La Braceria

Hello everyone! (:

It's finally Friday and it looks like it's going to rain again! I'd a great time at Goodman Arts Centre watching the Lit kids perform their self-produced puppet shows - they did such a wonderful job (: What a nice way to start the weekend!

Anyway, since I've a bit of time on my hands now before I head out to meet a few kids, I thought I'd do a post on La Braceria, which is a very homely Italian restaurant near my place! We actually went there for a family dinner to celebrate my birthday at the end of last month so you can imagine how backdated this post is! Anyhow, La Braceria serves pretty decent food at reasonable prices so if you would like some 'homemade' Italian food, do pop by this restaurant and you will probably get your craving fulfilled.

We started off the evening by sharing two starters. This is called Antipasto Braceria ($42), which consists of grilled vegetables,  artichoke, grilled mushrooms, rocket leaves, ham and a huge chunk of cheese (sorry I forgot which type of cheese this was!). This hearty spread whetted many of our appetites so we were more than eager for our mains to come!

We also ordered a plate of calamari ($24) because we were afraid that the antipasto wouldn't sit well with everyone. I felt that the calamari were only average and that they were severely overpriced!

One of my sisters ordered ravioli ($18), which was the cheapest dish of all our main courses and rightly so because the portions were pathetic! Please don't ever expect to get full on ravioli because the 5 pieces of 'pasta dumplings' won't satiate your hungry tummy! I would think that this would be better as a snack or something you would order if you weren't feeling hungry at all.

Since I've never had my teeth stained black with any kind of squidink pasta before, I thought this was a great opportunity to try since I was out with family and family wouldn't judge even if my entire mouth was stained black! haha So I went ahead to order the Fettuccine Black Ink Sauce with Seafood ($22), which was surprisingly tasty! On hindsight, I think it had a cheesy taste and perhaps that's what made me feel quite full quite quickly.

Linguine Crab ($22) was also very well done! I liked that it wasn't overly cheesy or creamy so you won't get gelat finishing the entire plate! Would certainly order this again the next time I visit!

Another sister ordered the Seafood Spaghetti ($24) which came in parchment paper. I realised that spaghetti/ pasta that comes in parchment paper tend to not have very strong flavours probably due to the more soupy nature of the dish. I generally prefer my food to be more flavourful so I wouldn't order this dish if I had a choice.

Gumtoo had the pasta of the day which was king prawn pasta ($24). The prawn was so huge that it almost looked like a lobster! Gumtoo enjoyed her dish quite a bit so I was thankful that we decided to get the last pasta of the day!

Since my brother only eats meat and cheese, we got him the Rucola and Parham Pizza ($24), which he truly enjoyed. For once it was large enough for him not to order a second main!

The other pizza we ordered was the Prosciutto e Funghi ($18), which was ham and mushroom pizza that tasted pretty average or slightly above average.

A cup of hot chocolate to warm us up ($5.50) or if you prefer, you can order soft drinks like coke and sprite for ($4.50 a cup)

In all, we enjoyed our dinner and I think our empty plates and full bellies are testament to the above average food served at La Braceria! Definitely a place that we could afford to revisit again in future.

Alright that's all for now! (: Have a great weekend everyone!