Driving along MacPherson, I recalled reading about about an Italian restaurant along the road. So instead of the regular "Tian Tian Lai" yong tau foo at the Circuit Road market, we decided to try the food at the "MacPherson Italian Restaurant".

Making use of Singtel's "internet anywhere" on my phone, I managed to google "Macpherson Italian food" to get the address of the place. It's a good thing I called - because, guess what, I had driven right past the place (a common grouse). Ok, so we backtracked, made the U-Turn at Windsor Hotel and tried again.

Looking for parking spots was not easy (we are talking about "legal parking"). But we figured that the people living in the terrace houses behind the restaurant wouldn't mind their front gate being "slightly" blocked since it was a working day.

Looking for the place itself was another challenge worthy of "Amazing Race". The exterior ABSOLUTELY devoid of the usual credit card decals, celebrity photos and all that marketing stuff. In fact, you couldn't even see the interior of the place without opening the door. I actually thought it was a sleazy pub inside those doors.

Upon entering, we were promptly greeted by a Chinese speaking server who seated us and gave us menus. In fact, the menus were pointless. The most reliable menu in the restaurant was the chalkboard menu and the refridgerated counter (where you can see for yourself what salads and desserts they have). Seriously.

Although the server was polite, I found her overbearing with her recommendations and her suggestions that the two of us (both females) ordered a cod fish to share ON TOP OF our pizza and 2 pastas. There's a fine line between being helpful and pushy, and I reckon she was threading on thin ice there.

Anyhow, after much deliberation (quite surprising for the lack of variety), we ordered a Napoli pizza ($12 - tomatoes, anchovies, capers and black olives. With cheese version is the Romana), aglio olio ($14 - not on the menu) and a squid ink pasta with shrimp and scallops with olive oil ($18).

First up was the pizza. It was YUMMY! Thin crust and just so light on the stomach. One of the best thin crust pizzas here, although I would have prefered the pizza topping not to look so "sparsely spread". But it was anchovies I ordered, so too much would have also made the experience "too salty".

Next to come was the Aglio Olio. Served on an "appetiser" sized plate, the portion was well....small. It was as if the owner had slashed BOTH his price and portion by 50%. Food quality and taste wise, there were no complaints AT ALL. The pasta (not home made) was cooked al dente and the flavours were not watered down (ala Pastamania) or haphazaardly stir fried. This was comfort food. Just you and the pasta.

Expecting the same quality and standards for my Squid Ink pasta, I was surprised to see it come "dry" with no sauce apart from the olive oil. The only thing "inky" about the pasta was the home made pasta. Goodness gracious! But I'd never enjoyed my pasta this much. It was a no fuss dish where the star was not the prawn or scallop. For the first time, I could detect the egg and ink ingredients in a pasta. True to its origins as "home made", the pasta, with its rough edges and prematurely shortened strands, was comforting and satisfying. It was a pity though, that the portion was so dainty to the point of "diet-sized".

By the time I was finished with my meal, I was still hungry (Get what I mean about the dainty portions?). So, resisting the urge to order a second portion of squid ink pasta, I ordered a tomato soup with clams ($10) and a "love cake" ($10).

The tomato soup was rich and its flavour heightened by the truffle oil drizzled into it. I could have done without the 4 small clams but to their credit, they had cooked the clams till it just slid off the shell without the use of the fork (except for one of them).

When the love cake was served, it came "flaming" - literally. Doused and lited with alcohol, the "love cake" was an interesting concept. Whenever I asked the service staff or the owner why it was called a "love cake", I never got a proper explanation except for "try it and see".

Honestly, it is a marketing gimmick because you would order it out of curiousity - just like I did. So, here was the "love cake", dug into it and knew why...."love handles". Here was a portion of fat made from chocolate, butter and cream. I'm usually alright with putting fat in my body, but this "love thingy", just wasn't worth it. For $10, it tasted ordinary but better than the rubbish at Bakerzin. Will I try this again? I doubt it.

In fact, I don't think that desserts are his specialty as his tiramisu looked a little dry from the display. But after the "love cake" experience - which is supposedly a "specialty" and perpetually "sold out" (according to that Chinese national service staff, boy, did I get duped again by their flowery language!), I doubt his tiramisu would fare better.

Taking into consideration the location (poor), service (service staff takes orders at an Italian F&B outlet in Singapore in Mandarin only. Certainly a first for me!), food standards and price, I can assuredly say that the owner knows he has a good thing going with his food and he is not about to lower his ROI (return on investment) on each item on the menu just because the new location of this restaurant is in the "heartlands" or "neighbourhood".

To summarise, he may claim he has reduced his food prices, but he has proportionately reduced his food size. Expect to pay more than expected for a "neighbourhood" located eatery. My bill came to $65.

