Pralina
Complicated menu but disappointing food
This was to be the slow and relaxing journey through the culinary mysteries of Florence and Aosta, toying with the polenta con salsa and embracing the tagliolini and the scaloppini di maiale, redolent of late holidays in Lombardy and Liguria. Let us now return to reality.
Pralina is situated on one of Nicosia’s most fashionable streets. Outside the restaurant, BMW boulevardiers enjoy an aperitif or coffee before departing for home. Inside all is crisp white linen, continental furniture, glass partitions, television banks, models on catwalks and fairly subdued popular music.
We were shown to a table at the rear of the restaurant and a waiter appeared immediately and filled our glasses with chilled water without asking if we wanted it and then produced the menus, in three languages, three colours and vast. My menu contained the remains of a previous meal but I could still read it. The primary language is Italian, followed by Greek and English; this is certainly an establishment that is out to attract the international diner. There are nearly seventy items on this menu which requires serious concentration. However we were there to eat from the new menu. My companion selected ‘Finocchio pure topped with fresh bacalao baked in tomato sauce and olives’ and to do the menu full justice we selected one starter, ‘Goat cheese salad with roasted hazelnuts and a honey and fig dressing’. The waiter that took the order delivered fresh baked rolls and a pot of olive pate and one of fetta cheese, which occupied us until starter time.
‘Finocchio’ did not disappoint and was consumed along with the goat cheese salad, which was a revelation – a very generous portion accompanyied by an excellent bed of crisp salad liberally splashed with a honey dressing over tender figs and smoked hazelnuts. We cleared the plate. It has been my experience that when a customer has finished with a dish it is cleared away but in this place they remain on the table until you leave.
Following the ‘small bites’ and ‘salads and starters’, on the menu, is the ‘charcuterie and cheese platter’, this offers platters for two of cheese or Italian charcuterie or a mixture of both. Then we have the pasta menu which includes ‘linguine with lobster and tomato sauce’, I was tempted by this and by the four items on the fish menu; baked cod, fillet of salmon, fillet of sea bass, and grilled prawns on zucchini, but decided to go for the veal. The pasta section on the menu is followed by three pages devoted to pizzas, sandwiches and burgers.
The last section on the menu is devoted to meat and poultry; many preparations of beef fillet, most imaginative sauces accompanying escalopes of pork and chicken, but the one that attracted my attention was the section devoted to veal. Now this is not a dish often encountered in Cyprus because our fat-stock industry has no ready market and the national taste is for mature beef. I assumed that the veal was imported as it was the most expensive item on the menu. ‘Vitello con erba cipollina’, which translates as ‘veal sirloin with chives and a white creamy sauce, vegetables and French fries, sounded magnificent. My companion, who has an Italian mother, was stirred by the gnocchi and leeks, upon which a fillet of salmon would reposing in a white wine sauce.
While there are occasions when a long delay between courses can give rise to annoyance and sometimes frustration, I suggest that on a busy Tuesday night, in an international restaurant in the centre of our capital city, one must be patient, particularly if you want your veal properly braised and your white wine sauce to be sufficiently creamy. To fill in the time the waiters drew us into conversation with the usual pleasantries, demanding to know our places of origin, why we couldn’t speak Greek etc.
The main course arrived; the waiter moved around the dishes from the first courses to make room for it. In best Italian style he flourished the giant pepper mill, and we were ready to start. It was one of those nights again. I noticed a thin film of skin had settled on the sauce embracing the salmon, gnocchi and leeks, usually this is an indication that a fresh meal has been left standing or it has been re-heated. I cannot believe an international restaurant could be guilty of the latter, so it must have been overlooked.
However, just because it was cold doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. The salmon was poached to perfection, but the gnocchi was disappointing, so we left it. The veal arrived exactly as described, in sauce accompanied by French fries and vegetables. This is perfectly accurate. The broccoli, carrots and beans, were in a condition which might be described as pre-al dente, the French fries had at some stage been perfectly cut and cooked, but not tonight. The veal? Served in three slices, each with a bracelet of gristle, not generally found in this meat, had obviously avoided the oven so like the companion’s dish was left. The plates were then cleared away, and although still containing the main courses, not a comment was made by waiters or managers.
We were the offered the sweet menu but did not feel sufficiently confident to explore it, instead we ordered two expressos, these were served with petit fours which were delicious. Just before we left the waiter dropped two samples of ‘Hermes’ perfume on the table, nothing was said, we assumed they were for us.
On arriving at the cash desk the waiter asked my opinion of the meal, on being told ‘it was awful’, he replied in time honoured fashion of the well seasoned waiter, ‘better luck next time’.
It cannot be often that such a cavalier attitude can prevail in an international restaurant in the centre of a capital city; it must me, or more likely the chef’s night off.
VITAL STATISTICS
SPECIALITY Italian menu
WHERE Pralina, Stassicratous, Nicosia
CONTACT 22 660491
PRICE £46 for three starters, two main courses, bottle of wine, coffees
