Review: Casamosaico

As if going for the “What were you thinking?” award, Casamosaico offers high-end Italian on Yongfu Lu. Yes, where all those rowdy bars and night crawlers are. You can sit right in their window noshing on fine Italian while people stagger drunkenly past, chased by bouquets of badly drawn roses. You're a world away inside, but it feels a risky move and out of place as we duck behind our menus when people we know walk past.

The menu is centered around filled pasta. Sheets are freshly made in-house and three different varieties including fresh and delicious bosco ravioli (RMB148), creamy zucchini and almond tortelloni (RMB140) and sinfully sweet parcels of ricotta and walnut (RMB140). We sampled all three in a tasting portion and found them to be on point, each matched with a strong but not overpowering sauce. Perhaps a pared-down sage and butter variety would have rounded off the selection.

Otherwise, it's passable but inflated Italian. A vitello tonnato (RMB115) has wonderfully tender slithers of veal topped in a tomato-tuna sauce, expensive for what it is. So, too, was a tall but unimpressive cod loin (RMB210). Sitting atop a mound of slightly too bitter purple-potatoes and spinach, it’s not the mouthful of superior seafood it should be. All in all, Casamosaico is a curious restaurant in a curious part of town.