Letters from the Equator

My wife and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary at a very wonderful italian restaurant tonight, called Neroteca. It’s located at the ground floor of the Somerset Apartments on 8 Lorong Ceylon, which is near where Tingkat Tong Shin and Changkat Bukit Bintang is.

If you know where Istana Hotel is, at the side of that hotel is a smallish main road that leads to Changkat Bukit Bintang. If you turn right on one of those small lanes (the one that takes you to No Black Tie), and just keep going straight, you’ll end up at the Somerset. Neroteca is just at the bottom.

It’s a longish cosy restaurant with a bar and tables that neatly sit 4 people. At along the walls of the restaurant are shelves of italian foodstuff and some coffee products.

We ordered the starter special for today, which was the bacon wrapped around cheese and some rocket salad (i think). That was a wee bit salty, but probably because of the bacon, but very good nonetheless.

The mains were barbecued pork ribs and another pasta special, which was some ear pasta (or pasta that looked like ear, according to the waiter) with pork, brocolli and lovely garlic (was it fried?).

I think overall the food was decent. The service was good. The coffee was savoury, and the ambience fit the mood for a light celebration. My wife and I were there for almost 2 hours, talking about… uh, stuff.

I was especially delighted with a cappucino coffee maker called the Bialetti Mukka Express, Bialetti being the brand. It’s a very cute stove-top espresso coffee maker that has those cow patterns. And it’s supposed to make quite good cappucino. It also does espresso and lattes too.

It’s selling in the US for USD89, but for some really odd reason, it’s selling at Neroteca for less. Maybe they’re used units. The new ones come with 2 years warranty. I seriously don’t mind getting one since a proper espresso machine will cost me 10 times more.

Anyway, I thank the Lord for tonite as it was a really wonderful evening. We went to see the new Eye On Malaysia, which is partially a disgrace in comparison with the London Eye. After that we drove around KL for a bit, and went home.