Dining With Jewelle

Reading some of Brunei’s prominent bloggers raving about the latest restaurant in the country is nothing unusual. What piqued my interest about this latest Italian place in the country was when another blogger chose to be harder to please - perhaps because he claimed to have real Italian experiences and definitely because the others were singing too many happy praises about it.

My sister informed me that she had visited Villa Mauri’s sister restaurant at the Jesselton Hotel in Kota Kinabalu called Bella Italia- which as per Rano’s interview with the owner, was opened 2 years ago.

She was not too thrilled with her main dish then but she adored the celebrated Fantasia Di Maria which was incidently the chocolate pudding I wanted to try.

So last weekend when I was back in town, my sister, her fiance and I met for dessert at Bella Italia and indulged in one Fantasia Di Maria….

And one Tiramisu…

Each of these slices now cost RM12 each - an increase of RM3 from when my sister first had it. The Fantasia Di Maria was delicious but as I quote them “Not as soft and high as before”.

But the chocolate that oozed out from it’s centre, the garnished ice cream and the extra cherry which I noted was missing from both the Villa Mauri’s and my sister’s previous visit to Bella Italia quite made up for it - although to be honest it smelt and tasted quite like the kind of chocolate cake I used to make, minus the gooey centre of course, and I am not even a baker…

The Tiramisu however was what a cake should be - I can’t say if it’s a great Tiramisu though. Soft, light, not too sweet, beautiful to look at but missing the coffee smell - and isn’t that what makes Tiramisu special?

Perhaps it was not the baker’s good day or my expectation was too high or I forgot that I actually don’t really like cake all that much but I quite honestly don’t see why the Fantasia Di Maria is supposedly very famous.

But of course, I will try it again one day just to see if I will change my mind…