CLAUDE mentioned it several weeks ago while my reporter Rhoda and I were having our poison outside his resto at Rizal. The chance never came until last week.

Claude is Claude L'Neindre of Claude's le Cafe d'Ville or simply Claude's, the French restaurant along Rizal Street. And "it" is his daughter Celine's new food place at the Victoria Plaza compound in the same building as La Core (in between Ahfat 2 and 3).

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The name is Farfalla, and no it's not a person's name. It's the name of that bowtie shaped pasta.

As the name connotes, the place serves pasta (among other things), and so we were all set for pasta, except that my two lady companions were starving like port porters cum carpenters. And so we had to rush an order of aperitif. Tiny open-ended sandwiches with a choice of four toppings. We chose the spinach, salmon, anchovies, and ham, gobbled all the focaccia placed on the table before our appetizer arrived... and then gobbled the appetizer as well (including the bed of lettuce leaves and tomato trimming). So much for the appetizer's daintiness. There was no dainty appetite at our table that night.

The bread that's supposed to be nibbled while waiting comes with a "self-service" balsamic vinegar, olive oil, (and best of all) parmesan cheese. Meaning, the condiment jars are on your table and you just pour as much as you want, no need to beg for that from the waiter. Having finished off with our focaccia, Deng was eyeing the other table's basket of focaccia, as well. Luckily, the appetizers arrived before any one of us gathered the courage to beg for the bread sticks that the two couples at the other table were ignoring.

Haha.

The appetizer's good. Just too small for three hungry tummies.

Now the pasta... mine's really good! It gave me an idea on what to do at home, soon, very soon. It's called the broccoli, asparagus and something else green I can't recall fusilli. But I don't like fusilli and so asked if they can make it with spaghetti instead (Actually, I don't like all other pasta shape except spaghetti and so I make everything with spaghetti). Wish granted. Thus I got broccoli, asparagus and something else green I can't recall spaghetti.

Trish got what I was also thinking of ordering, the spicy tomato, while Deng the carnivore got the Bolognese.

The spicy tomato isn't that spicy, it just has enough zing but anyone can dig into it. (Just don't be as unlucky as biting into a chili at the last mouthful as Trish did). The bolognese is not "Ja-bi", if you know what we mean. It's tomato sauce and ground beef just the way we like it.

Mine, tastes like lightly broccoli in broth. Healthy.

Like pasta dishes tend to do... three-quarters of the way, we were just too full to eat on. But we did, and consumed what's on our plate like good girls.

They have a lot desserts (including Haagen Daz ice cream) and drinks, but we were reserving our dessert and drinks tummies for another place we have eyed for that night. It's called hitting two birds with one stone, Trish says. We only hit one though through no fault of ours... Verdict? Claude is one proud papa but Celine can learn a lot from her mom Tess in terms of chika.

Oh, by the way, Farfalla is open for breakfast at 6 a.m. they serve rice dishes for the Pinoy Victoria jogger.