I bought a group buy­ing coupon back in May and didn’t have the chance to visit this restau­rant until recently. It is an upscale Ital­ian restau­rant located on the third floor of the River Rock Casino in Rich­mond, BC. At first I didn’t know there was such a restau­rant in Rich­mond though I live in Rich­mond, espe­cially rarely vis­it­ing the casino. So I went with a friend and my mom. The coupon was a really great deal, I paid $50 for hav­ing $100 worth of any­thing on the menu, includ­ing tips as well plus $10 to play the slot machines. We made the reser­va­tion just about 30 min­utes before arriv­ing (didn’t plan on going until then). We arrived at the restau­rant and was greeted and seated promptly. We sat in front of the win­dow, over­see­ing the Arthur Laing Bridge and the beau­ti­ful sun­set that day.

Their menu wasn’t too big but still offered a vari­ety of dishes to choose from. I thought the prices were quite high with­out the coupon. We ordered an entrée and two pasta dishes. The ser­vice was excel­lent, our server was very polite and I felt like he was really tak­ing care of us.

They served two kinds of breads — a Rose­mary Fococ­cia and a crusty Baguette with whipped but­ter. The bread was prob­a­bly one of fresh­est I’ve had in a restau­rant, we had a sec­ond round .

I ordered the Kurobuta:

“grilled Snake River Farms Kurobuta pork chop, braised smoked pork cheek ravi­oli, potato gnoc­chi, morel mush­rooms, apple com­pote, Madeira savory jus”

The server reminded that the meat is served a lit­tle pink on the inside and I didn’t mind. It was a very high qual­ity piece of meat and pre­pared quite well — fresh, juicy, ten­der, and not over­cooked. The ravi­oli was also quite good. For me though, the gnoc­chi didn’t really stand out. Also, the morel mush­rooms seemed over­whelmed by the sauce. I enjoyed the pork chop — seared with a smoky flavour and paired with the apple com­pote and the sauce. The clas­sic com­bi­na­tion of flavours com­pli­ment each other very well.

My mom ordered the Linguini:

“grilled Qualicum Beach scal­lops and wild prawns, Pinot Gri­gio and pesto cream sauce”

The seafood on the pasta was excep­tion­ally fresh, the pasta was quite good. The pesto is very fine and smooth — not chunky at all, it was very tasty. I thought it was a bit oily, but it was a pesto afterall.

My friend ordered the Orec­chi­ette:

“house made Ital­ian sausage, caramelized onions, tomato sauce”

We asked the server how to say the name of this pasta but I have already for­got­ten . The name in Ital­ian means “small ears”, which is the shape of the pasta. I really liked the sauce of the pasta, it was smooth and rich in tomato flavour, a lit­tle sweet and tangy, tasted very deli­cious with the pasta. The sausage was also good, I didn’t taste a lot of fat in there.

We had the Tiramisu for dessert. The pre­sen­ta­tion was quite nice. For me, it wasn’t creamy enough and I didn’t taste a lot of Mas­car­pone cheese.

Tiramisu

Over­all we had a great expe­ri­ence din­ing here, the food was deli­cious and the ser­vice was excel­lent. I would prob­a­bly go there again but not often because of their expen­sive prices.