The Place It has the 90s look, 80s decor and 70s menu. The restaurant wouldn’t impress you on your first look, despite being a new restaurant at the GrandStand which opened in 2012. The menu is also a tad too complicated with the food pictures not even listed in chronological sequence – diners who have visited Casallena would definitely have experienced this. With too many food options, which is a common fault in most mediocre restaurants in Singapore, Casallena does not seemed to have a clear gastronomical direction – other than “all things Italian”.

The Food Mediocre. Over-priced. All misses. theRantingPanda has yet to review a restaurant that had us cracking over identifying any positivity from our visit. On the food, after much pain looking through the menu, we decided on giving the Exotic Mushroom Infused with Truffle ($7.50)  a try.  tRP review on this, let’s renamed it simply to “Mushroom Soup”.Well, if you really have to visit Casallena, do try their Baked Blue Mussels with Duo Cheese (S$12). tRP gives the thumbs up for this dish, the melting cheese was a great match with the mussels. Though the mussels were not very fresh.Where’s the wagyu beef on the Wagyu with Basil Pizza ($11.80) tRP ordered? Instead, it felt like an overly soft pastry pizza with low-cost beefballs topped with 3 to 4 strands of basil. Period.Bug Lobster with Pan-seared Scallops Served with Taragon Cream Sauce ($26.80) – what a long name for a main! Regardless of the unnecessary long name, this was definitely the best dish of the meal. The taragon cream sauce compliments well with the scallops, though like the mussels, the seafood was not exactly very fresh.What’s usually tRP’s favourite – Steak, this Grilled Australian Chilled Ribeye with Creamy Pepper ($21.90) was very disappointing. tRP have ourselves to blame for not reading the word “Chilled” carefully, we guessed the restaurant was truthful in its naming of the food it serves. The steak was bland despite the pepper sauce and fell short of our expectations so badly that we would rather have a Singaporean-styled Kopitiam Pepper Steak for the night!Rants It seems to tRP that the chef behind Casallena has no passion in his own creations. Overpriced for insincere food coupled with the poor service (or possibly the lack of it), please stop tRP from ranting on…

Will I return again? Definitely not. Nuff said.

TheRantingPanda says:
Taste bud: 1 /5
Hole in the pocket: 4 /5
Ambience: 1 /5
Overall Experience: 1 /5

Casallena Tapas & Bistro
The Grandstand (former Turf City), #01-14
Tel: +65 6465 4353