New Spring Menu at La Dolce Vita New Spring Menu at La Dolce Vita

La Dolce Vita Lives It Up in New Spring Menu

Tracy Wang, Senior Editor | Apr 25, 2016 2:30 pm | Add a comment | 1564 reads

La Dolce Vita continues on its mission to serve authentic Italian and Mediterranean cuisine, which is now even better value for money if you head over for one of their weekday deals.

Chef and Manager Fabio Falanga divulged to us just which days will pay to visit: Mondays are 30 percent off the a la carte menu; Tuesdays are 30 percent off on the wine list; Wednesdays are a four-course set dinner for RMB 198/298 with wine pairing; lobster fettuccine and Chardonnay on Thursdays; and throughout the week until the end of May, an RMB 88 set lunch. They also serve a four-course vegetarian lunch at RMB 198 on weekends. Their wine list features 40 wines from various regions around Italy, which can be tasted during their finger food and wine special for RMB 100 available every night from 6-8pm. They also stock a number of imported beers.

The new menu was released on March 30, reducing the options from 80 dishes to seven starters and salads, four pastas, five main courses, and five desserts. There is no pizza on the menu.

Once you are seated, a friendly waiter will serve a glass of wine, homemade bread, and snacks to welcome you. “A lot of Chinese customers get overwhelmed and we have to tell them that it's all for free,” Falanga said.

We tried the lemon octopus with potato and leeks cream, chips, and paprika (RMB 68). "It is a traditional salad from Napoli– in the summer we always have octopus,” continues Falanga. The texture of the octopus was very soft, and tasted fabulous when eaten with the accompanying chip.

Next we tried seafood fregola, a Sardinian pasta similar to couscous, with mullet bottarga (RMB 88). The mullet were cooked separately from the fregola, then put that on top of the fregola. We were also served Icelandic cod with clams, shrimp, cherry tomatoes, anchovies, and parsley (RMB 188), a dish from Campania. The cod was full of flavor, and very fresh.

Finally, we were offered three types of vegetarian lasagna: grilled porcini, sautéed peppers, zucchini alla scapece (RMB 78), the grilled porcini was my favorite, full of flavor from the mushrooms.

As lovers of all things sweet, we opted for two desserts: rum baba with vanilla cream, minced pistachios, and strawberries (RMB 58). The baba was soaked in rum and paired particularly well with the vanilla cream, also from Campania.

With its semifreddo half-liquid half-solid texture, the La Dolce Vita Cheesecake was a delight from start to finish, covered a thick layer of minced almond biscuits.