Da Vinci Ristorante Pizzeria

I have driven past Da Vinci pretty much everyday at one point in my life, and did nothing more than just that.

The restaurant is situated on one corner of an intersection that I never visit, as by complete coincidence I always found myself on the other side of the road where McDonalds' beckons me with its big, tempting, beaming golden arches.

A group of us gathered here one weekend, where it was absolutely packed. Inside felt just like one huge happy family in an Italian home, where everyone is wining, dining, and probably comparing the food to their Mum's homemade pasta (which always seems to be the best version).

Calamaretti - $18.30

I met these plates of entrees by surprise as someone had ordered starters for sharing, and with complete self restraint as it was placed directly in front of me. The pieces of squid came lightly seasoned, shallow fried and with quite the price tag for what they were (or how much there were too).

Although bite sized, the squid pieces were extremely small, making the batter the more dominant on in the battered squid relationship. It came with a small dressed salad, that I ate all by myself. I just wish they'd called the marinated and grilled version of this starter.

Pane E Aglio - $7

And of course, the thing I wasn't surprised to see - the ubiquitous garlic bread that is always the prelude to an Italian meal. Da Vinci's version is 4 thick, fluffy slices of garlic buttered bread with crusty perimeters, and speckled with garlic.

Soup Special - $12.50

Penne Arrabbiate - $20.50

Seeing as we are one big sharing, caring group, the dishes we order individually become communal plates that get traded around the table like currency. I tried this Penne Arrabbiate, a pasta dish combining tube pasta with spicy italian cacciatore sausage, onion and chilli with fresh tomato sauce.

It isn't too heavy or rich, which is something typical of many pasta dishes, but overall it is nothing too exciting or to hurry back to.

Fettuccine Al Salmone - $24.50

A ordered a very creamy ribbon pasta main with crumbled pieces of smoked salmon, capers, leek, spanish onion and a hint of lemon zest, which all quickly melded into heavy, creamy mouthfuls. Perhaps if the salmon pieces were not as finely chopped, it would add more textural components to the dish to make it easier to eat.

Fettuccine Gamberi - $25

The fettuccine trend continued on either side of me, with a friend ordering the Fettuccine Gamberi - a good looking dish of fresh ribbon pasta with tiger prawns, anchovies, capers, onion and wilted english spinach tossed with garlic, chilli and extra virgin olive oil.

He said the pasta was really quite bland, and I offered him the contrarily very salty sauce from my main dish to pour over his pasta, which cried out for some flavour as he did.

Tortellini Alla Panna - $21.50

J ordered tortellini - travel neck rest-shaped pasta rings filled with veal and tossed with limited button mushrooms, bacon and onion in a cream sauce.

Penne Pollo - $20.50

The Penne Pollo, consisting of long strands of tube pasta in a creamy garlic sauce with strips of chicken and snow peas.

Spaghetti Marinara - $25.50

This is one of the dishes which appeared more substantial, that looked to fill up the stomach and appetite with meat rather than creamy sauce, which usually gives you the feeling of premature fullness.

J's Spaghetti Marinara came with tomato sauce and an assortment of seafood, including mussels, prawns and fish.

Pasta special - $24.90

The pasta special of the night with prawns, fresh tomato and snow peas was ordered by someone...somewhere... along the table.

Arrosto Di Agnello - $31.50

I think all of us at the table had a serious case of food envy when the only non-pasta dish (except mine) arrived. D challenged the norm of ordering pasta at an Italian restaurant and chose the honey and balsamic roasted lamb rump, served on top of a vegetable stack of potato mash, grilled eggplant, roasted capsicum and wilted spinach.

The masterpiece was garnished with a sprig of rosemary and dressed with a mint and rosemary jus. D shared his little piece of gold around, and we all welcomed our piece of tender juicy rump with open mouths. Very enjoyable, or perhaps just a really good refresher from all our carbohydrate-laden pasta plates.

Cozze - $24.50

When my dish arrived, I felt every head on the table turning in my direction. And while it is because I have probably said something stupid, this time it's because of my impressively big miniature wok-sized serving of mussels; which in hindsight, really are a guaranteed head turner.

My main arrived on the table with a spectacular entrance, piled high and proud. The dish comes with a little something extra - a very useful paper bib that is personally tied around your neck by the waiter.

