I was meeting a friend I hadn’t seen in a while for a weekday lunch, and when I thought about where to go around Sinsa-dong, the only place that came to mind was Trattoria Molto. It has to be fine dining but without a heavy atmosphere, the food of course has to be good, and if you narrow it down to Western food, the process of elimination leaves very few places. There are plenty of restaurants in the world, but hardly any worth going to.

The table

There are some new potted plants in the middle that I hadn’t seen before.

Bread

The olive oil is really good quality. I don’t know what brand they use, but going by taste alone it seems to be the same one as Polpo.

Antipasto

It’s the dish I always have, but it was excellent again this time. By now it has completely settled into a style that is all Molto’s own.

Spanish mackerel pasta

They were out of mackerel so I ordered this instead, and the Spanish mackerel was in great shape.

Low-salt mentaiko pasta

The mentaiko was tasty and the ingredients were excellent, but the pasta was overcooked. It’s been a long time since I had pasta at this level at Molto.

Tajarin

It costs a bit more, too, and well.. this was close to a disaster. I was the one who recommended this place, so it was pretty embarrassing. I wonder what has been going on lately.

Panna cotta

A light, refreshing dessert to finish.

Tea

Lingering over a cup of tea meant I went way over my lunch hour, but well, I work hard the rest of the time, so this much should be fine.

Rainy’s blog had praised it as delicious, so I assumed it was still in good form, but I guess blog posts really can’t be trusted. A good restaurant can go up and down depending on when you visit, and posts written with too much certainty might be a problem. I should reflect on that myself, too.

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