Review: The Wine Shop

Hello again foodies!

It's been awhile since the last review. We just celebrated hubby's birthday last Thursday. Nothing fancy just wine and dine. The Wine Shop is the only place I know that serves big wheel pasta and Raclette. Do let me know if there are other restaurants. The big wheel cheese (Parmigiano-Reggiano pasta) is only available at their Bayan Lepas branch while Raclette which is Swiss method of scraping melted cheese onto food is served at their Pulau Tikus main shop.

Great place to celebrate Christmas eve.

The only down side is it's confusing location. See the pink lights opposite? It's SPICE Arena (previously known as PISA) which is quite a prominent and easy to find location but you can't come into the shoplots directly from the main road because there's a stupid divider next to the green lit tress on the right side of this pic. So we had to go around and come in from the back. And there's a lorong just before entrance of Olive Tree Hotel so if you want to go around the shoplot remember to turn into the lorong instead of going towards the hotel.

Remember to make reservations. It was a weekday so we thought no need for booking but it was full house so we waited patiently for only 10 minutes.

 Greeted by the Christmas tree.

This is the non-smoking area which has not much of a character. We were seated at the smoking area next door where all the wine are stored because we told the waiter we didn't mind as long as there's a place for us. However the smell stayed for 2 days and I can even smell smoke every time I breathe in.

Various types of cheese to pair with your wine.

Feel free to go around and choose your wine.

Let's look at the menu...

It came as a surprise to us that the pasta dishes are only RM20.

We ordered house red and house rosé.

Here;s the house special. We ordered the first two on top which are carbonara with bacon and pepper & cream.

Oops...we did not read the description properly before ordering pasta. We didn't know white wine is included in pairing with pasta so we ordered a red wine and a rose wine for casual drink after dinner. Anyway there's never too much wine.

 

  I believe the white wine is this Chardonnay.  

First time trying rosé wine and loving it more than red wine as it is less sourish. The difference between rosé and red wine is the process. Rosé uses skin contact method where black-skinned grapes are crushed and the skins are allowed to remain in contact with the juice for a short period typically 1 - 3 days then discarded during fermentation.

The waiter prepared our Parmigiano Reggiano.

 Here's a video of the process.

Step 1: Scrape cheese from the wheel into center

Step 2: Pour alcohol and light it on flame

 Brandy was used in this case.

 Step 3: Pour precooked pasta into cheese

 Step 4: Toss the pasta until fully coated with parmesan.

Our 2 pasta dishes are served! Both tasted almost the same except one has bacon. Only RM38 each with free white wine to pair with.

Cheers! Would we come again? Definitely! We didn't expect this experience to be so affordable. 4 glasses of wine with 2 plates of pasta within RM120. Haha...hubby has the Asian glow.

Address: 60G & 62G, Persiaran Mahsuri 2, 11900 Penang
Contact: 04-2261824 (I think this number is for Pulau Tikus branch)
Opening hours: 9am - 1am
Non-halal