Saiseriya Ristorante E Caffe

Liang Court #02-22 – Singapore

Hiding in a corner of the reopen, remodeled and restyled Liang Court, is an Italian restaurant, with an obviously Japanese name. A giant poster hanging in the foyer tells me there 800 outlets in Japan, and here’s the first in Singapore.

The Ambience

The Sicilian coloured restaurant was unassumingly simple but pleasant. A fairly large seating area means the decibels are on the high side when crowded. The fluorescent lighting made the place feel like a fast food restaurant, only better.

The Service

Can you say fast? The manager personally took our orders. His warm and extremely courteous manner made us order a little more than we initially wanted. The rest of the wait staff was also very courteous and attentive. There was not one moment when anyone in the restaurant had the chance to feel neglected. The food arrived in record time despite a full restaurant. Most impressive.

The Food

The prices were noticeably lower than usual. Whilst it seemed like good news, it made me doubt for a moment about the expected quality.

Minestrone Vegetable Soup – Clear tomato based soup with a surprising familiar taste which I just cannot put my finger on. The ingredients were fresh with a surprise entry of fried bacon.

Seafood Chowder – Slightly tastier than the Minestrone, a nice creamy texture with a satisfactory mix of seafood tastes.

Glazed Escargots – My favourite dish. Non chewy escargot baked in butter and spices. The butter sauce was so good we had to order extra Foccacia bread to soak up the remnants. The pricing also made it difficult not to place another order of it.

Focaccia – It was more like Naan than Focaccia, but nonetheless, it was freshly baked, warm, soft and perfect with the Escargots and soup.

Doria with Meat Sauce – The picture on the menu had a crown placed beside it. Their Number 1 dish! For the life of me, I did not know what Doria was. The picture looked nice enough though. The mystery was solved with the arrival of the hot dish. It was like a gratin except it had risotto in place of mashed potatoes. The creamy cheese sauce with slightly burnt edges topped with a tomato based beef sauce went well with the risotto within.

Spaghetti with Mushroom and cream – My least favourite dish. The spaghetti was limp and uninspired. The sauce needed more flavour and less salt.

Spaghetti Vongole Rosso – Similar to the cream version, the lifeless spaghetti made this dish placid and slightly boring. However, the spaghetti was lower priced than most food court pasta. Still, I would have expected something better.

Pizza With Mushrooms – The cheese was a little too oily and runny. Other than that, the pizza was reasonably well made and loads better than Pizza Hut’s.

Hamburger Steak with Mushroom Sauce – The better of the two Hamburger dish, the mushroom sauce featured strong tasting mushrooms which made everything on the plate tasty. Everything had a dash too much salt for my liking though.

Hamburger Steak with Cheese and Tomato – The melted mozzarella made the steak slightly tougher and the flavours did not go too well. I would just order the mushroom version on my next visit.

Despite our obvious over order (there were three of us), the price was still kept reasonably low. The portions did not reflect the price as they were quite substantial. Overall, an enjoyable experience with lower priced food. As a bonus, for less than $3 per person, drinks bar buffet featured Latte and Cappuccino that would make most places which overcharge for them hide in shame. Definitely worth a revisit.

Ambience – 7/15

Service – 11/15

Food – 9/15