some frens from across the straits were in town for a little fun in the rain, while i had the privilege to play host for an evening, thankfully it wasn't raining.

couldnt quite decide what to have for dinner, seeing that there were vacant tables, we quickly sat down & ordered our stuff. the food was quickly served except for the custom designed spaghetti.

the caesar's salad was honestly a little too big for 1 person to manage, so we all digged in, the steak au poivre was intersting too, large portion with decent portion of whipped potato on the side & lotsa brinjal/eggplant.

while waiting for my marinara pasta, we also helped ourselves to the crispy wings, accompanied with sweet chilli sauce for dips. all in all not too bad. except they seemed to be heavily short handed.

the f1 saturday we were in town looking for a place where we could get an earlyish quick dinner and we got my dad to drop us off at bugis. so my partner suggested sketches (which he seemed to have a pretty good impression of) and ive never been there so i thought whyever not.

so anyway we had:

Linguine alfredo (cream and cheese) with double chicken, garlic, mushroom and onion

Fettuccine alfredo (cream and cheese) with bacon, ham, chicken, mushroom and onions, grated parmesan cheese

Grilled Chicken Pesto

Each of us had the normal sized portion - which did seem like pretty good value for money in the amount of ingredients we could add in.
My partner had the linguine alfredo with his double chicken, garlic, mushroom and onion which he enjoyed a fair bit. I mean it didnt taste anything too off - like all the ingredients went okay with the alfredo.

i had the fettucine alfredo with bacon, ham, chicken, mushroom and onions and well you can pretty much figure i was trying to cash in on all the meat they offered. it was okay. oh and i did ask for my pasta to be spicy and spicy it was - but it felt a little weird with the alfredo sauce. it actually tasted rather fusioney - so if you do like your pasta unadulterated, dont go with the spicy option inasmuch as youre with spicyness. just add it when the pasta is served, otherwise i think they actually prepare the pasta with the spice in it, not add in at the end so the taste is more prevalent and deepset into the pasta.

i unknowingly ticked grilled chicken pesto (for an additional $6.90) because i thought we all had to add that otherwise there would be no meat (i hadnt gotten to the end of the menu that had the 5 ingredients we could have with our pasta - the menu is a paper where there is a list of stuff you tick off based on what you want)so this was basically served a grilled chicken steak (kinda like the kind you can get from cold storage's delicatssen counter) with green herbyish pesto sauce poured over - this was not very good. and my partner spent quite some time peeling off all the skin and layers and fat before he would let me eat the chicken. it comes cut into smaller chunks so as to make it more manageable.

service was pretty much non existent after we were seated. did not fill up glasses. we told them to expedite orders because of the f1, but they didnt bother. they also sat us at a table which was rather filthy - clearly some other couple had sat there before and they did not bother to change the table cloth - which had a considerable number of oil/butter stains and breadcrumbs all over the place. but i didnt ask for a change because i couldnt really be bothered and neither could we get their attention - we just wanted to eat and go.

Was felling a little worse for wear after an evening of excess and, for some reason, I wanted some high street pasta. I.e., slightly overcooked without any great effort in respect of subtle flavours.
I've noticed this place when I've been in Bugis Junction before so figured I'd give it a go. Inside, they have somewhat too loud eighties soft rock but outside there are red and white gingham tablecloths and pleasant, air-conditioned sunlight.

I had a carbonara, the wife had a salmon alfredo. In terms of the absence of subtle flavouring and careful cooking, we couldn't have chosen much better. Unfortunately, Sketches also completely overshot my hopes and served up my fetticcine with the texture of kway teow and the carbonara sauce was more like a soup with bacon bobbing around in it. Wife's was exactly the same but had salmon floating about.

Can't say I recommend this place for the pasta. They do have Erdinger Dark beer (in bottles), though - which slid down very nicely. It certainly helped wash away the emulsion from the pasta sauce.

I should add that the service was bizarrely impeccable for a restaurant that shows such indifference to its staple foodstuff. I made a couple of unusual requests (nothing kinky, though...) and they were carried out to the letter. Generally, asking for anything complex ('can I have a spoon, please?', for example) results
in disaster ('excuse me sir, here is the lobster pinata you ordered...') so kudos to them for listening to their customers.

After reading some reviews from one of our reviewers here, I figured maybe he has differing tastes from me. But I must say that we've banked upon the safe comfort zone of Italian Spaghetti and the like.