Trust me, you'll need it. It certainly saved me from becoming a giant sauce drenched garlic mussel myself.

The fresh mussels have a mild chilli taste and come with the choice of either cooked in a traditional tomato or a white wine sauce. I chose the latter, which is quite a dry version and a strong, pungent garlic flavour that you see and smell very clearly.

My initial enthusiasm when I dived in hand first died off quick when I cracked open my first mussel, which I found was very salty. I'll stress now that this is definitely subjective to each person's taste! I did enjoy ploughing my way through my dish though, and I think a piece of trusty bread on the side to soak up the fragrant sauce would have worked wonders.

Da Vinci entrance

I really looked forward to Da Vinci, from the amount of times we never succeeded at trying the place and the amount of times it was talked up by a friend. This particular experience was unfortunately quite unremarkable, and we were all a little underwhelmed at what we each came across.

The overall consensus was that the food generally came as one of two extremes of being either too salty or too bland, and had people reaching for water, salt shakers or even the salty sauce from each other's meals to add to their own tasteless dish.

I spied the desserts blackboard labelled Today's Desserts which I assumed to change frequently, however I came across Perth Food Engineer's post from one year ago showing their dessert menu with the exact same offerings of wildberry meringue; warm sticky date pudding; apple pie; creme caramel; Da Vinci special cheesecake, and the heavenly sounding mango filled vanilla crepes with vanilla bean ice cream and butterscotch sauce.

If these are as amazing as they sound, I guess it's a good thing they stay unchanged.

***
(08)9201 1144

Lunch: Wed, Fri & Sun: 12pm to 3.30pm
Dinner: Wed - Mon: 5pm to late
Closed Tuesdays

***

Ciao Italia

When you see a sea of people crowding around a source of light at the Mill Point Road intersection, you'd think that there was free food or something.

Anything that included the word "free" really. Humans are realistic.

But this wasn't the case. It just doesn't make sense, but as you get closer, you realise the restaurant makes a lot of scents. And you become one of those many peeps swarming around the lights and smells, itching to get a feed.

The source of attraction that is Ciao Italia, its charm luring in hungry moths from all over Perth.

Chilled Berry Fusion drink

After a long wait outside but shortly after being seated squished and packed up compactly onto a table next to the semi-open kitchen, drinks were needed. I thirsted for food more than I did for drinks though, seeing the tables right next to me laden high with big plates of Italy.

It's so close you could taste it - provided you extended your hand over to the next table. And if that wasn't weird, you really could reach it. The tables are that close.

There aren't too many drinks on offer here, most of them being soft drinks and some other bottled beverages, the Berry Fusion being one of them.

Garlic Bread - $5.50

To suppress our stomach grumbles, the infamous garlic bread starter came out super fast. Specks of garlic and a light sprinkling of herbs adorn pieces of toasted bread generously lathered with butter.
It smells gloriously rich and one single bite contains both fluffiness and crispiness. *swoon*

The only way I can eat garlic bread :(

One of the downsides to deliciously fatty food is that I'm very susceptible to it. I can't tolerate them very well. If you are curious about my autobiography Life Without a Gall Bladder, it would feature images like this. It's how my diet has consequently changed for the worse (because I have to eat like a health freak)!


So out of one slice of garlic bread, this is what I DIDN'T eat. Yep, I can't touch the very heart and soul of what garlic bread is all about. This slice of gold is too golden for me and the crust becomes the only edible bit, so thank God it's crunchy and just to my liking. Yes, it IS a better diet I admit.
But it's just so, so, so painful to eat so healthy.

Gnocchi Napoletana - $21.50

Gnocchi is fondly known in Italian cuisine and at Ciao Italia as their very own homemade potato dumplings. I'm so used to dumplings having substantial fillings inside that I don't feel obliged to term these as dumplings. But dumplings schmumplings, they're still little delights to pop.

The small sheer size of these little things are so easy to keep eating, and eating, and eating without realising that you're still...eating. Liberally bathed in a herbed tomato sauce, soft, slightly mushy but still having a slight chewiness, they're actually really filling after a while.

Ciao Italia Fettuccine - $22.50 

The thinnest person on the table ordered the fattest dish on the table (and maybe on the menu as well!) We all know those skinny people who look like they've been deprived of nutrition, who in fact can eat 5 times their own weight. In one sitting.
I may seem like one of them, but so many people beat me hands down. I'm so curious to see what I'd turn into if my metabolism suddenly broke down. God forbid!

