Mr: Birthday celebration at Scugnizzo

Finally...a decent Italian meal after so sooo long! It seems like forever since I last remember having some Italian food. For the past few months, all I've been ingesting myself with either korean food or english breakfast, Japanese once in a while but definitely not Italian.

Dont ask me why...I have no idea as well but maybe its because the Italian standard in Melbourne here is just not that significant? It feels like I could find better ones back in KL. Plus the ones that I had before are just average so the first impression I had on Melbourne's Italian food standard is pretty much goneee. 

*Every Italian restaurant's owners and chefs on Lygon Street are probably hunting me down right now to chop me after reading this post. Hahaha!*

Well, me and Ms are looking for good Italian restaurant to try so if you would like us to try any place, let us know in the comment box! 

Ok...back to Scugnizzo. We went there for dinner last week to celebration my friend's 21st birthday celebration. The place was not hard to find if you use your phone as a GPS but its definitely not a place where you will notice if you're driving. The location of the restaurant is sort off like at some alley and one problem about Melbourne is that they do not have enough street lights so yeah.

However, not to worry, the low-light and alley-ish enviroment outside of the restaurant is nothing like the enviroment inside. Honestly, I wasn't actually expecting it especially after walking through those alleys but the restaurant definitely has the decent Italian 'feel' inside. 

After we sat down, we browse through their menu and guess what? I do not understand atleast 70% of the whole menu. Hahaha! Scugnizzo is a very typical Italian restaurant, which means I do not know or have ever seen such ingredient before in my life..

So conclussion is, my lack of Italian food knowledge + dining at a typical Italian restaurant = GG DOT COM!

Dont laugh! Seriously man...I flipped the whole menu back and forth like a thousand times hoping to find atleast one or two familar names and to choose something to eat *facepalm*. But in the end, I finally found something and it was like hitting a jackpot. Hahaha...

Despite having a hard time choosing something to eat, the food I ordered, Ms ordered and my friends ordered was actually really good. The portion for the pastas are a little small but according to those who ordered them, they seems pretty satisfied with it. In fact, the whole dinner was a satisfactory. Yummmsss!

And before I end the post, here are some pictures taken on that night. Cheers!

Lets dig in!

Arancini Filanti con Sugo - Arancini filled with mozzarella and capsicum served with tomato sauce

 Agnolotti Alla Veneziana - Housemade calf liver & caramelised onion agnddti, served with sage butter & grana sauce

Mr's Scugnizzo Pizze - Tomato and basil sauce, sausage, scamorza, mushroom and rocket

 Diavola Pizze - Tomato and basil sauce, hot salame, spinach, roast capsicum, chilli and mozzarella

Ms's Bandiera Alla Puttanesca - Blue grenadier fillet baked in puttanesca sauce, served with salted leek and spinach

Mr with the birthday girl~

Ms with the birthday girl~

 Ms

Mr & Ms

Ms: Coffee, Cakes, Gossips and Pizza

Babe Minli came to Melbourne! Last friday we went to Brunetti during teatime since it's a well known cafe throughout Melbourne and it's my first time too. We were there talking and gossiping non-stop for almost 3 hours, it's been too long since we last met so we have so much to catch up! 

Lookie who's here

My first meal of that day

Rum and Raisin Cheesecake

Apple Strudel

PromeseD'Amore 'horn'

I am so not happy with my cake and pastries. I've been told that there are other much better dessert cafe than Brunetti before hand but even so, I still wanted to at least give it a try, then I can say that it's not worth going. Maybe it's just those three dessert on that particular day, at that specific outlet and  unlucky me. The cheesecake is not smooth and creamy at all, it is dry and flaky, even the cheesecake that my mum makes is so much better. The apple strudel is not worth ordering, one word 'soft', where did the crisp pastry gone to!? The 'horn' is okay, no comment on that. In the end, I still finish every bit of it even when it's disappointing. Haha! I just cannot waste desserts =D

Mr went to get his hair cut that afternoon so he came to meet us after he got his new look =P Then we had dinner with Babe Minli's friend at Cafe Cavallino in Lygon St.. Their pizza was very good! Mr preferred the Chicken Pizza but I like the Sausage Pizza more. The only minus point was that the pizza base is oily, I think they fried the pizza base to give it a very crunchy texture.

Sausage Pizza - Sauce, Mozzarella Cheese, Italian Pork Sausages, Egg and Bacon

Chicken Pizza - Sauce, Mozzarella Cheese, Chicken, Pineapple, Parsley

The owner of the restaurant seems to be a very big fan of Ferrari, the theme of the place and even the waiters/waitresses uniform was all about Ferrari F1. It was a simple and casual friday, later on we went for ice cream then played mahjong at one of ze bunch's place. Basically this is how we spend our friday nights, either mahjong or club but somehow it's got to do with alcohol xD It's another friday tomorrow! We both have no classes on friday which means our weekend has begun~~ Hurray =D We're going to Essendon DFO tomorrow, can't wait!

Biggest pasta serving in Melbourne (no joke)

New in Melbourne? Wanna know one place that serves you the maximum portion of pasta with the minimun about of price? SOFIA! First drawback, it is not located in the city so you probably need to spend some train fee to Sofia which is at Camberwell. However, apart from the location, Sofia is a decent and cheap Italian restaurant to go to especially when you're on budget control. 

Let's cut the chase and let me show you our dinner at Sofia..

We first started off with a Minestrone Soup. It was good, nothing more and nothing less.

Minestrone Soup

Then, we ordered this Tortellini Pollo Funghi pasta for our main. 

 Chicken pieces, mushrooms in a tasty cream and Napoli sauce

And we ended our dinner with some dessert. Well...Ms basically ate up the whole piece of cake herself xD

TimTam Cheesecake

 Ms with her cakeeee

Mr didnt actually order the cake so he just wanna have a try... 

 Minutes later...GONE!

Funny why we only had a soup and a main for our dinner? Thats because both their serving is sooo big that we had to share. Dont let the picture fool you. In reality, the portion on the bowl and plate is much bigger. PLUS! we ordered a small for our pasta. If it was a large, I doubt we could finish it. Besides, we couldnt even finish our soup. This shows how big it was, no joke. Normally what people do is that they order a large one and share among 3 people and for 2 females, I would say one small size pasta is definitely enough to fill your stomach up, unless you're a super huge eater. And technically, thats what they are famous for anyways. So grab your Myki card and give Sofia a try!

*Ps: when I say the portion is really big, I meant that it is around double the portion of other restaurant and 2 person sharing one pasta is definitely enough alright, not super duper massive gigantic portion =P

You cant see meeeee...hehe!

Why you dont want let me take picture of you *angryface*