Resto Review: Ristorante Arlecchino

Ristorante Arlecchino is one of the oldest Italian restaurants in Hasselt. When I walked past it and looked at the menu, I realized this was not the average spaghetti-with-prefab-bolognese-sauce shack. Firstly, because they have an official quality label from the Italian government! Only when you work with authentic Italian products, and prepare your meals according to the rules of Italian cooking art, you're eligible for this label.
Secondly: the chef has -as one of the few European(!) cooks- three of its own recipes in 'The Silver Spoon', the bible for Italian cooking fanatics worldwide.
The dining room is designed in an elegant way in orange -and red-coloured tints. The female waiter was polite and not pushy, something me and my company appreciate. As a starter we got a tasty lobster bisque with a foam of tomato, which tasted really good.
The menu was really extensive and I couldn't choose between the flavourous-looking dishes, which contained a lot of ingredients I really like (risotto, squid, artichoke, ...). Finally, I chose for some real Italian standards: Spaghetti con vongole and Ossobuco alla maniera dello chef Mario.
The vongole was extremely savoury, because the chef had boiled the pasta in a little bit of the cooking juice of the clams. Indeed: according to the rules of Italian cooking art. Such bursts of flavour with so few ingredients (just spaghetti, clams and tomato did the trick!).
Then, it was time for my Ossobuco. Just on time, I realized I ordered some extra spaghetti with it as a side dish, while he said I could get rice with it too. The 'rice' in my messmates dish turned out to be a creamy risotto so I changed my mind and ordered 'rice'. And indeed: my Ossobuco was served 'the Milan way': with risotto, marrow and saffron! The meat was butter soft and the sauce was really well-balanced in terms of spices. Again: made the proper Italian way.
A pity though that my dish was really too full. I got a huge stack of risotto and a huge peace of meat. No room for dessert ...
Conclusion: the chef knows how to prepare a proper Italian meal. You could feel the love for his native country in his dishes and that's how it's supposed to be.
Interested? Visit their website.

Cheers.