I've been to Sketches a few times(used to dig their drawing on the table thing), though not recently and I must say that I'm not the orthodox kind of diner. I fell in love with Aglio olio on a fateful visit to Pastamania and not having anything better to eat off the menu and just a hapless student with not much moolah for anything better. And thereafter it was Olio spree... I must say that I've eaten a good deal of olio from pretty much different places including some joints in Australia when I was there to visit me relatives (they've been overruning all over the big outback. Geez)

What I always end up doing at Sketches is to DYO Pasta. And my most early creation was the boring old Liguine with bacon and ham and peppers done olio. That was... Eons ago. My most recent visit entailed Ravioli. A nice cheesy concoction I most enjoyed. Only because of the cheese... Of course sitting outside and feeling the sunlight bask on you is also a pretty good thought, what more with good company. As I always say, food does taste better with good company.

Many of us would feel that A tastes nicer than B and B tastes nicer that C or some would say B tastes nicer than A etc. You get my drift. But considering my mom does a mean pasta too (although you might not think so...) and even I've tried my hand at different pastas. I thoroughly enjoy turning bolognaise into seafood bolognaise and carbonara with cheese and veggies instead of ham and bacon blah blah... I must be the oddest diner around here to scoff at over OILY olio and people who eat regular pasta and complain their ass off that it ain't as nice as XYZ authentic italian pasta joint blah blah... I also scoff at the fact that people like new fads of mooncake with chocolate filling or alchoholic filling. Eh. Mooncake is mooncake, best done traditionally with lotus paste (must be good quality too). I don't follow the Jones... See what I mean.
Okay I digress... Anyone for Mooncake bolognaise (that's a wierd combi)Told you I'm a wierd diner.

Anywaysss...

To each his own man. and of course, 1 man's meat is another man's poison.

I do agree on the point that this place is deteriorating though. My ravioli was a bit too floury and lacked enough cheesy filling. If you get my drift... Totally agree with Mr. M below me who agrees Fresca is going downhill. =)

I think the only place for pasta currently is home. Unless I'm outside, then I'll stick to safe old Pastamania to fill my tummy.

I'm a fair soul. I don't point fingers unnecessarily so don't point at me with no good reason please. Arigato!

You know how some children are brilliant with their artistic scribbles? Somehow, their crayon strokes and paint splatters exude a sense of vibrant innocence, unencumbered by the mores of society. Like a breath of fresh air.

Sketches used to be like that. It emerged at a time where mainstream italian food was unheard of, maybe except for Pasta Fresca (another chain that went downhill).

Its gimmick was simple and catered to the Singaporean in everyone of us. Face it, we want everything and we want to choose which 'everything' to have. Sketches provided those choices; even if some misguided souls inadvertently added chilli flakes to their pesto sauce. Ah well, fusion italian food, anyone?

Fast forward many years later, I still enjoyed having pasta at Sketches occasionally, even if standards had dropped and the decor aged badly (guys, the sadcase comics on the wall...pls change them).

However, my most recent experience has probably convinced me to leave this flake of childhood memory behind, along with my plastic trucks and half-chewed lego blocks (alas, the misguided follies of gluttony in youth).

Firstly, the service was horrible. I don't understand why the waiting staff must cluster magnetically at the drinks counter, leaving dozens of tables stranded in thirst/hunger and forlornly waving their hands.

Secondly, the pasta chef seriously scared me to my bones. Now, Sketches has an open kitchen and when my wife's pasta came, it was extremely spicy even though she indicated 'no, thank you' for spiciness. The poor waiter (ripping himself from the magnet at the drinks counter) took it back and the chef vehemently insisted that we had wanted extremely spicy and pointed sharply at the order sheet. The waiters looked at each other and told the chef, 'uncle, this option here is 'no thank you' means no chilli.' MY GOD!!! Didn't they brief the chef on the menu options?? I won't begrudge them employing foreigners or non-english speaking staff but please, for the love of food, brief them properly! I have no idea how many caucasian customers left the restaurant with a swollen tongue, never ever to speak again.

Thirdly, it is no secret that my 3 year old cousin could probably cook at Sketches. You just throw in whatever ingredients were ticked by the customer and stir for several minutes, and serve. However, it was a revelation to me that the chef did not understand simple concepts of cooking. Garlic, for example, are not very nice when raw! But my poor wife spent the majority of the meal plucking the thousand bits of raw garlic off her pasta. She might have chosen garlic, but not a Dracula moment.

Lastly, my order of pizza took approximately an hour to arrive. Which means I only started eating after the whole pasta mix-up and garlic treasure hunt fiasco my wife had to tolerate. And it wasn't even good. Plastic dough, stale ingredients. Frankly, my mood at that point probably made it worse.

So my advice to would-be customers.
1) Enter with plenty of time to spare.
2) Do not tick 'No, thank you' for spiciness, just leave the whole damn thing alone if you know what's good for you.
3) Do not tick garlic. Trust me, nobody can love it that much.
4) If you're ordering pizza, inform your immediate family so they don't file a missing persons report on you.

I dare you to enjoy.