Little Chan : Midweek dindins - Dunne & Crescenzi

Every time there is the slightest bit of rain in this city, traffic comes to a stand still......to the point you'd think we had just come under an avalanche of snow! Add an annual horse event which pulls a large amount of punters from all over the country to one showground and cue, total gridlock from all angles. Unfortunately for me, JD's workplace is right beside all this mayhem and on this particular night, it looked like we might be better off heading into town rather than heading home after I had picked him up from work. Not such a good idea as we were cruising at around 1km/hr all the way in!!! It got so bad that we ended up parking the car at one point and walking the rest of the way. Since we were walking past, we decided to try our luck and grab a table at Dunne and Crescenzi. When we were last living here, JD and I had been in a couple of times for a spot of lunch and had always enjoyed our food and been impressed with the quality. Fast forward 8 years and Dunne and Crescenzi are no longer the quaint Italian cafe/wine bar but a sprawling resto spanning 3 buildings across the original site plus a mini empire of restos throughout the city.

Things did not get off to a great start; the resto was not that busy and there were several waiting staff milling around not appearing to do a whole lot yet we were made to wait several minutes before someone decided that we deserved their attention to come and seat us. The same waiter who seated us continued with his service with a 'tude which wasn't exactly pleasant; a little ironic given the fact that we are pretty hassle-free customers and yet he was fawning over another mucho fussy customer, offering numerous samples of wine when she was only ordering the one glass??!!

Our food was OK except my pasta main course was seriously undercooked. I declined to say anything but halfway through my meal, a waiter (not the one with the 'tude) finally walked past our table and JD mentioned to him that my pasta was not cooked enough. He was very helpful and offered to cook another one for me. At first, I felt a little bad as I had already half of my dish but he was very gracious and said that it would be better that they served me something which I was happy with. The second dish of pasta was cooked properly but overseasoned which was a shame.

I could not stomach any dessert having eaten 1.5 dishes of pasta so JD was going to order a coffee. Service again was non-existent after our dessert menus were presented and we were kept waiting so long that in the end, we just asked for the bill instead. If we had had better service, I would consider coming back and I would've bought a bottle of wine for Ma Chan upon leaving. I won't be doing the former and I didn't do the latter.......their loss.