il Sogno

On a cold & wet night we were seated at il Sogno's 'emergency table' due to the place being otherwise fully booked.  The manager then said if we wanted alcohol, we should make our way across the road as they were licenced but BYO only.

It then took a few minutes before a waiter came to give us menus.  Water wellness then passed the test.  However when I later ordered a soft drink, I was just served the small bottle and nothing else, so ET resorted to pouring my drink into the wine glass which was luckily left on the table :S

For entree we shared calamari which, much to my delight, included the tentacles.  Not being a fan of rocket, I actually ended up eating quite a bit of it to cancel out some of the squid's saltiness.  What I found weird was that no sauce was served; just a piece of lemon.

For main ET ordered the lasagna which he said was delicious.

Except he did add pepper which he wasn't too happy about simply because the salt & pepper is on an uncovered dish at every table.  ET later said he saw a fingerprint on the salt.  Which leads us to believe that they are not replaced at every seating.  Hmmm.  We didn't like the thought of this.

I went for the barramundi special with cauliflower mash and kale.  I found the fish a little dry and lacking in flavour.  But upon trying the kale, I was surprised to find it spicy.  It wasn't until it was all that was left on my plate when I saw the pieces of chilli sprinkled around it.

Perhaps I shoud have followed my instinct and ordered the lasagna.  After all, all their pasta is made in-house; no mass production here.

For dessert I chose poached pear which I thought was meant to come with a nut crumble (I can't recall which nut was written on the menu).  But to me, the crumble tasted like raw sugar.  Eaten separately, each component of the dessert was nothing spectacular.  However when all elements of the dish were eaten in one bite, I was quite satisfied and left nothing but the stem on the plate.

The place is quite small & rather intimate but with a huge group celebrating something on the night, it was extremely loud, ET & I gave up trying to converse and even the waitress could not hear me order.  And that was when we could finally get the staff's attention.

il Sogno 
512 Whitehorse Rd, Surrey Hills