Villa Mauri Brunei Darussalam Taste of Italy

A Brief History...

Chef Mauri Group of Restaurants is the 3-strong, Brunei’s leading & best loved Italian Restaurant Company Group, whereby today employing over 60 people & operating as privately-owned, family- run company.

Based on friendship, family, a love for good Italian food & entrepreneurial flair, the group’s history goes back to august 2008, when Maurizio Intrigila, better known as Chef Mauri, a talented southern Italian, opened his 1st restaurant , Villa Mauri on Jalan Muara.

It was the culmination of a 12-year dream for Chef Mauri, who had first come to Brunei in 1996. In the ensuing years, he worked at the original Fratini’s Restaurant & was a key in the development & opening of its subsequent outlets.

Seeking new challenges, he moved to Kota Kinabalu & Hanoi in first class hotels before returning to Brunei to follow his dream.

Laying the Foundations...

Chef Mauri, eagerly explored the restaurant scene, carefully noting how the market was diversifying & excitedly developing a vision & a will to recreate the essence of a true Italian restaurant outside his home country ; providing high quality, reasonably priced food to Bruneians & expats alike.

Joint partnership in Bella Italia, an Italian Restaurant in the Jesselton Hotel, a premier boutique hotel in Kota Kinabalu, led Maurizio to taking the plunge in Brunei & branching out on his own. It proved a stepping stone which ultimately led him to Jalan Muara & the opening of Villa Mauri in a converted bungalow (The idea of inviting people to a ’house’ rather than to a ’restaurant’ reflected the warm, traditional Italian welcome)

Rapid Expansion....

As customers flocked to Villa Mauri, Chef Mauri started to look for opportunities to expand & reach a wider customer base but in similarly attractive locations. The year of 2010 has been one of growth with two additional successful restaurants opening in the busy commercial area of gadong & the oil rich town of Kuala Belait.

Since opening their doors, Grazie Mauri & Prego Mauri have joined Villa Mauri in establishing many friends & loyal customers while staying true to Chef Mauri’s vision.

Resounding Success...

Key to its success is the array of daily specials drawn from all over Italy & made from carefully chosen fresh produce.

Traditional recipes are revisited, interpreted & adjusted according to the creative instincts of the kitchen team, against a background of complete dedication to the availability of high quality basic ingredients.

People all over Brunei are starting to discover the joys of real Italian food & to experience the taste of quality at prices which bring customers back.

Chef Mauri credits the success of his restaurants to a high quality & dedicated staff, many who have been with him since the start.

He prides himself on providing consistently excellent food, quality service & hands on management.

http://villamauri.com/

CUSTOMERS of Grazie Mauri can expect a new and improved menu from the Villa Mauri Brunei Darussalam restaurant as they have recently introduced a new look and dishes into their menu.

Chef Mauri explained that the menu was aimed to satisfy the customers Villa Mauri Brunei of Grazie Mauri. "This is the work we have done in the months of September and October. All the dishes that we did within that period are now all in the menu. We have the bread section, soup, cold appetisers, warm appetisers, pizzas, pastas, the main course, side dishes, kids corner and drinks," said Chef Mauri.

One can now be on a gastronomic journey with Grazie Mauri as their menu of almost 200 unique creations from drinks, pastas and even specially inspired pizzas and desserts will be available. Chef Mauri hinted that one trip to the restaurant will not be enough this month as the extensive menu is set to cater to most of their customers' demands. 

"We currently have three kinds of lasagna which we have never had before and they are meat, chicken and vegetarian pasta. We are going the extra step to please all the different types of palletes and tastes," said the chef.

Not only that, for the month of November, walk-in customers can enjoy the 30 per cent discount for all items on the menu and a 50 per cent discount for Mauri Group of Restaurant cardholders. There will also be a Sunday Roast Special which had started on November 5, 2011. The Sunday Roast Special is priced at only $15 and you can have the choice between beef, chicken and lamb with a side of vegetables, potatoes and gravy plus a dessert from the menu or display.

