Been reading some so-called local food expert's blog on one restaurant. Apparently, you see, this blogger must either have a failing taste bud or his nerves went wrong. You don't compare unhealthy food with healthy food when it comes to taste. this "local food expert" complained about the garlic bread that he was served and compared it to Pizza Hut's garlic bread. Bloody clown has forgotten that Pizza Hut's breads are no where near fresh nor healthy, peppered with low grade MSG and taste like chewy rubber.
Anyway, not trying to be sentimental but let's just call a spade as a spade. My first hand experience there was of course DEFINITELY BETTER THAN PIZZA HUT. Of course, the meal I had there was definitely coincidental. While waiting for a friend, I was having a nice chat with the owner of the restaurant. Knowing that I'm waiting for a friend, he courteusly asked if I would want to have my dinner there before I leave as I was just having a cup of cappuccino. I've been there several times and have even gave them some tips on the preparations of the coffee as the barista was still new while the other more experienced barista wasn't around the other day. There were severe improvements to the cappuccino's taste but of course, one minor mistake that was made when they served me was, the cup that was used wasn't hot enough, rendering the cuppuccino to cool faster and lose it's richness quickly. ANYWAY, back to the food, despite being at Venezia several times, I have never had first hand experience on their solid food. I know I had their pure mushroom soup made entirely of white button mushroom and not cream. The taste is of course, way better and more authentic than Pizza Hut's crappy cream mushroom. So, since the owner asked, I just thought, why not? So I asked for the menu and had some recommendations given to me.
First meal I had the Spaghetti Vongole.
The thing about this spaghetti is, I have a generous amount of clams on my dish (I'd say about 20?). I am known to really opt out of seafood when possible, but when this dish comes to my table, to put it in plain words, it's just bloody tempting. Fresh clams cooked with spaghetti with dashes of parsley to decorate it to eye-perfection. The smell was simply irresistable. You see, I'm not much of a foodie as I don't go food hunting as often, but as a cook myself, what I seek for is health and taste in my food, and usually these things come in "either, or" situations but on rare occasions like these, neither was compromised. Cooked with white wine, the slightly intoxicating taste of the fresh clam was simply exquisite. Not too heavy, neither too "fishy". On the "health meter" it's not as salty nor oily as many imperfect pasta taste like. I can't understand how that "local food expert" can claim that the taste of white wine was almost non-existent, for you see, these people don't know how to cook. IT IS SUPPOSE TO BE ALMOST NON-EXISTENT! As much as I can tell you from my cooking experience, white wine are sometimes used to cover up unnecessarily heavy taste, in this case, the clams. And when cooked in heat, the wine evaporates, leaving behind a subtle taste, hence you only have that tingly taste of white wine, and not as heavy as how it taste like when you drink it! And to back it up, here's a site with a How To on cooking with wine.
http://whatscookingamerica.net/WineInCooking.htm
Next thing I had was their Pizza Porco. (By now the owner was really generous and was asking me to join him on some food sampling as they are redoing the entire SOP for their restaurant)
THIS, according to the owner, was a RESOLUTION to the non-halal status that they have just been. (Previously, they were Halal, but the menu needed a new twist.) Crusty pizza coated with cheese and tomato sauce, topped with bell peppers of red and green and also a hefty amount of bacon strips and chips and pork meatballs! Now THAT is pizza perfect! I can still remember the strings of cheese clinging on to every slices as we served them out. The bell pepper played its role well when it comes to food decoration. Usually, bell peppers are used to add natural healthy colours to your food to make them more appetizing. This is definitely worth the money as we know, when you compare this with your local pizza which serves chunks of meat on their pizza. A chunk of grinded meat is cheaper than slices of proper meat as grinded chunk of meat are usually made of unwanted or lose parts of meat which don't sell in the market and hence grinded into a pile of gooey mess. Slices, on the other part, are selected meat from parts you usually have (ie : thighs, breast, loins) and that way, the quality and taste on the meat are maintained instead of a mix-match mish-mash of grinded low quality meat. This is in response to those "local food expert" when they complained about being served slices of chicken meat instead of chunky chicken meat. Before claiming to be a foodie, I'd really appreciate it if they would learn how and where their food come from.
Last but not least, I realised these bloggers aren't exactly great food tasters but more like food bloggers as I realised this when I was reading their blog, they only take photos of their food and bitch on everything they can. Never once have I read anything about them talking about the ingredient and why the mentioned ingredient was used.
A word from the owner himself, "Let our food speak for itself." and that has been true as I notice an influx of new walk-in customers lately compared to the last time I was there. (Comparison was made at a same time on a same day but on different weeks. Sunday, dinner time, if you want to be precise)
More info on Venezia:
Address: No. 1, Jalan Manis 4, Taman Segar, Cheras, 56100 Kuala Lumpur
GPS: Longitude: 3.088617 Latitude: 101.743618
GPS: Longitude: 3.088617 Latitude: 101.743618
Phone: 03-9130 8992
Email: info@veneziare.com
