Dinner At Antibo Italian in Derby
Published On Tuesday 4 Aug 2015 by Sticky Beak
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The Boy Wonder and I are always poking around on the internet as you know, and every so often a little gem comes up that piques our interest. On this particular occasion it was a voucher for Antibo, offering 2 courses for 2 people for £15, valid Monday-Friday for starters up to the value of £4.95 and main courses up to the value of £8.95, which to be fair offered a great choice of dishes. You could still order the steaks and other dishes and just pay the difference, but we opted to stick within the original conditions just to see what variety there was.
The restaurant itself is fairly large and open plan and decorated very neutrally, but the pictures on the walls and arches give it a nice feel. I also liked the fact that you could see into the kitchen area and watch the chefs at work. There were already some diners in the venue when we arrived just before 6.45pm, and another couple of tables arrived a couple of minutes after us; some diners were also using the vouchers and some weren’t.
Our server Chloe took our drinks orders and left us to have a look through the menu for a couple of minutes. I decided to have the Avocado and Baby Mozzarella for my starter and His Nibs chose the Homemade Brandy Pate served with warm bread. The Pate had a wonderfully smooth texture and rich taste to it, and you could discern the Brandy in it too. The bread was fresh and just nicely warmed through, and the whole dish was nicely presented.
My own starter was equally well received and was very tasty. I always think the simple tastes of fresh Tomato, Avocado and Mozzarella is criminally undervalued and I love the association of the Italian flag in its colours too. Again, my starter was beautifully presented and nicely put together with fresh Rocket leaves and Balsamic glaze finishing it off. As the evening progressed more and more diners arrived and soon the eating area was filled with the quiet hum of chatter.
For our main courses we went for the classic dish of Tagliatelle Carbonara (Bacon, Egg yolks and Cream with Parmesan cheese) and Risotto Milan (luxury seafood mixed with Onions). Both dishes were of a very pleasing portion size and were absolutely piping hot; you could see steam billowing from the tops of the dishes. We were offered Parmesan cheese and fresh ground Black Pepper to accompany our meals. I accepted the Pepper and His Nibs had extra cheese sprinkled over his food.
The Man Birds Carbonara was deliciously creamy and the sauce coated the ribbons of Tagliatelle beautifully, and he said that the Ham was a good quality too. My own risotto was equally yummy with its bountiful amount of Baby Octopus, Squid, Prawns, King Prawns and in-shell Mussels. All the seafood was cooked very well (none of it was at all chewy), and the rice was nice and creamy with just the right amount of seasoning. Needless to say there was a lull in conversation at our table as we tucked in to our food with gusto. We also ordered a garlic bread to accompany our main courses and this had a very nice thin, crisp base to it and a great flavour. As with all good Italian food our little tummies were full to the brim, so we asked Chloe to give us 10 minutes grace before bringing the dessert menu over for us to look at.
After a little bit of deliberation we settled on homemade Profiteroles and the Cherry and Biscotti cheesecake (the homemade Tiramisu had sold out) for our pudding. The Choux buns were lovely and light textured and filled with a really nice sweet patisserie crème; and for once they weren’t absolutely drowned in chocolate, just nicely drizzled with it so that all the flavours could be appreciated. I had several whole cherries in my portion of cheesecake which I really liked, and the texture of the topping was just right; some cheesecakes can be very heavy and rich which is not always what you want at the end of a meal. As is our custom, we finished off our meals with a couple of lattes and reflected on our evening.
I would quite happily recommend Antibo to friends and family for somewhere to eat, and so I feel confident to recommend it to you dear reader. The premises are spotlessly clean and the staff are smartly turned out and very polite. Service was very prompt and questions dealt with most professionally. It is located a little way from the main city centre, close to the train station, so ideal if you come into Derby by this method rather than the bus. Antibo currently has a discount offer valid until the end of August 2015; just visit their Facebook Page to get further details. Keep up the good work team Antibo :)
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