Puteca Abate Deli & Bistro. Excellent Italian Street Food at Friendly Prices in a Hip Hangout

Puteca_Abate_Italian_Street_Food_Bistro_Cafe

We met up for lunch at Italian owned Puteca Abate at Keong Saik Street and enjoyed their excellent pasta, panini (sandwiches), roasts and pastries. I will be back because Putera Abate is centrally located, serves delicious food at reasonable prices in a pretty and cosy space with cheerful vibes.

Locating Puteca is a piece of ~~tiramisu~~ cake as it is conveniently at the intersection of Keong Siak Street and Neil Road directly opposite Shake Shack.

Puteca is an Italian deli, bistro, cafe, bar, restaurant, wine store, fine food mini mart all rolled into one.

The interior is well appointed and furnished (including plush leather sofa) but still has a casual, welcoming, bright and cheery ambiance.

Prices are reasonable. They have pasta, panini (sandwiches), pizzas, roasts, cheese and pastries. Their daily specials are good value for money, so they are worth looking out for (by following their Facebook page).

Four of us, we shared three pastas starting with this Tagliatelle Marinara (seafood spaghetti).

Tagliatelle Al Ragu (spaghetti with beef sauce).

Linguini Alio Olio with Prawn.

All three spaghetti have different flavours but all use pasta freshly made in house. The spaghetti were all done al dente with a nice tender crunch to the bite.

I like all of them as they were all delicious. My personal favourite was their Linguini Alio Olio as the springy noodles were generously enveloped with a thick aromatic sauce rich with layers of robust savoury garlicky flavours.

Plate licking good and the enamel plate with the Abate family crest is very pretty too.

Porchetta Italian style roast pork belly (price $60 per kilo or $16.80 for a serving like this).

Porchetta reminds me of Chinese siew yok / sio bak but with a different taste profile. Porchetta tastes savoury garlicky with subtle underlying sweetness of pork. The skin is chewy-crisp rather than crackly-crispy as compared to siew yok.

Wagyu Steak Sandwich. Tender juicy beefy pleasure from the premium minute steak between freshly grilled warm bread.

It's the festive season and what better way to round up our delicious Italian lunch than with a panettone, the quintessentially Italian Christmas tradition.

Puteca Abate has a small section of imported Italian fine foods and wines. They stock limited edition artisanal panettone from Rustichella d'Abruzzo.

We ate part of the cake straight out of the wrapping, another portion toasted and the remainder kept to be eaten on 3rd February (Saint Blaise Day) next year, the way Italians do.

According to legend, Saint Blaise saved a boy choking on a fish bone by making him swallow a piece of bread. So, panettone is eaten on 3rd Feb in his honour and the custom is believed to bring good health, especially of the respiratory system.

This was my sixth panettone and pandoro this year. Of the panettone, this from Rustichella d'Abruzzo is my favourite so far.

The bread was rich with buttery, eggy, sweet flavours. The embedded candied orange peel, lemon peel, raisin and other Mediterranean citrus added more texture, sweetness and zest to the bread.

Sean's favourite zesty sweet Amalfi Lemon Tart (price $8.80).

Come for an Italian meal how can not round it up with Tiramisu right?

Making a good thing better with coffee liqueur adding to the sweetness in the espresso saturated, creamy spongy cake.

After lunch, it was fascinating to browse the little imported fine foods grocer section in Puteca Abate.

Chinese have pork lard and Italians have duck confit. If you are looking for aromatic full flavoured duck "lard" for your cooking, you know where to get it in Singapore.

Truffle spread made with real truffle (not those common petroleum based synthetic "truffle oil"). I am told this makes a great spread on bread and wonderful pasta sauce. Shall try it next time and tell you more about it.

There's a selection of Italian wines and liqueur including limoncello.

My memorable first limoncello, shiok 😄 It's sweet sourish refreshing like a thick lemonade with a spritely alcohol zing (at least 25%) 😆

Puteca Abate is a nice hangout for good Italian deli & street food type meal. The environment is nice, location convenient, the food is delicious and prices reasonable.

I will be back for more spaghetti, panini and try their pizzas too.