Another highlight at Grazie Mauri will be the new room on the first floor which will be opened to customers upon request. "We are gonna call the room "Club 444", the reason being that there will be choices between four appetisers, four main course and four desserts... With this, I want to give the customers a personal touch to their meal," said Chef Mauri. He added that the atmosphere in the room will be different to that of the "fast-food themed restaurant downstairs".

For more information on the list of promotions those interested are able to do so by either browsing through the Mauri Group of Restaurants on facebook or go to www.villamauri.com. For reservations, call Villa Mauri, Jalan Muara at 2335585, Grazie Mauri, Gadong at 2447471 and Prego Mauri in Kuala Belait at 3347144.

The Brunei Times
http://www.bt.com.bn/happenings/2011/11/16/grazie-mauri-serves-delights-new-and-improved-menu

Food lovers can now indulge and savour in the delectable taste of Italian cuisine at the new Italian eatery, Villa Mauri.

The restaurant specialises in rich southern Italian flavours, spearheaded by Chef Maurizio Intrigila, hailing from Reggio Calabria, Italy, who acquired his "Diploma Di Cucina (kitchen)" from his homeland.

"Villa Mauri aims to provide quality and value for money dishes. We intend to uphold our motto of being 'Simply the best' in our field of work," said Chef Intrigila while explicating the ideas and concepts behind his restaurant during an interview with the Weekend.


"My family and I have been in Brunei for 12 years and although I travelled to other countries, my heart will always remain in Brunei, which I consider to be my second home and am well familiar with the market here."

This prompted him to set up his own local Italian restaurant with the vision of promoting only healthy authentic Italian food using a "low-fat" cooking method. The menu offers a wide selection of Italian dishes, Asian cuisine as well as desserts that will leave your taste buds demanding for more.

Healthy conscious individuals can relish in the fact that no butter or cream is used in any of the dishes offered. The chef also assured that all ingredients used are 100 per cent halal.

Customers can dine-in at the eatery to feel the delicious and mouth-watering cuisine from 10am to 2pm and 5pm to 10pm.

http://bruneirestaurantreview.blogspot.com/2008/08/villa-mauri.html

Living in Best Country, Brunei Darussalam

About Living In BRUNEI Darussalam ranked the 33rd best country to live in out of 187 countries and territories surveyed for human development, according to an annual report prepared by the United Nations Development Programme.

The Brunei Darussalam Sultanate's ranking in the human development index (HDI), the report stated, was "in the very high human development category", though figures for the country's inequality-adjusted HDI, gender inequality index (GII) and multidimensional poverty index (MPI) were unavailable "due to a lack of relevant data".
The inequality-adjusted HDI measures the inequality in the three areas surveyed for the HDI: life expectancy, education levels and economic prosperity.

The GII and MPI were introduced into the report last year, when only 169 countries were surveyed.

Last year's report saw Brunei Darussalam at 37 out of 169, though the report warns readers that comparisons of rankings from one report to another is "misleading" due to changes in underlying data and methods of surveying, as well as differences in the number of countries surveyed.

However, the report also read that, based on data made available in 2011 and the methods used, Brunei's HDI for 2010 was 33rd out of 187, which remains unchanged.

The report showed that between 1980 and 2011, Brunei's HDI value increased from 0.750 to 0.838, up12.0 per cent or an average annual hike of about 0.4 per cent.

During the same 31-year period, it was recorded that Brunei Darussalam's gross national income (GNI) per capita decreased by about 47.0 per cent. Brunei Darussalam's life expectancy at birth increased by 7.4 years, mean years of schooling increased by 2.5 years and expected years of schooling increased by 3.1 years.

For sustainability, Brunei Darussalam measured in minus 1.8 per cent for adjusted net savings of GNI.

By Adam Radhi
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Source :
http://www.bt.com.bn/news-national/2011/11/05/brunei-33rd-best-country-live

Social Media Gathering in Brunei

CandidSyndrome Brunei Pictures· 

About Living in Brunei Darussalam,The social media scene in Brunei Darussalam has again made its presence felt. Bloggers and twitterers in the sultanate gathered to attend a historic event in social media to unite and bring forth the faces and people behind the screen of their PCs or Laptops or whatever device they use.