This plate features a combination of marinated tender free range chicken strips, sundried tomato and fresh diced tomato in a calorific creamy white sauce. Heart attacks only cost $22.50 nowadays.

Gnocchi Bolognese - $21.50

This is like a replication of the Gnocchi Napoletana, the addition of minced meat producing another texture and visually adding to the presentation of the gnocchi. Delizioso! :)

Spaghetti Bolognese - $17.50

Spaghetti Bolognese was the healthiest option I could spot on the whole menu. Trying to spot a healthy dish on a menu of Italian cuisine is sure challenging, if not impossible. They sure know how to make rich and delicious tasting food but keep looking good.
Where on earth does all that cheese consumption go?!


Spaghetti was cooked just right with whole strands that wrap effortlessly around your fork. So much rich and meaty sauce that flies everywhere and makes a striking appearance on your clothes.

Dessert Cabinet

Can't comment on dessert 'cause what the hell, I didn't have any dessert! But I managed to snap their dessert cabinet which takes up much valuable and needed space. The cabinet doesn't house much variety but it does house "Perth's best tiramisu"! (Or so I've read). BEST!
In capitals so you can tell I'm shouting in your face.


Best is a loud and daring position to claim. Not a big tiramisu fan myself, I'd be an inaccurate judge on this. Unfortunately you're gonna have to go and pig out.

Dessert Cabinet

...

Ciao Italia is such a roaring, successful establishment, evident from the lines outside the restaurant despite the slightly annoying No Bookings policy. You sorta have to just get there and hope for the best after you put your name down on the long waiting list. This dinner is gonna be a test of patience.


Sometimes you get the impression they seem to operate on a mass scale, systematic procedure of getting you in and getting you out ASAP to have the highest turnover possible. But it is the most efficient way, and they even have their rule of not seating you until your whole party needs is present outside the restaurant. These guys know how to make optimal use of space, with tables situated right up near the toilets too. So even if you came in, hate it and want to leave, it's still a challenge to get out.


Staff are really good at handling the crowd and are very evidently, are mostly charming and charismatic Italian waiters. We waited an hour, was seated at 8pm and left before 9pm. Barely had time to chew my food but they have a knack for making you not realise just how rushed your whole dinner is. I think you have an intrinsic sense of urgency when you see people standing outside in the cold wishing you'd hurry your ass up.


Dining in seems to be the popular option even though diners are ushered in and compressed into a small, tight-fit brick building with a maze of chairs and tables. This all adds to the ambiance of the bustling, loud, but warm and happy atmosphere where voices, Italian music, sounds and smells are all rebounding off each other. It's unusual to see somewhere so densely populated in Perth. The proximity between tables and people is dangerous, requiring you to take extra care to make sure you don't knock someone out as you struggle past them. As I talk from experience.


Takeaway seems to be a busy area too, and deliveries can be arranged to a limited number of Southern suburbs. Prices are on par with most other Italian restaurants but Ciao Italia produces huge servings and seem to have a love for cinnamon powder as presentation! IT'S EVERYWHERE! The pictures you see are SMALL servings too, which are $5 cheaper and they are quite...not small. They pride themselves on homestyle Italian cuisine and a wood fired gourmet pizzeria producing crazy larger-than-life sized pizzas!


Bring two things: A big appetite and wear your eating pants. Loose fitting ones too, cause you'll be competing with your stomach.

***
(08) 9368 5500
Tuesday - Saturday: 5pm to 10pm
Sunday & Monday: Closed


***

Siena's: Morley

T: Man, too much exercise. Need fat stuff to balance it out again.
Seriously, he is lucky to have one hardworking metabolism slaving away for him to keep that forever model figure =p

Italian would be the first suitable choice that comes to mind, naturally.
Carbs, cheese and cream are the best culprits to resort to for weight loss. Naturally!

We were really really really x100 starving and felt pretty ambitious with our order. When you're deprived of food for a few hours (or in my case, like, an hour LOL) you feel like you can eat the world. So this is what followed:

Affogato - $5.50

So like there's this friend of mine who orders Affogato everywhere. And on the occasions I've been there, I've got to benefit from that without needing to get my own caffeine dose. And thus far, Siena's version is the best I've seen, presentation wise. It's all grand looking and separated so you can control your drink, and dictate how fast your ice cream melts. Always handy.

