moose puff - ai fiori x neon moose blogger dinner

On Thursday July 24 Neon Moose welcomed new kid on the restaurant block Ai Fiori to the foodie scene - by throwing a blogger/media dinner of course!

The cuisine is, as the name suggests, contemporary Italian (Ai Fiori means flower for those wondering) and is every bit as flavoursome and delicious as you'd expect from an Italian restaurant.

Foodies, media and bloggers flocked to Ai Fiori (formerly Saldechin) to do what they do best - taste test food. Neon Moose inc.

For starters, we saw a selection of bread, dukkha, green and kalamata olives. Perfect way to kick off any meal! Trying not to fill up on bread and dukkha (deliciously lethal combo) it was important to make room for the entrees.

I opted for one of my faves - arancini - golden balls of pumpkin risotto which tasted exactly that - golden. The dish was made even better with its accompaniments: snow pea tendrils, tomato passata, Grana Padano and oven baked prosciutto.

For mains I sampled the Zucca - maple wood smoked pumpkin segment, filled with roasted walnuts, pepitas, aromatic rice and fresh thyme and served with sugo al pomodoro, goats curd and basil. All the flavours melded together quite nicely and was a generous [read: massive!] sized portion. This dish was outstanding in both presentation and flavours.

... Dessert time!

Even though it was majorly 'freddo' [read: cold] outside, I couldn't go past the Semifreddo - chilled almond mousse encrusted in honeycomb; place upon génoise and served with crema pasticcera al lime. Yes it tasted [and looked!] as a m a z i n g as it sounds!

image thanks to TEO magazine

If you A - happen to be in the city, B - are into trying something new or C - love Italian cuisine then don't go past Ai Fiori.

And I'm sure all the bloggers and media would agree.

Moose out

Bx