SET near the Danube supermarket in Al-Hamra, Al Dente had been described as one of the better Italians on the Jeddah Food Facebook forum, so we thought it was time we checked it out.
Upon entering, we stumbled past a damaged violin resting on the floor beside a what looked like a book of music. A bar runs along the right side of the wall of the narrow restaurant (more for decoration than anything else). For now the bar holds a lone bottle of non-alcoholic (and sparkling) grape juice, along with some plastic flowers that look as if they have seen better days.
Beige paneling with alcoves of wooden shelves and steel edges give the place a contemporary feel, more Star Trek than Luigi, but not every Italian has to look as if it came out of Little Italy.
Further down in the kitchen, the oven was described to me as wood fired with gas. I’m not exactly sure how that works, but it looked traditional enough and the results — when sampling the pizzas — were not disappointing.
There was an unsettling quiet to the place when we arrived, no music, and just the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen (it is open plan). Curious, I asked the waiter who quickly jumped to his feet and offered to turn some music on. “It’s not that important”, I said, as we were ordering takeout, but for first impressions it would have been nice to hear some tunes on arrival!
Dimly lit, the place could be romantic, but the neon glow of the purple from the café across the street is a little distracting; it’s hard not to notice as is the green neon strip light placed in the fish tank in the family section upstairs.
But I didn’t have to stay here for our meal; twenty minutes later our food was ready to go. We ordered two varieties of pizza, pepperoni and straciatella (spinach, garlic and egg). Along with a bresola salad, insalata di Rucola, and fresh fettuccini (chicken and mushroom), tiramisu, and chocolate fondant.
The food was surprisingly good, the pizza was the clear winner, thin, not oily at all, and easy to eat. Must be the wood fired gas oven! As for the bresola salad this was actually pretty good; the bresola was thinly sliced, with a rough texture, I imagine it had taken a beating from a meat hammer before being served on a rocket salad.
The main let down of the order was more aesthetic than anything else; when we were told the fettuccini pasta was a three color dish, I thought it a strange thing to mention. I imagined it would be a mix of spinach, plain and whole meal pasta perhaps. On opening the dish back home, we found the pasta served was so bright, we had trouble believing it hadn’t received a generous dousing with E-coloring and while this might appeal to kids, we were not impressed.
Oddly enough for a takeaway, a foil container of what appeared to be melted butter or olive oil was also curiously added to our bag. Practical it was not, as the contents managed to spill everywhere upon opening. I imagine a mini-bottle would be more practical and eye catching. Which reminded me that Le Vendome offer some pretty neat travel-sized bottles of olive oil that might do the trick.
The tiramisu was a little too creamy (and we know it is made of cream), it tasted a little too much like the UHT variety. As for the fondant, this was the complete opposite — it was really fantastic. Many places in Jeddah would have you believe a brown chocolate cake covered with chocolate sauce is a fondant — it isn’t — but here the fondant is the real deal, a pleasant surprise.
All in all, the menu here is a bit hit and miss; you have to order the right stuff, and we could easily have missed out on the pizza and fondant and walked away with a completely different image of Al Dente.
A lucky break for us, as we will certainly be back for the pizza and the fondant! We have also heard that the mushroom risotto is pretty good too.
Location: Tahlia St. (near Danube supermarket), Sari Street and AutoMall (See maps on Jeddahfood.com)
Opening Hours: 12 p.m. to 1.30 a.m.
