{"id":1441,"date":"2015-06-14T18:25:17","date_gmt":"2015-06-14T10:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/?p=1441"},"modified":"2019-02-03T17:20:47","modified_gmt":"2019-02-03T09:20:47","slug":"the-lighthouse-good-pasta-and-views-meat-courses-fall-short","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/2015\/06\/14\/the-lighthouse-good-pasta-and-views-meat-courses-fall-short\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lighthouse – Good Pasta and Views, Meat Courses Fall Short"},"content":{"rendered":"

I went\u00a0to check out The Lighthouse, the\u00a0rooftop restaurant at The Fullerton Hotel, as I’ve always liked Chef Carlo Marengoni’s cooking. I also wanted to try some\u00a0of its\u00a0southern Italian dishes\u00a0to see how it compared to my experience from a recent visit to Sicily. In short, I enjoyed the starters and the pasta dishes\u00a0but\u00a0our meat courses disappointed especially when compared to what Chef Carlo used to offer at his own restaurant.<\/p>\n

\"Fullerton<\/a>
Inside the restaurant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Firstly, the views in the evening from The Lighthouse’s rooftop bar make it a great place to start with a cocktail. The restaurant itself also has decent views of Marina Bay. At around 7:30 pm, the sky turns a deeper blue making this the ideal time to get some nice blue hour photos of the city skyline.<\/p>\n

\"Fullerton<\/a>
Great views from the rooftop bar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We decided to try two antipasti, two pasta, two meats and two desserts from the a la carte menu. The Lighthouse also offers a decently valued five-course set menu for SGD118 but it didn’t have a couple of the items I wanted to specifically try.<\/p>\n

We started with the Polipo alla Luciana – essentially braised octopus in a light tomato and black olive sauce and a Frittura di Paranza (mixed fried\u00a0seafood). I think both antipasti\u00a0were good, albeit not mind blowing. While I prefer octopus simply\u00a0char-grilled, the octopus here was nicely done and the accompanying sauce was good. The Frittura had a nice combination of prawns, white bait, calamari and fish.<\/p>\n

\"Braised<\/a>
Polipo alla Luciana<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mixed<\/a>
Frittura di Paranza<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The standout dishes for us were the pasta. The Tortello Ripieno\u00a0(essentially a large tortellini) was filled with burrito cheese and served in a light tomato sauce with basil.<\/p>\n

\"Fullerton<\/a>
Tortello Ripieno<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Our other pasta was a Spaghettoni alla Bottaga – a spaghetti tossed in chili, olive oil, garlic, bread crumbs and shaved bottaga (salted cod fish eggs). I regret not ordering more pasta and skipping one of the meat courses.<\/p>\n

\"Fullerton<\/a>
Sphaghettoni alla Bottaga<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I think we may have done better trying the breaded pork chop – which is highlighted in the menu. However, my friends wanted to try the ribeye and we opted for the sea bream to contrast with the beef. I thought the sea bream was nicely cooked – the whole fish is simply oven baked\u00a0with leeks, cherry tomatoes and basil and accompanied with potatoes. But it did need an extra squeeze of lemon (which is provided with the dish) and olive oil. As otherwise, it was a bit dry. I think a sea bass (branzino) would be better than the sea bream but on our night, the more traditional sea bass was not available. The Merluzzo (cod) alla Pizzaiola \u00a0may have been a more robust fish dish to try.<\/p>\n

\"Fullerton<\/a>
Oven baked sea bream as presented to the table<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Fullerton<\/a>
Oven baked sea bream – after it was divided by our server<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The issue we had with our rib-eye was that it was overcooked – a no-no for a fine restaurant serving high end steak. We ordered medium rare and most of the meat came out medium. This was all the more disappointing partly because Chef Carlo used to do a really good Bistecca Fiorentina at his restaurant. I wish this was on offer at The Lighthouse instead of the rib-eye. He also made some amazing sausages too. Perhaps we should have gone with the ossobuco.<\/p>\n

\"Fullerton<\/a>
Grilled rib-eye<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We had a really nice sfogliata dessert – light layers of puff pastry and cream with thinly sliced strawberries. My husband had a pannacotta, which was decent but he said was not as good as the sfogliata.<\/p>\n

\"Fullerton<\/a>
This was a good dessert – sfogliata layers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Fullerton<\/a>
Panacotta<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Although\u00a0I think the restaurant was a little short-handed, the service level was actually good considering the limitations that many Singapore restaurants are facing at the moment. You did have to flag down the wait staff\u00a0occasionally but otherwise, they were knowledgable and amiable.<\/p>\n

We paid SGD140\u00a0per person excluding wine\u00a0– but we had ordered the two most pricey meat dishes\u00a0on the menu. There was also three of us sharing the food – as otherwise, I think having four courses per person from the a la carte menu is really a lot of food. Portions were healthy. So price-wise for the food, pleasant service and views, I think it was fair.<\/p>\n

Reservations should be made, especially as space is limited on the rooftop. Fullerton Hotel website:\u00a0<\/strong>http:\/\/www.fullertonhotel.com\/dining\/diningCategories_3-en.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Reservations for The Lighthouse can also be made through Chope:<\/strong>\u00a0http:\/\/www.chope.co\/singapore-restaurants\/restaurant\/the-lighthouse-restaurant<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went\u00a0to check out The Lighthouse, the\u00a0rooftop restaurant at The Fullerton Hotel, as I’ve always liked Chef Carlo Marengoni’s cooking. I also wanted to try some\u00a0of its\u00a0southern Italian dishes\u00a0to see how it compared to my experience from a recent visit to Sicily. In short, I enjoyed the starters and the pasta dishes\u00a0but\u00a0our meat courses disappointed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,1,115,22],"tags":[43,69,76],"class_list":["post-1441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asiapac","category-home","category-singapore","category-singapore-food","tag-featured","tag-italian_food","tag-singapore","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1441"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1460,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions\/1460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gazeandgraze.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}