Danieli's

Saturday night and we suddenly felt like a nice dinner and Danieli's came to mind. We've always wanted to go try it as it was voted the best Italian and one of the top 5 romantic places here. The catch: it's in the sticks in Pudong.

A long cab ride and 30 mins later we arrived the St. Regis Hotel where the restaurant is located. The place (hotel + restaurant) was not very busy at all, just as we had suspected.

There are 2 dining rooms occupying 2 sides of the building. We were seated where the other customers were all sitting (there were around 4 or 5 occupied tables), even though the other side was empty. The table in the middle with 2 running kids luckily left shortly after.

We sat and looked at the menu for 5 mins before we were asked what we wanted to drink. We forgave them cos all the waiters there seemed pretty nice and gentle.

Here's the small appetizer we got served before our bread first thing. We thought it was tuna or some kind of fish but it was actually chicken. Interesting.

The bread was nice and warm.

My husband's antipasto. Very cute looking but I personally would prefer a little more in quantity. He liked the fried cheese ball on the bottom left corner the most. The rest of the it was all pretty good he said.

My tuna medallion with pineapple variations was very nice and refreshing indeed. The fish was very fresh and the pineapple arrangement was very interesting. The flattened and semi-dry pineapple on the bottom was actually very tasty. Totally enjoyed it.

The snapper fillet. Fresh but the snapper didn't have a lot of taste to it.

My barramudi fillet with squid ink pasta. The fish was excellent. It had so much more flavours than the snapper - nothing to do with the cooking we didn't think. Having said that the sauce was jolly nice and the 4 squid ink pasta made it a very light dish. Good thing I wasn't starving.

The piedmont chocolate cake. My husband does not remember much about it 10 days later so I guess it's not that memorable. He seemed to have enjoyed it at the time though.

I had some kind of frozen pannacotta thing and again I don't really remember much about it. It must be the champagne and wine we had.

All in all it wasn't a bad dining experience. The food was nicely prepared and the atmosphere was OK. Where we sat the view wasn't that spectacular but perhaps we were on the wrong side. Don' think we will go all the way back as it's too far to travel for what you get. The food in Laris is equally as nice so why bother?

Warning: the wine list is exorbitantly expensive.

Danieli's

39/F, St. Regis Shanghai, 889 Dong Feng Rd., Pudong. Tel: 5050-4567