CinCin Restaurant & Bar

Went to CinCin with some friends for a birthday. I had been here previously for a work dinner. Interestingly enough there was another branch in Daejeon that I used to frequent. That branch in Daejeon was actually my first experience of CinCin. It was one of the rare places I went to for meals whilst in Korea because I really didn't have a lot of choices.

I had the Tuscan Style Braised Duck Breast, pappardelle, red wine, tomato, black pepper. It's not on their online menu - I can only assume they'd run out of short rib and replaced it with duck breast. I had the small portion and added 2g of black truffle. At first, I couldn't really taste the truffle. But then I mixed it in to the oil and grease at the bottom of the plate and then it was delicious.

The duck was seasoned well and very tender. Another friend of mine had the same dish without the truffles but says it was too salty. I tasted the meat by itself, while well seasoned, I didn't think it was overly salty. Once you add the pappardelle to the bite, then it's perfectly balanced.

For dessert the five of us shared the Tiramisu, the fall spice panna cotta, and the macarons.

The fall spice panna cotta was like a pumpkin spice latte in solid form. The spice in the ginger crumbs were so aromatic and warm. It was the taste of Thanksgiving. The Panna Cotta itself was creamy but not gooey. It had set very well.

The marcarons were kind of a disappointment. Although I personally enjoyed the green tea flavoured one. My friends did not enjoy the others. They said that all they tasted was cream and they all taste the same.

Lastly the Tiramisiu was quite different from what you'd normally get. The ladyfingers were soaked with so much espresso, it was a mush in the bottom of the shot glass. And the taste itself was so strong of espresso you hardly tasted anything else. We also found the mascarpone was diluted with too much whipping cream, making it a lot lighter in texture than normal. I don't blame them, as mascarpone is so much more expensive than whipping cream. But honestly, I expected something more authentic from an Italian restaurant that charges you $12.50 for this tiny shot glass. The biscotti were a pleasant surprise though. It had a great balance of coffee and chocolate flavour.

When I first came I enjoyed the food. I didn't have to pay for it so I was in a great mood. I wouldn't have returned if not at the request of the birthday girl. I thought there were many more Italian restaurants in the city that had more bang for the buck. For example, the now closed down Quatro. The food is good, the service is good. It's just so darn expensive. Especially with all the good Italian food in the city, I will not return. But I will recommend if someone is looking for a fancy place to take someone for a special occasion.

Andiamo

Had dinner at Andiamo Bellevue tonight- not a bad experience. After Assaggio, we were hesitant about Italian restaurants.

We made reservations for 8, but didn't find out until last minute that it had changed to 6. Our friends arrived first and told the host/ server that we only had 6, but they sat us at the table for 8 anyway. Then after we arrived and the server came to take our drink orders and found out that we had 6 people, he decided to move us to another table. The table for 6 was great, nice round table, but couldn't they have done that when we first told them it was a table of 6?

The food was good though- preceded by some nice warm fresh bread.

We ordered the Tagliatelle, Veal Scaloppini Saltimbocca, and panna cotta. The tagliatelle was cooked perfectly and the flavour of the mushroom was strong and yet well balanced. As usual in 'Merica, portions were huge.

The veal was a little over cooked and tougher than expected. I also think they burnt the prosciutto or something because it felt like I was eating a piece of cardboard. But the pasta that came with it was solid. Good flavour, nothing crazy.

Panna cotta was decent. The texture was not as creamy as I expected. The fruit sauce added a nice tartness to it.

Everything was okay most of the time, except near the end there was some high pitched whining sound coming from the kitchen. It was not pleasant and went on for about 5 minutes. I would think if you had a loud kitchen, you'd install doors to block out the noise- no such luck.

Overall, if you're looking for decently priced and solid food, I'd recommend it. I guess we were spoiled by the good food at Federico's and other Italian places in Vancouver. I don't think we will return next time we're in Seattle though.

Yaletown L'Antipasto

The last dine out of 2014 and with a great crowd.

A few of us got off work early so we met up at the restaurant first. It was so hard to find, we all walked right past it. I had to look for the address to find it and my friends only found it when I waved at them.

Since we arrived an hour early, they decided to completely ignore us until 6:30pm - though, they did pour water for us and bring us the menu. They also brought the drink menu but didn't ask if we wanted to order drinks. I wanted to order a scotch to keep me warm while we waited for the rest of the party to show up.

Our fourth member showed up right on time and I was able to tell our server we can order while we wait for the last member. Our last member was running behind and by the time the beef tenderloin carpaccio showed up, she was still on her way. Our server was professional enough to realize the heat lamp will warm the carpaccio and offered to put her dish in the fridge while we wait.

The beef carpaccio was a little oily. Luckily we had bread that wasn't served when we were seated to absorb the oil. Maybe that was the purpose of the bread and that's why they didn't serve us bread when we sat down. We were served olives instead, which is a bold choice since not many people like olives.

As main course I ordered the pappardelle rosse. It was pretty tasty. The pasta was al dente and the ribs, chicken and sausage added really good and complex flavour to it. The only downside was that it too was very greasy / oily. Luckily, I eat from picking food off the top. I packed half of the pasta home and was able to avoid the oil collected on the bottom of the dish.

As dessert I ordered the vanilla panna cotta. Solid dessert. Not too sweet and very creamy. Maybe too creamy because the mouth feel was more like a creme brûlée than a gelatin. It should be in the middle.

Overall an alright experience. Plus side, we got tonnes of chocolate with our bill - which was thrown at us, but hey, the restaurant was crowded.