☆ Club ACE view "Susumu's gourmet" Passaparola:

Japanese comfort food

According to Culinary Mythology, Catherine de' Medici transformed what had been a rather primitive cuisine at the French court when She took a train of servants including cooks to marry the future Henri the Second of France, Hence contributing to the commanding heights of French haute Cuisine. Today, Italian cuisine is enjoying its Renaissance because of simple pasta and pizza all over the world. Passaparola-meaning pass the word-which opened the door last winter in posh Chong Dam Dong, wants to show Italian cuisine at its best. With columns as daunting as Roman Empire, One descends the stairs adorned by pots of rosemary. Inside, Room is decorated with cream tone with gold and few chandeliers and paintings on the wall set the scene.
Upon seating came slices of thin crusted pizza

topped with chunks of tomatoes and basil drizzled with excellent fruity olive oil-sign of good restaurant. With three consulting Chefs from Milan's famous restaurant, our expectations were high as we never had a bad meal in Milan or in that matter anywhere in Italy. Unfortunately on our visiting day, they were nowhere to be seen as being Sunday.
We started a meal with Antipasto-assortments of cold cut, cheese, along with bruschetta. Our distressed waitress informed us that bread that uses for bruschetta-kind of toast often rubbed with garlic and drizzled with olive oil- was not ready. Instead Kitchen sent us gorgonzola fritters, excellent prosciutto, as well as salami and herb rubbed cheese which seemed like goat cheese, but portion was too small to identify.
Three Pasta dishes sampled, Spaghetti con Vongole had clean sea flavor. Potato Gnocchi-kind of Potato dumpling-was rather heavy and chewy- more like Toppogi than airy light Gnocchi, but accompanying four cheese sauce was good. When you think of Milano, First thing come to mind is its famous risotto. Risotto is one of the great rice dish of the world and it's execution of constant mixing of rice and resulting creaminess is unique way of the rice cooking. Sad to say Seafood Risotto We had was watery and fish chewy and insipid.
By far the best dishes to order are Pizza and Milano style is crisp and thin crust. They are quite different from thick, chewy Neapolitan style Pizza and Yes, They are addictive. Passaparola carries Twenty five kinds of assortment proudly and they are baked in Brick wood firing oven which gives smokiness and nice charred crust. Pizza Passaparola has topping of tomato, Mozzarella, Fresh Arugula and Prosciutto which tells you they emphasize freshness and lightness. We ordered Oratonana-which is grilled vegetables with Mozzarella and they were delicious.
Dessert is kind of forgettable with few listing of tiramisu and creme brulee a like.
Wine list covers across the glove but mainly French and there are no bargains. Italian wines are represented by heavy hitters such as Barolo, Babaresco, Brunelo di Montalcino and Some Chianti. We opted for Dolcetto D'alba 2001 which has soft tannins and affordable.
Owner informed us Italian Chefs are working with Kitchen staff to produce authentic flavor. Passaparola is still in the process of improving, but Kitchen already produces top notch Pizza and Focaccia in only six months. It took French Three hundred years to fine tune there cuisine since Catherine de' Medici.