Papi at Mohammed Sultan Road

I have been trying hard to organize a dinner at Astons Specialities with my friends, but being very busy people, it’s a hit-and-miss affair. Fortunately, I was also trying very hard to organize another dinner at Papi’s for a long time with no success.

Putting the two together was quite easy. The people who were available to make it were also Pizza lovers.

Why all the effort? Well, it is quite difficult to go solo, duo or even trio to a restaurant and sample their best and finest. So with a nice group of 7-10, it is great as we can order up one, two, many, lots!

Papi is run as a Trattoria which is a slightly more casual dining place than a ristorante. I like this because it is where the service is warm and personal. Like all good eating establishments that last.

One of my pet peeves about the restaurants in Singapore is the ridiculous corkage they charge. While they acknowledge that the wine cost (just corkage alone, excluding the cost of the actual wine) may exceed the food cost, they make no attempt at negotiating or accomodating a large group of people.

Anyway, the corkage for wine at Papi is $20. While it is actually pretty reasonable, with a group of 10 with each bringing 2 or 3 bottles each, the corkage would quickly turn out to be very costly indeed. Anyway, Papi and I came to an agreeable arrangement.

This bode well.

Service at Papi is excellent. Old school charm with slight cheek that is endearing. Discreet and very accomodating.

Lovebirds: There are quite a few quiet corners for that romantic evening.

I was early and was refreshed with water flavoured with orange, mint and cinnamon and bread warm from the oven.

The menu is simple. Pasta and Pizza. After all what did you think PaPi stands for?

Of course, there is the traditional antipasti, soups and a Meat Of The Day which turned out to be an amazing braised leg of lamb. I actually heard one of the serving staff go “Wow!” at the sight of the lamb. I totally agree.

As mentioned before, to truly try out a restaurant, you need a good sized group of people. Why?

It’s because we order whatever we fancy. And I do believe we ordered most of the antipasti menu.

The Roast Veal in Tuna sauce was one of my favourites. The tuna sauce, drizzled with Olive oil, was very very creamy with a slight hint of sweetness from the tuna that went very well with the cold roast veal.

The calamari was also excellent. Lightly battered and served with a lightly spiced tomato sauce and cracked black pepper, this was quickly finished.

The Chicken Salad and Mozzarella platter brought up the rear. Both were flavourful, especially the Mozzarella which was the real thing made from the milk of water buffaloes in Naples.

We ordered so much that the only way we could eat was to keep passing around a plate to share. Keeping a plate floating around in the air while eating was fun. Very communal, family-style.

We also ordered pasta. Lots of really good pasta.

I did not touch the seafood pasta as I do not take prawns as a rule. The Rigatoni was nice, chunky, chewy and full of tomato goodness.

However, I made a beeline for the squid ink pasta. Strangely, the thought of squid ink as a sauce might turn people away, but I’ve used this as a marinade for barbequing squids for a long time, so I was familiar with the concept.

Sweet and slightly sticky, I think the Linguine gave the dish a good bite. Who cares about blackened teeth?

When you get a group of pizza lovers which included native New Yorkers to check out pizzas, you can be assured of a thorough taste test. The menu offered a multitude of pizzas, so it was a tough choice. Finally an order of 5 pizzas was made.

The Boscaiola Pizza is a simple affair made up of Panchetta Bacon (mmmm… Bacon…) and Porcini which have nothing to do at all with porcines. Some times you see a thing and hear a word…

The spicy pepperoni pizza had the very angry name of Infuriata. Cool…

As they were so good, both were quickly torn apart and consumed by the pack.

To be sure, the Il Mare pizza was not made from little horses as the name suggests. It was a seafood affair with prawns and mussels which sadly, I did not partake in.

However, the Regina Pizza was something else. Chockful of sweet sweet ham with its non-brethren Porcini, this was a winner. In fact, someone from the group ordered this takeaway.

It’s a good thing.

What was different was the Napolentana pizza which was made from Anchovies, Olives and more vegetarian Porcini. Some commented that it was very salty, but I liked it, especially with the olives. And it actually went very well with the wines.

And the wines, the wines!

There is something about drinking Italian wines with Italian food. The match is excellent. The Italians have designed their wines to go very well with their food, which is awesome.

Dessert was pretty ok, but after all that food, we were stuffed. However, I would recommend the Pinenut cake with ice cream as it had a very interesting nutty taste that went very well with the vanilla of the ice cream.

All in all, we had a great time. Prices were reasonable with pizzas ranging from $18 to $20 each. We were happy as we finally got our pizza fix.

Compliments to Chef Salvatore Catalano!

Papi is part of the Oso Ristorante group. And is located at 5, Mohammed Sultan Road and can be contacted at 67326269 for reservations.

Posted on 12th Aug 2006 in Food and Drink, Italian, Makankaki

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There Are 9 Comments

bottomless pit commented on August 14, 2006 at 5:58 pm

The Roast Veal in tuna sauce caught my attention….and i am envious of the diverse variety you got to try….. lucky fella. Which part of MS is it at? would love to give it a shot…

ivn commented on August 15, 2006 at 1:17 am

Thanks! I think it was a good idea to get a group of people to try out restaurants.

It’s 5, Mohammed Sultan Road. Just opposite the Bak Kut Teh stall near UE Square.

food.recentrunes.com » Blog Archive » Hokkien and Teochew Bak Kut Teh commented on September 2, 2006 at 4:58 pm

[...] Was a couple of hours early for what turned out to be an excellent dinner at Papi. So I decided to pop over across the road and get some tea. [...]

bottomless pit commented on September 17, 2006 at 11:29 pm

I visited Papi today. Was suitably impressed. I must say it was quite of a high standard. I had the Boscaiola Pizza which was great and the seafood pasta. I know you don’t eat the prawns but the prawns were really turgid and nice. hahah the white wine sauce was swwwweeeettt.. hahhah i guess i would be back for more. Desserts were so so..nothing very impressive but the strawberry sorbet i had was quite refreshing and light so it was a nice end for the already delicious meal. Thanks for the post!

Ivan commented on September 18, 2006 at 1:44 am

Glad you liked it. Did you try the veal?

I’ll take your word for it on the prawns though.

bottomless pit commented on September 19, 2006 at 12:17 am

No i didn’t… had the pizza as appetizer and the pasta as main hahha… forgot to add the service was excellent. Will be back for more hahah

cindy commented on September 29, 2006 at 5:33 pm

Have known Catalano since back in Fuenti where he was manager and baked their bread fresh daily.. after trying Papi, I gave him my feedback that the pastas were too salty, he said the asst chef may be adding salt after he had prepared the sauces.

Anyway, my friend went recently and she said their whole group found all the pastas wayyy too salty.

Ivan commented on September 30, 2006 at 1:06 pm

@cindy: Well, we found the pastas and pizzas ok. It was good as we tried the majority on the menu. The only really “Salty” was the pizza with anchovies and Olives, so that’s to be expected. In fact it was very enjoyable.

Mind you, we had many excellent Italian wines that night. The ones in the photos are with the colorful labels.

Many factors can contribute to the saltiness, cooking the pasta, the cheese, sauce etc all require some salt. Which pastas did you and your friends have?

Cat commented on October 17, 2006 at 10:52 pm

Went to Papi with a group 5 girls. Food was very good, though the pasta dishes were rather small. The pizzas were brought out 20 mins before the other main dishes but this aparently isn’t a usual occurance. Pizzas were delicious espcially the salmon with rocket on top. The wines were good and reasonably prices from about $60 a bottle. The service was excellent and a very friendly waiter served us.

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