Today's dabao lunch from Buko Nero, a small but well loved Italian restaurant at Tanjong Pagar Road.
Our simple lunch - there's Seafood & Avocado Salad, Tagliolini with Nduja Ragu, Pan Seared Fillet of Halibut, Grandma's Cake, complimentary bread and cookies. It's quite a lot of food for two people.
During the current "lockdown", Buko Nero have weekly delivery / self collect specials. Look out for it in their Facebook page or Instagram.
Buko Nero's Seafood & Avocado Salad with Avruga Caviar is a stunner.
The seafood and avocado salad was so crazy rich in umami-savoury and sweet flavours from prawn, scallop, squid, avocado, crunchy cucumber, etc. The Avruga Caviar add a layer of robust savoury flavour.
By the way, Avruga Caviar is an affordable caviar substitute but it tastes great (sans the signature pop of roe).
Pan Seared Fillet of Halibut with Spicy Spanner Crab Bisque. The fillet looked like a gold ingot set in a stash of jewels (jade, pearls, gold).
The beautifully seared outside was slightly dry while the inside still had some moistness. Still, we can taste that the slab of fish was fresh and there was a bit of subtle sweet fish flavour.
Most of the flavours came from the spanner crab bisque and it was great. It's like a thick vegetable stew with crab bisque - a rich blend of umami-savouriness and vegetable sweetness.
Homemade Tagliolini with Nduja Raju.
The thick pasta was soft-tender chewy to the bite (like yellow noodles but stiffer, denser). The heavy strands of egg noodles were fully enveloped in the heavy Nduja ragu sauce with bits of ground pork. The rich sauce tasted savoury, tart, slightly spicy.
Grandma's Cake is flourless with white chocolate and ground almonds. Spongy, fudgy, moist, not too sweet, not chocolatey - I like it.
Buko Nero is Italian for "black hole". I am not sure of the inspiration for the name but Buko Nero is a 20-seater, hole in the wall shop that is an institution here at Tanjong Pagar since 2000. Buko Nero is an Asian mom, Italian pop outfit serving Italian fare with Asian influences.
Meanwhile, you may also want to check out their menu and sample some dishes in their weekly specials.
Written by Tony Boey on 12 Jun 2021 🥡 Day 28 of Singapore Phase 2 Heightened Alert to curb Covid-19 spread.