***5 things You MUST KNOW of The Place***
1) Expect to wait for a table if you come during regular peak hours. I went for lunch at 11:30am. Once it hit 1pm, it was packed.

2) The Chinese service staff who is so friendly and courteous, is a VERY GOOD SALES PERSON. Know what you want before you place the order and then don't budge when the upsell starts

3) Parking is a real pain.

4) Looking for the place, is another pain

5) Although the food is good, you'll think twice about returning becaues of the conflicting vibes.

Finding this place is a challenge and anyone who does eventually get to this cafe and open its frosted glass doors will be pleased to find it completely empty - definitely a plus for its quiet atmosphere.

A good friend of mine took me here for lunch and we arrived at 12:30pm on a Saturday. Upon our arrival, the waitress serving us was not able to speak English and insisted on answering our questions in Mandarin which I only had a basic grasp of as I am obviously not Chinese. Shouldn't service staff at an Italian restaurant be capable of speaking and answering questions in basic English?

We waved the weird experience off and continued to ordered our food - having heard from a friend that this place had excellent, value for money food.

When we ordered water, a bottle of room temperature ice mountain was ungraciously plonked onto our table. You will have to jolly well open the bottle and pour the drinks out yourself - no service at all in this area.

I love pasta and I'm a big fan of Italian food but unfortunately, there was only a couple of choices that weren't even on the menu. Like the other reviewers have said, the dishes are limited. I picked the seafood pasta and my friend ordered the spaghetti bolognese.

Honestly, my pasta was pretty enjoyable. It came chock full of seafood (pictures below) and though I wish it was served hot, I didn't mind eating lukewarm pasta.

My friends spaghetti bolognese was really sad looking and I felt so sorry for her. It looked like puke, the meat sauce was brown and it was just so unappetizing. She said it wasn't worth it as it didn't taste exceptional as well.

So we asked for TOBASCO sauce, to save the dish of course. Guess what? The Italian restaurant did not have any such sauce. Instead, the China waitress offered CHILLI PADI for a spicy kick instead. My friend and I were shocked. Wow, way to go, the first Italian restaurant which serves chilli padi with pasta and apparently, according to the waitress, includes it on the pizza they serve. It's a Guiness record for the oddest combination!

Honestly at that point, I wish we went to Pasta Mania instead.

We still persisted and having faith in the fact that yummy dessert COULD save the entire lunch - we ordered a tiramisu each. I heard that it was assembled on the spot and all. It shocked us when we saw the China waitress scooping out the tiramisu from a tub and plonking it onto a plate, and drizzled strawberry sauce with no sense of pride at all.

The dessert arrived and that was seriously the final straw. We ordered two and it wasn't even cut in a similar shape (one was square and the other, a lopsided rectangle). The strawberry sauce was the instant Smuckers sort that was dotted around the tiramisu in a very odd fashion (see pictures below) which did not look appetizing at all. And best of all, it was a very tiny portion that was about two teaspoon fulls.

My friend was upset as she brought me here for my birthday lunch and she knows how much I love my dessert and tiramisu especially. She wanted to see the manager or owner but the only ones who were in the restaurant were two China servers and two Indian nationals who cooked our food. Italian? Yeah, right. If the owner wants to take a break and not be at his restaurant on a Saturday, he should simply close down shop and not torture unsuspecting diners with such horrible service and gross food. The waitress was apologetic about the measly portions but insisted it costs more because of the premium ingredients used.

Needless to say, it tasted like plain cream. I would rather pay $14 and have authentic, yummy tiramisu where I can taste the coffee and kahlua at Porta Porta.

Overall, it's a very dissapointing meal and the only saving grace was my friend's awesome company.

While tucking into delightfully thin-crusted pizza, this thought just kept going through my head. How does the angmoh owner communicate to his chinese speaking staff or how do other Italians or angmohs communicate with them? Before I knew it, there was a lady at the next table complaining to the male waiter about how strange it was to call for reservations in an Italian eatery only to be greeted in Chinese and that they didn't even try to speak in English.

At the end of the experience, I felt a tinge of pity for the waitresses though. It's not really their fault for trying to earn a living and to make matters worse, they are being insulted by customers for not being able to converse in their preferred language. Maybe the owner could give them some staff benefits - English tuition?

Apart from the not so happy events, the food is pretty good. Most of them came in "fine-dining" portions for example, the Focassia. I was also actually hoping for a wider range of pizza and pasta.I would suggest Seafood pizza.

