Bonta Vita

Shop 10-02 Regent Place

501 George Street

Sydney NSW 2000

Ph: 02 9267 2212

After seeing Shez post up about an italian-malaysian restaurant, i really wanted to try this place out myself.

Months later i was able to spend a day out in the city & remembered that this place was on my to-eat list.

But only a couple days before i saw a post on NotQuiteNigella's that made me think twice about coming here.. Someone threatened legal action? No photo's allowed? (and a sign out front to prove it), Manager posted a comment supposedly covering up for a mean comment that was left on Lorraine's site? This slowly turned me away from wanting to eat @ Bonta Vita anymore..

But the rizza sounded so intriguing, and i had planned for this for ages, & we were practically in the same block coming from Norita..

Whispering to Rick whilst walking into the restaurant.. "Do you think we should keep our cameras away?" and "Do you think they'll confiscate it?"

My friend Ben suggested we casually take pictures of ourselves with the food in the background haha/ It aint a crime to take pictures of eachother???

We were pretty hungry, after only having breakfast at about 10am, some cake & drinks at 2pm, and now it was 4pm we were starved for some food. My friends Wensy & Ben liked the sounds of malaysian-italian food so i had already booked us a table. 4pm was not quite dinner time yet, so the place was pretty empty..

After opening the doors & stepping in, we heard a man yell out in an extremely condescending tone.. "hell-ooo, we have customers". What a way to greet customers ? ..

The waitresses were friendly, not very good english speakers (this annoys me at restaurants), but she did her best to help us with menu enquiries & ordering.

Mezi di Piatto $21.95

After taking a couple of photo's, & checking to see if any workers were giving me a "put that camera away" look, or anyone that looked like they were coming to confiscate it (Lols), no one said anything (although, it might just be my imagination, but from the corner of my eye i thinks the owner was looking over at our table everytime a flash went off??!!), so i went on happily snapping away as i usually do at any other restaurant.

A variety of dips including eggplant, hommus & guacamole served with slices of toasted bread. The bread tasted stale, much like old Cabramatta bread rolls. The dips tasted very.. un-fresh. Except the eggplant dip, that was nice. But the other two seemed like they were taken off the shelf of a Woolworths or Coles or something like that. So for $21.95, this dish was expensive :/

Hainanese Chicken Rice $17.95

Rick ordered this as there wasn't much on the menu that he could have (he can't eat wheat dairy tomato chilli eggplant and various other things for the moment). The dish came with a ginger & garlic dip, & was decorated with coriander & a sprig of mint, and sliced cucumber. He didn't look like he enjoyed it, mentioning that his mum made it one hundred times better than here.

Rizza No. 7 $16.95

This was why i wanted to come to Bonta Vita, for their Rizza's (roti+pizza=rizza!). Quite frankly, it was a huge let down :( While the pastry LOOKED crispy, it was really soft &.. sort of soggy, and it was just so bland the filling didn't go well with the texture of the rizza. We chose the Rizza No.7 which was Char Grilled eggplant, green peas, grilled onions, mushroom, tomato, mozzerella served with vegetarian sauce. & also Rizza No. 1 Bocconcini, pesto, cherry tomato, mozzarella served with BV sauce. (i didnt get a picture of this)

The rizza much reminded me of the soggy gozleme that i get at fairfield markets (which is so much nicer??! & only costed half the price.

Roti Canai (i think??) $9.95

I don't remember what this was, looking over the menu it must be this.. basically it was just crunchy sheets of pastry, that was really buttery & flakey in the middle. Slightly sweet, and served with two types of dips. Wasn't a big fan, we actually didn't finish it either..

We didn't finish most of the dishes, not because we weren't hungry, but because the food wasn't that nice and we'd be forcing it down. Rick finished his rice though, he was pretty hungry.

All in all, we were all bitterly disappointed, & i feel really bad for taking my friends here to eat :(

The ambience was horrible, having the owner (i assume he was the owner) talk to his workers in such a rude way, doesn't scream 'friendly' at all. I'm happy to say that i have tried out Bonta Vita, but sadly won't ever go back ever again.