Pendolino

Pendolino in the Strand Arcade has been on my list to try ever since I’ve been to their sister restaurant, La Rosa, also in the Strand Arcade. And on a Friday evening when a bottle of red wine is much called for, not much beats a hearty Italian meal.

The Pendolino service was, well, an experience. We were served by several waiters, a manager (although we did have to wait 10 minutes for the manager to come take our order as it wasn’t within a waiter’s scope to do so), and a wine sommelier. We were also served complimentary items including an appetiser and chocolate truffles with great pomp and ceremony. All the staff were extremely professional, and there were a lot of them, so we definitely felt well taken care of.

However, the food, which is far more important to me than the service, was not as amazing. Several of the dishes were salty which is a shame as they were actually would have been topnotch were it not for the salt.

For the entree, I had the ‘Wild Weed’ spaghetti with a garlic chilli prawn sauce. It was delicious with both the spaghetti and prawns cooked perfectly. But, it was a little salty. My partner had the gnocchi with a veal tomato ragu. The gnocchi was so soft and silky and the sauce despite being a ragu, was nice and light.

For the main, I had the twice roasted duck leg. The duck was beautiful, with a crispy skin and tender meat. The let down of the dish though was the cauliflower puree which was too salty. My partner’s main, the salmon with mussels and potatoes, was pretty decent, but again, fell on the salty side. We had hoped that the mixed salad side we ordered would provide a relief from the saltiness, but somehow the dressing on that was also salty! The coolest part of the mains though was the solidified squid ink disc that sat on top of the salmon (photo below on the right)

The dessert was definitely the highlight of the meal. Firstly, we were given complimentary chocolate truffles which were delightful! I had the pistachio ice cream sandwich and my partner had the chocolate hazelnut eclair. Both were really yum, not too sweet, and in particular, the chocolate on the eclair was so smooth and rich.

Overall, it cost us $114 a head for the 3 course meal. While it was an enjoyable experience in terms of the atmosphere and getting dressed up to go somewhere more fancy than the joints we usually go to, it was also a letdown that the food wasn’t great.

If anything, the next time I crave Italian in The Strand, I’ll go to La Rosa, which has far more reasonable prices.

Details: Pendolino 100/412-414 George St, Sydney NSW 2000