Recently I have discovered the ease of using Cuisine Courier, unfortunately, time after time, it's usually disappointment when it comes to food quality and taste. Al Dente is certainly not the first bad restaurant I've tried via Cuisine Courier, but lucky for them, I have a bit more free time on hand, so you are the lucky sacrificial lamb.
Three items ordered today, Insalata Caprese, Penne Alli Arabbiata, and Italiana Pizza.
Let's start with the Caprese. With my eyes closed, I can whip up a 10x better version of this, provided I can find the ingredients I want, which is another story here in Hong Kong.
The tomato they used is likely just basic large beefsteak tomato, blend, not quite ripe, and lack of sweetness. Topped off with some unevenly cut mozzarella and a few sad looking basil leaves. Aside from using inferior ingredients, they also lacked the effort of good presentation. If you are reading this and don't understand what I am talking about, stop now, as you are too lack of knowledge about food and reading further is just wasting time.
Second up, the disaster of a pasta dish. The description reads "this sauce can be hot or firery hot...", right, not one hint of spiciness. Not only that, the sauce is also overly sweet. Sauce is also made with garlic and basil, while I see chopped basil, it definitely lack the fragrance of basil and garlic. Makes one wonder if they just used a canned sauce base and tossed in a pinch of chopped basil. Pretty hard dish to screw up, but Al Dente certainly did fail to deliver in a spectacular way.
Lastly, we have the pizza, which is the one item I've not tried to make myself, but based on what I am tasting here, I can't imagine it would be that difficult to come up with something better in couple tries at home. I won't bash this in great details, just one statement, Pizza Hut does a better pizza, enough said.