In the mood for Italian

A girls night out, something I hadn't really done with my cousins before. We had tickets to a church production one Sunday night and after finding the perfect parking spot (we decided to head out early to make sure we beat the crowd and got a parking space within sight of the church - yes, hello, kiasu!), we walked to Jaya 33 for dinner. After the usual ping pong of "You choose," "No, you choose", we settled on the first thing we saw as we rounded the corner to Jaya 33:


d'italian kitchen
PG-01B Ground Floor,
Jaya 33,
No 3 Jalan Semangat,
Section 13, 46100 Petaling Jaya.
Tel: 03-7956 3684

Determined to have dessert, we thought we'd order on the light side - a few this and thats to share among ourselves.

To start off, mushroom soup. Personally, I'm not a big fan of mushroom soup, probably the result of one too many instances (pardon the pun) of instant soup. It's always a let down when you find lumps of undissolved soup mix at the bottom of the bowl. I have to give the place props for some pretty authentic-tasting mushroom soup - creamy, with the subtle taste of fresh mushroom, there was nothing instant about it.

The Sicilian Chicken Salad that along with the mushroom soup, kicked off the meal. This was something I randomly picked out of the menu. "Well marinated chicken, pine nuts, mango and grapes" - that really caught my eye. The (what seemed like) random mix of things really went well together, and pine nuts are always a plus. We really loved this one. Goes to show that a little creativity can go a long way.

Spicy crab linguine. Despite what the name might suggest, it wasn't too spicy and was really quite a pleasant balance of flavour. The slight punch made the tomato based dish a little more interesting.

Giant River Prawn Arrabiata. As you can see, we were in the mood for shellfish that night. This one had more sauce to it, had a stronger tomato flavour and tasted not unlike a marinara sauce. Traditionally, arrabiata is made with red pepper flakes but one couldn't really make out the red pepper in this one.

As you probably would have guessed, we ended up being much too full for dessert. The size of the portions surprised us somewhat, as did the overall quality of food - and in a good way. If anything, I'd go back for the Sicilian Chicken Salad anytime and perhaps another shot at trying to make it to dessert.