Today I'm going to be sharing about two amazing places in Holland Village with you! (:
As y'all know, I study at NUS, which is situated at Kent Ridge, about 3 train stops away from Holland Village on the Circle line. So it's really convenient for me to head to Holland Village for lunch before classes start, or for drinks after school ends! I really love Holland Village because it's really sleepy in the late afternoons but it comes to life when the sky turns dark, everyone ends school/work and heads down to chill out and have a bit of fun.
This particular time, we went to
La Nonna for lunch because I'd read amazing reviews about it. It's a little quaint restaurant selling Italian cuisine.
Customary bread with balsamic vinegar and olive oil dip!
Because the outlet at Holland V has a
1-for-1 lunch special from 12pm-2.30pm, on mains, pastas and pizzas, Bryan and I decided to both order pastas. Nothing says Italian more than pasta does!
My order arrived!
As you can tell from my expression, I was really very excited to try my food.
I'd ordered one of the two Spaghetti Specials,
ravioli filled with crab and lobster, in a spicy arrabbiata sauce.
Bryan was obviously very excited for his order as well.
He'd gotten the
homemade fettuccine with creamy saffron sauce, prawns and zucchini
LET'S EAT!
My crab and lobster ravioli in arrabbiata sauce was really yummy -- the arrabbiata was not too spicy, and the tomato was just tangy enough. I really liked how the pasta tasted, it wasn't too dense and was bouncy enough. Al dente, as they say! The crabmeat and lobster was really good as well. However, I thought the arrabbiata a tad too overpowering for the crab and lobster (it took away quite a bit of the seafood taste), so I chose to eat the ravioli mostly on its own.
The filling was really good.
I was really more enamoured with Bryan's order though, LOL. I don't know if it's because I just innately love cream based pastas over tomato based ones, but I genuinely think his fettucine tasted better!
It is the
saffron that really binds the dish together; it makes the cream so fragrant and full of flavour. Also, the fettucine pasta was really nice (had an awesome chew to it), and the prawns were fresh.
Such creamy goodness!
I thought the fettuccine was my favourite, but I recently went back to La Nonna again and I've discovered something else that has made me fall in love with La Nonna - it's really my favourite Italian restaurant by far! But I'll blog about that another time. Also, if you don't mind heading down during the hours of 12-2.30pm, it's really worth your money; both our pastas cost $24 each, hence we only paid about $15 each because of the 1-for-1 lunch special.
(:
Here's their website if you're interested in finding out more:
La Nonna Singapore
We remembered to save space for desserts, and we bought..... CUPCAKES!
As I'm not much of a fan when it comes to cupcakes and muffins (preferring cheesecakes and ice cream, I suppose), I was actually RELUCTANT to purchase Plain Vanilla cupcakes. But Bryan was insistent and said that I'd be in love with them once I've had them so I decided to trust him.
Each cupcake costs $3.50, but I bought a box of 6, which cost $19.
The flavours I chose were:
1. Carrot which had vanilla cream cheese frosting
2. Salted Caramel (self explanatory!!)
3. Chocolate Hazelnut which was made of Valrhona dark chocolate, has a Nutella filling (!!) and a chocolate hazelnut frosting
4. Strawberry White Chocolate (Vanilla cake with a centre of fresh strawberries and a white chocolate frosting)
5. two Red Velvet
And here are them goody goodies!
Bryan and I shared one Red Velvet:
IT IS AMAZING. ;_; I'm not even exaggerating. The cake is really moist and fluffy, but what really steals my heart is how the frosting IS SO GOOD. I love cream cheese, and somehow the amazing folks at Plain Vanilla know how to make the cream cheese frosting exceedingly fluffy. It felt like I was chomping down on clouds of cream cheese. And the balance of sweetness and saltiness in both the cake and the frosting is perfect.
Whilst I had actually bought the other cupcakes for my family members, they didn't seem to be very interested and hence I also got to eat the Chocolate Hazelnut and the Strawberry White Chocolate.
I was very taken with the Strawberry White Chocolate because the centre of the cupcake has chopped fresh strawberries!! It's really refreshing and lifts up how dense white chocolate can sometimes get. And the Chocolate Hazelnut had Nutella in the middle, 'nuff said.
I foresee myself going to Plain Vanilla a lot in the future as well, here's their website if you're interested in finding out more:
Plain Vanilla Bakery
//
On an unrelated note, here's what I wore that day (:
lace preppy top, primark // hot pink highwaisted shorts, gifted // stripey shopper bag, new look // ankle boots, topshop
And here are some of the faces I decided to pull that day:
LMAO I suck at pulling faces.
That concludes my entry! I hope you've enjoyed reading about these two amazing places at Holland Village and go and give them both a try! (:
Much love,
Pamela
Labels: Cupcakes, favourite food, Food Entries, Holland Village, Italian cuisine, La Nonna Italian, Outfits, pasta, Plain Vanilla Bakery, SG FOOD
