When I first heard of Bonta Vita, I knew it was the kind of place that I had to save for M and her boys. It’s a Malaysian Italian restaurant serving Rizza or Roti Pizza (pronounced Ritza) were their star item. I had also read about the Rice Dice where rolling the dice allows you to decide what you’re eating that night and if you happen to roll the same numbers, your table gets free gelato so I knew that the idea of winning a dessert would appeal enormously to them. Indeed S has fantasies of living for free here just eating dessert (yes he of the never ending dessert tank).
BYO torch for menu reading
It’s part of the Lumiere building, where we walk past the colourful fountain which has everyone oohing and aahing with the changing light colours. S says in hushed tones “Mummy, can we afford this place?”. We walk in and it’s nicely outfitted. We’re shown our booth which is actually a booth that has another table added to it which is either a good thing or a bad thing as everyone feels quite apart but as we learn later, the narrow booth table requires this in order to fit our food. And it also smells pervadingly of fried chicken owing to the KFC next door and is incredibly dark so we resort to using a shared torch to read the menu, not something we ever have issues with so hopefully you’ll forgive the less than stellar photographs that we got. Our waiter brings over four tealights which don’t really help. Some of the lights are turned on, but most remain out for the whole time we are there.
I inquire about the Rice Dice and the waiter says that that was from an old menu item but after some discussion he brings us the menu and I read out the instructions. It’s different from when Ffichiban visited, quite different in fact that there are actually now 3 dice you have to roll and now you have to order an entree, main and dessert. When FFichiban visited it was 2 dice and you just ordered a rice dish and a side. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that rolling a triple is a lot harder than rolling a double and you are possibly up for pretty expensive meal with rules such as “if you don’t obey the dice, you must buy a round of drinks for the whole table” and with their drinks being $8.90, it seems like the odds are definitely stacked in the house’s favour. Your 3 course meal could cost you anything between $38 to $69.
Apricot Moon and Suai Suai $8.90 each
Instead we order what we like. The menu is broken down into section from Rizzas, Malaysian food and Italian food. We start with drinks. I’m intrigued by the Apricot Moon drink described as “a unique Egyptian blend, especially made for us using apricot that is mixed with secret recipes that takes 2 days of preparation to be served to our customers”. I’m hopeful and at $8.90 it sounds like it might be quite special indeed. One sip and instantly we taste dried apricots. We can figure that it’s made by soaking dried apricots for 2 days in hot water and then pureeing them. I know because I’ve done it for an apricot sorbet and it tasted exactly like this. The Suai Suai is plain yogurt mixed with kiwi, vanilla gelato and a dash of honey blended with ice which tastes like a honey smoothie. This also doesn’t quite reach the heights of the description.
Rizza #1
I joke!
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