Trattoria Il Porcellino

Trattoria Il Porcellino: Round Two. Earlier entry: August 23.

Cheese buffs, head here to sample fun varieties that other restaurants rarely serve. This "burrata" is a mild-tasting mix of mozzarella & fresh cream, boasting a buttery lusciousness to pamper the palate. Ask for it to be dished out at room temperature.

Four types of semi-hard Pecorino ewe's milk cheese, produced in Tuscany. Their delicately savory flavor, bonded with a nutty edge, would bring a nice boost to salads.

Trattoria Il Porcellino's porcine offerings are also noteworthy. Share this cold cut platter of wild boar salami, Parma ham, cured coppa, spicy salami, mortadella & salami felino for terrific tasting portions of pork from wide-ranging Italian regions.

Pork-stuffed tortellini with ham & cream. Rustic comfort food, like something that one might find in a mountain village of Emilia-Romagna.

Strozzapreti with wild boar ragout. The al dente doughiness of the hand-rolled, fat-tubed pasta was well complemented by its tangy, coarsely meaty coating.

Risotto with speck bacon & porcini mushrooms. Enjoyable for its warm earthiness.

Save space for dessert, particularly this tasty troika of mascarpone, nutella & strawberries. Smooth & sensuously sweet.

Yogurt ice cream with more strawberries.

Even the prosecco comes bearing strawberries. Yum!

Wine or beer ... pick your poison.

Trattoria Il Porcellino,

Menara Hap Seng, Jalan P. Ramlee, Kuala Lumpur.

Trattoria Il Porcellino

Now that Il Lido has gone pork-free & Chiaroscuro is plain gone, here's where can we go hog-wild with Italian cuisine in the city center.

Not the typical bruschetta: one topped with pork lard & walnuts, the other with minced pork & emmental cheese. A fabulously flavorful introduction to Trattoria Il Porcellino, a pork-filled, vastly superior offshoot of Jalan P. Ramlee's pork-free Trattoria Cucina Italia.

Tomino cheese wrapped in speck bacon. Soft, oven-baked cheese with smoky, salt-cured bacon: a hookup that's sinful but sensational.

Porchetta ham, described as "the product of a pig that's gutted, deboned, arranged in layers of meat, fat & skin, then rolled, spitted & roasted over wood." Sounds tediously elaborate, but the result tastes more satisfying than supermarket ham.

Crisp-skin suckling pig ribs stuffed with cheese & ham. A bane for girth control; too fatty & greasy for our liking, but still a rather unique recipe.

Atomica Pizza, topped with spreadable pork sausage, tomato & mozzarella. A fine change from other pizzas topped with ordinary sausage slices. This has mushy, spicy sausage meat spread across its surface, providing a pleasurable pungency to every bite.

Ruffino, Aziano Chianti Classico DOCG (Toscana). All in all, there's much to recommend about Trattoria Il Porcellino, a rare Italian outlet that has a predominantly female staff, including the heads of both its kitchen & service team.

Trattoria Il Porcellino,

Menara Hap Seng, Jalan P. Ramlee, Kuala Lumpur.

D'Ceilo

Hoping that Bangsar can sustain another spaghetti-serving sanctum, D'Ceilo has taken over from Tea For Two on Jalan Bangkung.

Smoked salmon bruschetta. This satisfactory starter fairly symbolizes D'Ceilo's philosophy of providing hearty, fuss-free Italian fare.

Spaghetti Gran D'Ceilo, a remarkably flavorful mountain of noodles with (deep breath) mussels, scallops, clams, prawns, broccoli, mushrooms, asparagus, capers & black olives, cooked in aluminum foil & topped with smoked duck breast & mesclun. On paper, this sounds pricey at RM123++, but three or four people can merrily share in its wealth of ingredients.

A kilogram of mirepoix-poached Red Sea prawns _ 24 air-flown crustaceans, all in all. Plump and juicy, but probably too much of a good thing. Suitable for, say, six to eight diners.

Keeping up the seafood streak: pan-seared salmon trout with vanilla pod tahitensis cream, butter basil, balsamic tomato & herbs. Moist and flaky; a relatively healthy reminder that Italian cooking isn't always a guilty affair.

One misstep: scallop, prawn & broccoli risotto. Closer to mushy than al dente.

Canadian cod, oven-baked with paprika & wild honey to enrich the fish's delicate flavors & garnished with tomato salsa to ensure a zesty zip.

Complimentary dessert: a twist on the traditional molten chocolate cake, set like pudding at the base of a bowl & topped with vanilla ice cream. This photo depicts the delicious hot mess that remained after we pierced through the gooey chocolate lava.

Double trouble: Lychee Mojito & Apple Mojito. Rejoice! A full bar serves cocktails here.

Richland Estate Chardonnay (2010, Australia). To quote a dwarf, everything's better with some wine in the belly.

D'Ceilo (or D'Ciello, perhaps; the manager's card spells it one way, the menu another),

Jalan Bangkung, Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur.

Tel: 03-2095-3729