Last October 21, 2011 marked an important date in the local social media calendar when the big guns of the Brunei Darussalam blogosphere got together and organised Brunei Darussalam's first Social Media Conference: “That's where it's @”. The event was held at the Radisson Hotel in Bandar Seri Begawan and some 80 social media enthusiasts attended this half-day event. A #socmedbn hash tag was created by the organizers to allow tweeps to share updates and quotes from this historic event.
Before the panel discussions took place, Mr Lim Ming Soon of Telbru started the event with a very enlightening presentation of facts and figures and how TelBru, a major local Telco company, is embracing social media and trying its best to support and respond to the ever growing number of internet users in Brunei.
The conference was divided into three sessions. The first session “Dude, Where's my traffic?” was moderated by @emmagoodegg and on the panel were Rano Iskandar @ranoadidas of ranoadidas.com – No.1 Social Commercial Blogger in Brunei, Delwin Keasberry @BruneiTweet of projekbrunei.com – Brunei's No.1 Twitter star  and Dinoza Maruf @Dinoza of Breeze Magazine, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia.
Each panelist had expertise in different platform and spoke about their highs and low and how to get more traffic. Rano spoke about the number of hits and which news attracted a lot of hits. He also shared how he came about doing what he is doing now. BruneiTweet or also known as Delwin spoke about how his twitter persona as someone who has been away frrom Brunei Darussalam wanted to bring together amazing stories about other Bruneians through his blog, but his main forte is his twitter presence. Dinoza hails from Sabah, Malaysia and his expertise is how he managed to get Breeze Magazine‘s existing 300 fans to more than 14,000 fans on Facebook. This came after their decision to shutdown their website and focus on their Facebook page. One of his pointers for generating follower was organizing competitions and giving way amazing and attractive prizes.
The second session was a much anticipated one because two prominent figures took center stage. The topic was “140 character or less: Why joined the twitter conversation?”. Moderating was blog hero, Tuan Haji Rozan bin Dato Paduka Haji Mohd Yunos of @Bruneiresources and Bruneiresources.blogspot.com and his panel included Dato Timothy Ong, Chairman of Asia Inc Forum, who recently embraced social media via twitter, @Timothy_OngTM.
Dato Timothy spoke so passionately about his decision to participate in discussion with the young people of Brunei. He wanted to engage them and listen to them because these are the people who will one day lead this country and he was able to do this via twitter.

The final session after a short break was a session entitled: “From Idea to Enterprise: What does it take?”. Moderating the panel was Tom Bonius, Social Media Coordinator, Rapidea Solutions, Sabah, Malaysia and his panel were Keeran Janin (@keeranJ), Founder of MeSixty and Simon Soo, Director of Mint. Both the panelists shared their experiences in the ICT profession  and how to deal with the ups and downs managing your own business.
One of the highlights of the conference was the use of Pigeonhole, a site where people can log in via Facebook or Twitter or Linked and direct questions to the panelist. It was a good platform but in the words of Dato Timothy, nothing beats human contact.
From @emmagoodegg, an assessment of the event

Aside from the social media angles, I personally felt that one more important aspect of events like these is to get off your backside and get involved in your community. As residents, we must take responsibility for our society and encourage the spirit of togetherness. And that is to me the beauty of social media, the general good that can be done by cultivating social networks, large and small, through IT.
The final word however, is that in spite of all of this IT, it is important to actually make human contact, to sit in a room, in a group and hear one another speak face to face. To paraphrase one prominent speaker, it is what makes us human; we are after all not robots.

@marg was impressed with the conference

Another thing that thoroughly impressed me was how unlike normal conferences, where people just sat, listen, took notes and asked questions, this conference was where most sat, eyes on their smart devices (laptops, phones etc), tweeted what struck them throughout the sessions and asked questions ONLINE!
Oddly enough, on this day when everyone had their fingers glued onto their keyboards/keypads/touchscreens, they weren’t being anti-social! In fact, it was pretty interactive as the questions posted and the number of votes were projected for all to see

source :
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/11/01/bruneis-first-social-media-meet-up/