ISN’T it amazing how the combination of the simplest of ingredients like pine nuts, basil, extra virgin olive oil, garlic and cheese makes a rather versatile sauce?
Ardent cooks would have recognised these as essential ingredients in making pesto — the likeable green sauce covered in olive oil that is excellent on toasted bruschetta, pizza or tossed in a dish of pasta.
Crunchy toast: Homemade bread with Feta Cheese and Black Olives is an ideal starter while waiting for your main course to arrive.
This flavoursome paste is also incredible when just a dollop is spread over barbecued meats and fish or grilled prawns and steak.
Or take it a step further and add a spoonful to mashed potatoes or baked ones and it is also a good accompaniment to scrambled eggs and omelette.
Whether you call it a paste or sauce, it originates in Genoa, Italy, deriving its name from the Latin root word pestle which means to crush or grind.
Of course, to make grass green pesto, fresh basil is a must.
And if you’re still scratching your head trying to figure out what it tastes like, perhaps the folk at Porto Romano might win you over with some of their new and likeable pesto favourites.
Canadian treat: Canadian oysters are served on a bed of ice with lemon wedges and the Porto Romano chilli sauce offering a spicy tangy taste to the freshly shucked oysters.
Owner Eddie Wong confesses his deep liking for pesto-infused dishes.
“For the longest time, I have wanted to include pesto dishes on the menu but all the ingredients required to make it are imported. Hence, costing was always a concern.
“But we decided to introduce pesto dishes because we knew our customers would take to them,” he said when dining at the dimly lit upper floor of the Mont Kiara outlet recently.
He said both the pesto dishes - Spaghetti with Pesto Sauce and Chicken Strips and Pizza with Pesto and Chicken had become fast favourites with those who had tried them.
Parmesan cheese, he said was the preferred cheese in the outlet’s pesto sauce.
Hearty oxtail: This Oxtail Soup is a new addition on the soup section at Porto Romano. It is robust in flavour as the tomato-based soup is aromatic and flavourful.
The spaghetti strands came coated with pesto in extra virgin olive oil and chicken strips proved to be the perfect choice as the additional flavour.
We were indeed merry when we bit into the thin crust pizza, sharing notes on the delightful effect of pesto against the famous Italian flat bread.
Another addition to Porto Romano’s plethora of dishes is the aromatic tomato-based and herb- flavoured Oxtail Soup.
It is as the menu says, hearty and homey because it was easy to get hooked to the succulent soup with each spoonful.
But before we got down to the heavyweights of the night, Wong and his wife Sonila Hajderasi pampered us with a serving of freshly shucked greyish white Canadian oysters priced at RM42+ per half dozen.
As six pieces would have been inadequate for our party of five, a dozen of those wonderful oceanic treasures nicely propped up on a bed of ice were placed before us.
Lemon wedges accompanied the serving of oysters which were good with a touch of tang and even better with a drop or two of homemade Porto Romano chilli sauce.
I knew that Wong would not be serving the Stinco d’Agnello - Lamb Shank, my personal favourite on the main course but would instead unveil a main course I had never tried before.
It turned out to be the Moussaka, a classic Mediterranean favourite that is best known in its Greek form.
Hajderasi, who is Albanian, is familiar with the dish as it is also part of her cuisine.
Bearing similarity to the Greek version, the Moussaka is a generous serving with minced lamb, eggplant, capsicum, onions, carrot and garlic with a layer of bechamel with cheese to hide its rough texture.
With all that carbohydrates and meat, the Sole Fish Fillet grilled and served with lemon butter sauce lightened our load a little.
Of course, a meal is not complete until dessert shows itself and our meal ended with a rich and heavy Tiramisu.
The many paintings on the walls are by Hajderasi’s father who spent his recent holiday in Malaysia painting familiar scenes back in Albania and those of neighbouring lands.
The Mont Kiara outlet is the recent addition to the Porto Romano family. The other outlets are in Taman Tun Dr Ismail and Ampwalk (relocated from City Square).
RISTORANTE PORTO ROMANO, K-1, Mont Kiara Banyan, 28, Jalan Kiara, Mont Kiara, Kuala Lumpur. (Tel: 03-6207 8171 - Mont Kiara, 03-2162 6799 - Ampwalk, 03-7710 0509 - Taman Tun Dr Ismail). Business hours: 11am to 11pm daily.
