Covelli Italian Bistro and Wine Bar @ Orchard Central

Located at B2 of Orchard Central, near the lifts. Visited on a Saturday evening, and before that, had made prior reservation via Reserveit. Really an easy, hassle free reservation system and it gives instantaneous confirmation. They'll even send a reminder sms. Cool!

The restaurant looks rather small and cosy. At about 630pm, there was no crowd. Liked that the tables are not too near each other.

seats for 2 pax

menu

Do note that the menu in the restaurant was a little bit different than its online menu found in Reserveit website. For example, there was a starter called "Foie Gras d'Anantra" that was not found in its restaurant menu. Also note that there's a bit of difference in pricing as well.

wine menu

We ordered a Pasta al Fruitti Di Mare (seafood pasta) and a Quarantaotto (24 hours braised beef short-ribs with mashed potato) for our mains and two glasses of pink moscato.

Diners have the flexibility to choose the pasta and the sauce.  We chose spaghetti and squid ink.

complimentary bread

One thing that I found peculiar with Covelli, was its complimentary bread. One piece per customer. Seriously, no joke.

They do serve iced-water, just that you'll need to request for it. One of the service staff was quite attentive and she came by periodically to top up the iced-water.

pink moscato

Our pasta arrived 10 minutes after the drinks were served. First reaction was that the pasta sauce was thinner than expected.

Pasta al Fruitti di Mare (spaghetti with squid ink sauce)

The seafood pasta has half slipper lobster, prawns (2 pieces), mussels (2 pieces) and baby squids. Its online menu actually listed more items such as fish, clams and scallops but we failed to find it in our dish.

yummy prawn

As the sauce was rather thin and watery, the umami usually associated with seafood wasn't found here. For some odd reasons, the cheese flavour was rather strong as compared to the flavours of the sea. But to be fair, the slipper lobster was nice and not too dry nor too hard, while the prawns were the best. Succulent and firm to the bite, albeit rather limited edition at just 2 pieces.

Next, was the 24 hours braised beef short-ribs.

Quarantaotto (24 hours slow braised beef short-ribs with mash potato)

with such handsome looking beef, can't wait to sink my teeth into this!

The Quarantaotto's beef looked good enough to make you want to eat it! But upon first bite, a question popped out automatically, "Did someone forget to add salt?" I'm all for natural flavours but still felt that something was missing from this dish. Even the mashed potatoes were a tad tastier than the beef! The mash had a bare hint of truffle.

The slow braised beef was tender but not till the extent of easily breakable by a fork.

tender beef on a bed of creamy truffle mash

This meal would've costs us about $48 per pax, but with Groupon vouchers, we paid about $28 per pax.