Domani, Ngee Ann City

Domani describes itself as a “Spanish Italian Cafe”, although it’s more of a restaurant than a cafe. It’s located at Basement 2 of Ngee Ann City, and is part of the Pokka Group which also owns Tonkichi and Rive Gauche Patisserie.

Domani, in a nutshell, is good-tasting, really good value for money. On the menu are the usual suspects: tapas ($3.90 - $5.90; $9.90 for grilled lobster), salad, soup; pastas, pizzas, mains; drinks and dessert.

They offer an extremely wide range of pastas at really low prices: $17.90 - $18.90 for most seafood pastas and only $8.90 for Aglio Olio. They also have grilled lamb at $24.90 – nowhere have I seen lamb this cheap. (View full menu online here)

All of us in our party of 7 ordered the set menu for weekends: $24.90 for starters (soup/salad) + pasta + mains. The menu can be seen here, and unlike many restaurants, the actual food matched up to – or even exceeded - the pictorial representations. I was also rather doubtful of the quality and portion size when browsing through the menu, given the exorbitant restaurant prices and substandard quality of food in Singapore* these days, but thankfully my doubts were put to rest when the food arrived.

The mushroom soup was thick and flavourful, complete with mushroom chunks which i consider necessary for any mushroom soup to be considered ‘good’. The calamari salad was dressed with a light, sweet and spicy sauce. The calamari, fried in a coating of tasty batter, was springy and easy to chew. Two thumbs up for these starters – i knew then that things were gonna be good.

Next were the chicken wings. They really did look like these in the picture from their website below:

While the wings had only a very mild garlic flavour, they were juicy and meaty. The accompanying sweet Thai-style chilli sauce went well with them too.

Then arrived the mains + pastas on a large, rectangular plate. The portion was bigger than we expected: here’s Boscaiola - spaghetti with mushrooms and chicken sausage, dressed in olive oil - and Chicken M&M – chicken, mushrooms and cheese covered in a tomato cream sauce:

 

The pasta was a bit skimpy on ingredients, but done just the way i like it – neither too al dente nor overcooked. The olive oil would go well with those who prefer a lighter tasting pasta. The mushrooms accompanying the chicken were very juicy, and beneath the chicken was a portion of baked, sliced potatoes which went really well with the yummy sauce.

My grandma had pork ribs with her pasta. There were actually three long, thick ribs in the serving – more than the 2 in the menu’s picture – and the delicious meat melted in the mouth. My mum’s hamburg had a meatier flavour than most of those done Japanese-style but retained the mildly burnt bottom you get in japanese hamburgs.

I ordered Carbonara and sea bass (originally 2 slices of fish):

Believe me, that was indeed a mound of carbonara – the portions are generous – complete with delicious bacon strips, ham slices, juicy mushrooms and lip-smacking cream sauce. i like heavier pastas and the carbonara was a pretty good. The sea bass came with chopped spinach and the pan-frying gave the skin (my favourite part of a fish) a slightly crisp, burnt aroma.

I was so full that i couldn’t finish all my carbonara – and i’m a pretty big eater. Bearing in mind that the entire set was only $24.90, Domani is a restaurant where one’s dollar goes very far. While the food doesn’t taste that refined, it was good, hearty stuff – refined food, after all, comes at a far steeper cost.

 

NB: In the interest of full disclosure, do not, under any circumstance, order their cafe latte (drinks come at an additional $3 to the set). I think it was made with skim milk – which i feel isn’t worth drinking at all – as it tasted really thin and weak; horrible horrible. The hazelnut latte was okay though. Also, my order was actually forgotten/missed and only arrived when some in my party were nearly done. However, this oversight was noticed by the staff without me having to ask, which makes it less bad. We originally ordered cafe mocha but got the bad latte instead – should have changed the order upon hindsight – but the staff are otherwise polite and professional.

 

*: I honestly feel that Singapore definitely can no longer be considered a food paradise – not when it comes to restaurants at least. It’s so expensive to eat out these days; restaurant dining in Japan is cheaper than it is in Singapore relative to wages earned and most importantly the food is amazing. Most places I’ve been to so far are either so-so, overly expensive (hence i haven’t actually tried them cos i’m deterred by the prices i cant afford) or a combination of both. Modestos, which i went to recently, came up to $27 per person and we only ordered pizza/pasta that merely tasted not bad. In fact, $27 = 1700yen, which is MORE than what I used to pay at my absolute favourite, amazingly awesome, heavenly delicious Italian restaurant Pomodoro Fresca in Japan. Who says food in Japan is more expensive than in Singapore?