The tall triangular glass holds a generously sized blob of creamy vanilla gelati ice cream, suffice to be a dessert on its own. Mmhmm. I started off my dinner with a few too many spoonfuls of dessert. Served with a shot of espresso on the side, some may consider $5.50 a little steep.

Affogato - Post mixing

Here's the somewhat DIY affogato, looking a bit ugly. Never underestimate.

So creamy, so smooth, so contrasting flavours and textures together in the one luscious drink.
You get hits of cold creamy ice cream mingling with the rich, heavy, bittery taste of espresso and really, it is quite the drink.

You have cold, you have hot, you have sweet, you have bitter, then you have addiction.
A winner of a bittersweet combination.

Works Pizza - $24.90 (SN: $17.90)

Pizza is usually topping many "favourite foods" lists despite it being what it is. Probably a hate-love relationship cause it probably does you more damage than it does good, despite the fact you'll probably consume SO much more vegies if they were dumped on a pizza. Like yes to capsicum on pizza but no to capsicum in any other form.

Personally I actually prefer the less authentic versions of pizza base and crusts cause they're so much better to chew and provide so much more crunch. Wood fired pizza crusts just don't satisfy me in the same way :( And really, I'd go for 3 Dominos pizzas over this anyday.

This was a no brainer to order. We wanted everything and this pizza was closest to having everything. The Works boasted tomato sauce, mozarella cheese, Italian sausage, chicken, capsicum, olives, artichokes, mushrooms and sundried tomato. Om nom nom.

Base wasn't too my liking so I dissected my pizza. Having ate the ingredients on top, my bare pizza base looked pretty naked. The last time I did this we threw pasta on top of the pizza base and ever since, it's become our somewhat standard approach to eat pizza =] Try it!

Ravioli - $20.90 (SN: $15.90)

This was a waste of an order and should not have been ordered. My fault. I wanted something different other than the usual cheesy, creamy, red or white sauced pastas but this different choice failed us. The description intrigued me but that's as far as the intriguing part got, and we were all pretty disappointed. Word usage is a powerful but powerfully deceptive skill!

I mean, it certainly looked alright. Pumpkin and ricotta filled pasta pillows in a white wine, garlic, cream Napoletana sauce topped with fresh rocket leaves and shaved parmesan. To say the least, lets see, it was bland and had no taste, the filling was stingy and practically you just can't tell that you're eating pumpkin or ricotta and some pillows weren't thoroughly cooked so even the extravagant sounding sauce didn't save the day. At least it looked decent.

I really hate giving negative or even anything-less-than-good comments but if I didn't then I'd be lying. Sorry Siena's. You still do alright. This was actually a struggle to finish on our table and the last lone pillows were unwanted. As per usual, this is where I come in and the leftovers get disposed, into my stomach, because I can't stand food wastage.
I hope my good deed gets me somewhere someday! :)

Fettuccini Siena - $24.90 (SN: $17.90)

The Fettuccini Siena was prooobably the best choice out of our choices. I mean a dish named after a restaurant should not be a let down by any means, right? I quite liked looking at the dish without having even eaten it yet, colour was pretty awesomely orange.

To those of you who have asked for my colour preferences, yup, orange is one of my favourite colours. I allow you to wrap my future presents in orange wrapping paper =p Ok thanks :)

This consisted of long stringy fettuccini pasta with plump prawns and broccoli in a vodka flavoured tomato and cream sauce, sprinkled with chilli flakes, giving it the slightest hint of spiciness. Not overwhelming, but noticable. And creamy sauce is always a winner with anything. It's one of those universal foods that can make anything better, even though I avoid it when it's on its own.

Not exactly sure what the sauce was meant to taste like but I couldn't help but notice the lack of any slight, hint, itty bitty teeny tiny bit of alcohol tasting element in the sauce. I know its not meant to be overpowering and I know it's meant to be subtle, but damn this was wayyy too subtle to the point of being non-existent.

Or maybe, I don't drink, I'm ignorant to what vodka is, and just didn't sense it being in the sauce.