My family arrived on time at 7.45pm, expecting to be seated. This is because we had already made a reservation. The chinese-speaking waitress asked us to wait at the back of the restaurant on a sofa and told us that our table would be ready very soon. We didn't make a fuss and waited patiently, as did our 2 hungry children. 30 minutes later we were STILL waiting. So I asked for the menu and thought maybe by the time our food arrived, we would have a seat. At 8.30pm the pizza was ready but no table. This was despite our 2nd reminder. The waitress just kept on apologising but offered no solution. We now believe she had given our table away (how on earth can a restaurant make customers wait for 45 minutes despite reservations?) My husband was ready to walk out the door, but seeing that our first dish was ready and the kids were famished, we stayed and asked the waitress if she could put 4 chairs around a small table (for 2) near the kitchen. She set the table and we chomped down our parma ham pizza with rocket.
5 munutes later we were led to our table (for 4). Soon, our pink tagliatalle with clams arrived. It was delicous, no doubt, fresh, with an intense flavour of the sea. I was ready to enjoy my dinner and forget about the earlier unpleasantries. But my joy was short-lived when my veal chop (special of the day)arrived. It was dry and over-cooked. I couldn't reconcile the double standards! But I was determined to make this dinner an enjoyable one and said nothing. However, when the Penne with ricotta cheese and fungi arrived, my daughter asked why the penne was so hard and refused to eat it. My husband and I tried some and true enough it had not been cooked through, so I asked the chef (and owner) about it. "I cooked this myself!" was his very indignant reply. He insisted THAT'S the way pasta's cooked but added if I wanted mine cooked further he would do so. Oh my God! I may not be a chef but I have eaten in enough italian restaurants (from Italy to Singapore) to know that my pasta was not cooked. And of course by now I realised I had committed the cardinal sin of questioning an Italian chef about his pasta's "doneness". What with all the "rave" reviews he's been getting from his customers, I must seem like I didn't know what I was talking about.
Enough said, we ate quickly and left. I only wished I had left sooner. This place certainly "lived up" to its name : it's definitely our last time there.
Ratings : Service - SO bad, Food - Inconsistent, Ego - 10.

Guess its abit too late to write a review about New Yr's eve dinner, but what the heck.

I was browsing for some restaurants that have seats for the day but most of them were fully booked till 9pm, but im starving already at 6pm. So i chanced upon this this pl thru HGW n tried my luck. Phew, i can drop by anytime.

Rushed my way there and had difficulty finding the place. AFter a few u-turns, found tucked in one of those shop houses and faint lights from inside(guess it was becos of frosted glass).

Went in and was surprised to find the whole place almost empty except another table of 2 diners. Looked at the menu, saw a New Yr's eve dinner for 2, tried my luck to order 1 serving instead. The waitress went over to ask, i presumed was the boss, and came back to say "no problem".

So the order and comments:

1. NYE set for one: Nice
2. Pizza w spinach n ham: Nice
3. Suckling Pig: Not bad

My apologies for not remembering all the dishes especially the NYE set. But i must say that their food was pretty nice. Maybe there weren't many diners, so when we talk, echoes can be heard.

As mentioned by previous reviewers, the doors of this restaurant are sandblasted and hence you will not be able to see the interiors through the doors. As such, it will be difficult to spot this restaurant unless you remember the name of the shop.

The restaurant is basically not crowded. When we entered into the shop, there was only this other couple having their dinner. While we were eating, a family walked in. I guess there isn’t much of a need to make reservation for this place.

The wait staff was friendly and she tried to explain what the specials were for the day. Didn’t quite make out what she was trying to tell us due to the accent. Nevertheless, still have to applaud her for her effort and friendly attitude.

I am a pasta lover and was certainly looking forward to this dinner. However, after the wait staff passed the menu to me, I was looking high and low for their pasta selection. Boy was I disappointed! No pasta listed on the menu! (Don’t think they have a list for you to choose) In the end, I had to settle for their pasta for the day.

We ordered the following:

1. Pasta for the day ($12)
2. Piffaich Pizza ($11)
3. Ice mountain water ($1.50)

The pasta for the day was disappointing. It was fusilli with anchovies and tomato. The pasta tasted rather hard and the sauce made it sour. It is certainly not the kind of pasta which I am looking for.

The pizza was not too bad. The crust was thin and you can eat many pieces and not feel bloated. My only grumble about this is that the amount of ingredients used were abit too little.

What I like about this place is that when I asked for parmesan cheese, it is actually grated off the block and not those finely grated which you can buy off any supermarket.

I didn’t order Ice mountain water intentionally. I asked for ice water and the staff came over with Ice mountain water. She started opening the bottle even before I could reject it. Lucky it only cost $1.50. From this, I guessed it’s obvious that tap water is NOT available.

On the whole, I am not wowed by the food serve in this restaurant. In my opinion, I think Al Forno is better.