is iO Italian Osteria worth the hype???

📍 iO Italian Osteria

Popular italian restaurant nestled in hillV2 usually packed on weekends & popular amongst families staying nearby! It has been on my “must try” list for awhile & I finally managed to try the food recently~

🧆 Tender Meatballs in Hearty Italian Sauce ($9) - 8.5/10

Meatballs had great texture and tomato sauce was tangy and fresh. I might be biased but I love having meatballs so this was very yoms to me!

🍞 Truffle Mascarpone & Pecorino Cheese Roman Schiacciatas ($12) - 11/10

Safe to say this was my absolute favourite out of all the dishes I had that day. Don’t let the plain exterior fool you - the flavours packed in this bread dish blew my mind…. and so did the fluffiness of the bread! I was seriously contemplating ordering another to dabao because it was just THAT good & I will go back just for this dish so its a MUST TRY for all bread/truffle lovers! and for my cheese hating friends, it doesn’t taste like “smelly cheese” so I would say its worth it to give it a try~

🍲 Soup of the Day (Broccoli ministrone) (~$15) - 5/10

We were actually told that the soup of the day was mushroom soup but they got the days mixed up so we ended up with this broccoli based ministrone. If you love vegetables, you will probably like this soup but for me, I didn’t enjoy it very much. I will say they are generous with the ingredients in the soup & I would recommend it to share if your group enjoys having soup to start off the meal.

🥣 Baked Lasagna “Grandma” Style ($18) - 7/10

The naming of the dish is very apt - it felt very home-y and comfort food-esque. It was good - cheesy and tomato sauce was fresh. The portion is quite big too - however, it is not a mindblowing dish that I would go back for. Baked pasta lovers will definitely enjoy it though!

🥩 Beer Braised Beef with Mashed Potatoes ($24) - 9/10

This was the second best dish of the entire meal and I would say it’s the most value for money dish we had. The beef cheek was incredibily soft and melt in your mouth - it was definitely braised well. The mash potatoes were creamy, smooth and paired very well with the beef. The portion was huge too - everyone had a bite and there was still plenty to go around.

🍗 Spicy Roasted Farm Chicken "Alla Diavola" ($22)

- 8/10

I was honestly not expecting much from this dish

- so it really surprised me with the strong seasoning & fork tender chicken. The portion was extremely generous with half a chicken along with grilled vegetables. The sauce was slightly spicy, and sour - which gave another dimension to the dish. Overall, it was better than expected and I would recommend this for chicken lovers~

🍝 Homemade Tagliolini, Prawns, Lemon, Aromatic

Breadcrumb ($22) - 5/10

Out of all the dishes we ordered, this was the most disappointing, but this might also be due to our high hopes of a flavourful pasta dish.

Unfortunately, it fell flat and the flavours did not come through - very plain tasting pasta dish and the portion was quite small compared to all the other dishes we ordered. I can't say for sure that the other pastas would be better, but i would definitely not recommend trying this. You guys can gamble on the other pastas instead!

🐙 Grilled Octopus, Mediterranean Sauce ($34) -

7/10

This was the priciest dish we ordered by far, but if you're a seafood lover, I think you will enjoy it.

The octopus was well grilled and did not have a rubbery texture. There was a wokhey taste to it which was quite nice complemented by the sauce. I'm quite a carb girlie though so I wouldn't order this by itself - maybe get a few pastas/ mains alongside this and share amongst friends!

Pistachio Tiramisu ($14) - 9/10

This tiramisu was really good - pistachio taste was strong and coffee flavour throughout the tiramisu went very well with the pistachio. The texture of the tiramisu was very soft and dissolved in my mouth. This was a great end to the meal!

🍧 Peach Sorbet ($10) - 8/10

This was very refreshing - it's sour as a sorbet should be, but brings a slight sweetness from the peach flavour as well. If I was outdoors in the SG heat I would definitely appreciate this, and I would recommend it to share as a way to cleanse the palette after the heavy flavours in the mains!

💭 Final thoughts: I think this restaurant has a really cute home-y interior and the food was pretty good overall. I think its a nice place for a family lunch or to catch up with friends - even better if everyone shares the different food choices available! I would definitely go back for the bread…. its really damn good guys if there’s one thing to takeaway (literally) from this post, GET THE TRUFFLE BREAD YOU CONFIRM WON’T REGRET!

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