Yes. Most likely. :)

Chilli Mussels being served

Interesting serving presentation, I say. Presumably this is meant to lock in the steam and keep those hot chilli mussels even hotter. Though a tad unnecessary...but kept me entertained for a little under 5 seconds. The novelty in this died after that. Ahh, short lived.

Garlic Bread

The concept of garlic bread has evolved over the times to become many things, many of those being not very garlic bready at all. Well maybe just not garlicy but still very bready. Too bready.
This was pretty much just buttered toast with fancier bread sorta thing. And 2 little mere pieces just doesn't seem fitting with that big plate of chilli mussels.

It is somewhat sad, or not, depending on how you look at it, to say the most memorable and best garlic bread I've come across so far is one out of a plastic packaging out of an IGA supermarket. It's amazing that such good garlic bread can be replicated, or my standards are just low.. Either way, that was crazy good. I will never forget that day.

Chilli Mussels - $24.50

And when the plate was lifted off, I was greeted with the sight and smells of this chilli mussel extravagance. Depending on how you feel towards mussels and how much you like eating mussels, the sight may either get you excited or flip your stomach. I actually quite like mussels but observing the picture more and more makes it look rather putrid.

Maybe it's the blackness, the abundance of hard shiny shell exteriors and the fact that everything there except the red parts are inedible that's sorta putting me off. Alot of the mussels had parted ways with their homes and some homes were still locked up but overall it was pretty good with the tomato chilli sauce.

Cheese side dish. Lol...

This extra bowl of pure cheese was served with one of the pasta dishes, but my memory fails me and I can't remember which one. Most likely the ravioli one. This went untouched. Maybe we were meant to touch it, then maybe the ravioli wouldn't have been so bland. Ahhh...

I haven't seen cheese being served on the side like this. By the end of the night I just wanted to do something with it. Had to. Being me, I ended up just eating half a spoonful of it, on its own. I have no idea why I did. They all had a go at me for "contaminating the chese", so now the cheese has to be thrown away...

No, stupid friends. Pretty sure it's going straight in the bin regardless...?

Lol

Lol. So this is our water-jug-turned-fish-tank, which in turn looked like an attempt to vivify the chilli mussel. I must stress that this was a pure accident, we are definitely not immature little brats playing with our food, no no, none of that.

Sharing food meant a lot of transferral of food across the table and in the middle of the journey, we all heard a distinct *PLOP!*, and found that Y had clumsily dropped a mussel straight into the water jug, which had a small opening the SAME size as the mussel itself. My disapproving applause immediately became one of sheer admiral.

Well freaking done.

...

Siena's had always been the first restaurant that came to mind whenever Italian is mentioned. It's always been delicious, generously sized, good value and a laid back atmosphere to it that makes you feel at home. Having all this in mind, the first thing I noticed was the change of menu (ok, cool...) but also with the change of prices (NOO!).

I mean, the prices are still standard and pretty fair, but you know, in comparison to having seen what the former prices are, it's pretty sad. The servings have also changed and based purely on what we ordered, the tastes have also fared worse off than before, but that is all a selfish subjective opinion of course.

Kitchen also closes unbelievably early on a Thursday night, as we got there a little bit past 8pm and were asked to make our orders ASAP as the kitchen was closing. As I hurriedly scanned through the menu, all the pizza/pasta dishes had a more attractive, more affordable price next to the standard price with the initals SN next to them. We could have saved $20!

So, point taken: come on Special Nights! (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays btw :))
-It's not being cheap, it's being cost efficient =p There is a difference! Like...I'm dumb, but I'm not stupid LOL

So after we settled the bill, we headed straight to McDonalds for the next 3 hours to fill up the still-empty spaces in our stomachs with fries, soft serves, cokes and fake oreos - Rodeos.

No really. Just Google imaged rodeo biscuit. A whopping ONE picture made it through. Shockinggg! But fake=good, still. Sometimes. Most times, not.

You know when people are like "I ate 3 packs of oreos"? And it's like meh because it doesn't sound like much? Well, T said this. There's 18 in a pack we were eating, and after some slow calculations:

WTF, YOU ATE 54 OREOS?!?!?!
Sounds so boss, huh? It really changes how you perceive a mere "3 packs of oreos" and how you look at them now: with praise and so much more respect...
And this is the same T that feels too healthy after exercise.
It's a miracle.