that it's a blue cheese, whose smell I'd always associated with rotting trash. Well I guess one should never generalise.

Gnocchi di patate al pomodoro fresco (Home made potato gnocchi with fresh tomato sauce): My first taste of gnocchi, I think. This tomato-based dish was a perfect match with the cheese-y tortelloni. The gnocchi's like a savoury, less chewy version of muah chee. Very nice. Only gripe is that it could have been served on a white plate instead of a pink one, so you couldn't really make out the colours of the ingredients. Wonder if they'd run out of white plates.
And for dessert, tiramisu, which you can never go wrong with, in my opinion.
I don't know why I found so many people blogging about negative experiences at this restaurant. My previous two pasta meals almost had me swearing off pasta completely - linguine at Modesto's had too much pork fat; spaghetti at Pasta Shop (OK this is by Sakae, so technically Japanese) had too much garlic. This place definitely regained my interest and confidence in restaurant pasta.