La Forketta Gastronomia Italiana, Singapore

Based on outside appearances alone, I could never really get too excited about this place (491 River Valley Rd #01-01, 6836-3373). It had a cheesy-sounding name, ultra-commercialized decor and logo, and a pizza/pasta-heavy menu (our expressionless waitress thought that risotto was a type of beer, BTW). So I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed a number of items here.

The bowl of bread that came to each table was encouraging. Light, fresh, and inclusive of tomato sauce-topped varieties that almost resembled pizza, the bread got me quite excited, especially since I usually don't like bread that much. I had a good time with a couple of the baked items too, such as the baked penne pasta with meatballs, which were topped with cheese and breadcrumbs and done just long enough to get it slightly crispy on top. The meat lasagna, while not necessarily crispy on top like I like it, was still super rich from all of the cheese too. My, how deceiving appearances can be.

Still, it wasn't a total home run. A couple of the (boiled) pastas that we had were nothing too inspiring, and were also a tad overpriced considering that they were just pasta: around S$20-25 (US$13-17) each...and they even surprised us with a S$4.50 (US$3) charge for that bowl of bread that they shoved onto your table without asking. Perhaps the pizzas would be more remarkable; even though we didn't try any, they did seem to be moving them in heavy volumes tonight. Well, given the prices, I wouldn't make any extra effort to come here. But the baked items that I had were better than I thought it would be.