Italiannies and Meet Fresh at Gurney Paragon

Hubs and I loved Italiannies when we were at KL and I was delighted that they opened a branch at the new Gurney Paragon which used to be an international school and has been revamped as a condominium and food & beverage mall.

The St Joseph's Novitiate building was constructed in 1925 and after the De La Salle Brothers moved out in the 1980s, it was used by an international school as part of its campus.

 

Italiannies Gurney Paragon has both indoor and outdoor sitting. There aren't that many tables indoor so I'd suggest calling for reservations to avoid disappointment. It features an open bar and chefs preparing pizza right in front of you.

The service was really good with the staff being extra attentive. When our waiter brought out the trademark complimentary herb & white bread, he explained how to dip the bread into the olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Most of the mains and appetizers come in 3 sizes: small, regular and large so you could order a variety of small dishes to share. Like TGIF, children under 12 can choose one free meal from the kids menu with every adult main course ordered.

Bubs surprised us by eating the bread dipped into olive oil and balsamic vinegar which at first I thought he'd reject because of the sharp, sourish taste. The signature Italiannies meatball didn't disappoint (check out the size of it!) but the pasta sauce was a bit on the salty side though we finished everything. When the staff came over to ask how was our meal, Hubs pointed it out and the staff was really nice and gave a comment card and told us to write all our feedback down on it. Most restaurants would have taken great pains to avoid you from putting those kind of feedback down in writing ;)

 

After lunch, we decided to try Meet Fresh, another Taiwanese dessert outlet there. As with all Taiwanese dessert stores, they had a gimmicky kind of gizmo. After we placed and paid for our order, we were given a "bomb detonator" (Hubs words) like device that would vibrate with a red blinking light when our order was ready. Bubs found it immensely fascinating. 

The mango shaved ice was kind of meh for RM9.80. There was a huge mountain of coarsely shaved ice with small cubes of mango around the sides and syrup drizzled on top. Bubs enjoyed eating the mango chunks while Hubs and I had to do with the roughly shaved ice flakes. Some of the other desserts weren't ready yet because when we tried to order the mochi, we were told it's unavailable at the moment.