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| - PRELUDE: i visited this restaurant with my friend who is 100% italian plus cooks like a pro, and her boyfriend. although i consider myself a good judge of italian food, i'm not actually italian, so i figure regardless of what i think i can fully trust her critiques on italian cuisine. and if all 3 of us have the same opinions...then we must be onto something.
i'm going to be generous and give pastaBAR 2 stars...strictly for the cozy ambiance, the cool art on the walls, and the nice waitress, who got her 20% tip only because she was decent. if we were rating food alone i would give it 1 star.
first off, there were no seasonings on the table - no salt & pepper, no crushed red pepper, no olive oil...and instead of bread which i adore, they give you individually packaged packets of hard, crunchy, thin italian breadsticks (not satisfying, but at least they were a legitimate product of italy) and nothing to dip them in to help out the flavor. (plus $2 for a small side of fresh parmesan cheese - really?!)
APPETIZER: the 'fried buffalo mozzarella and marinara crudo' appetizer we got took a while, but was pretty good - though it was a bit soggier than we would have liked. the menu failed to mention the marinara sauce was actually a marinara cream sauce (which is weird because the word 'crudo' means raw so you'd think it was straight marinara) but it's okay, i like creamy sauces, so i was happy with it. maybe the description should be more specific though because its slightly misleading.
ENTREES: we asked the waitress for suggestions, and she raved about the 'orecchiette alla puttanesca' as being her go-to favorite which is described as "12 ingredients from the neapolitan streetwalker's pantry" (which my friend ordered) and the 'fettuccini tagliatta' which she said was the most popular dish is described as "charred rib-eye, arugula, cherry tomatoes, roasted garlic, parmigiano" (which the remaining 2 of us ordered).
the orecchiette, which came with a variety of appealing ingredients including anchovies, breadcrumbs, raisins, pine nuts, etc, sounded like it would be an automatic win with so many flavors. my entire table agreed that it was absolutely FLAVORLESS and boring! a huge disappointment based on the description. when my friend ordered and asked the waitress if it came with cheese, she said no, because traditionally italians did not combine fish and cheese in their meals - but when we got it, there was parmesan cheese ontop. hmmmm. might want to study up on that. also, the olives came UNPITTED and the capers came with STEMS still attached, so with every bite, you had to be very careful that you werent going to either crack a tooth on a pit or choke on a stem. not very fun to eat if you have to be careful while you're eating - you want to inhale it, not walk on eggshells WHILE youre eating.
the whole table agreed that the tagliatta (ribeye pasta) was also a disappointment, mostly because of the steak. while the menu/waitress described a deliciously seared rib eye tossed around in a creamy sauce with pasta, the steak reminded me more of meat that comes in a beef stew. it was gray in color, not seared, flavorless, gritty, and it was trimmed very poorly - every single bite of steak on both of our plates had tough grissle that couldnt be broken down on it and had to be spit out. the cream sauce was anything BUT - it looked and tasted more like the starchy water that is left behind after draining pasta. again, i say, flavorless. the tomatoes tasted good but i wondered if they were really canned. i was afraid the arugula might be too soggy, but it actually had a nice texture, though ive never heard of putting arugula in pasta before.
on a side note, NONE of the meals on this menu included chicken - is that strange? we thought so.
we all agreed that saving our leftovers was pointless - while we were full, we didnt exactly want to waste any more room and calories on a meal we didnt LOVE so we decided to skip out on dessert for fear of what that experience might hold and we decided to walk to the hyatt compass room for some quality dessert that would definitely be worth the money.
PRICING: for the portions and quality of the fare, the prices seemed to be a too high. i'll put it to you this way - we did the math - we could have eaten at the top of the hyatt in the renowned compass room (with the 360 degree revolving tower that overlooks phoenix and an even nicer ambiance) for only about $15 more per person and had an AMAZING steak or seafood dinner. that's what we should have done, but the dessert at the hyatt made up for our lousy pastaBAR dinner.
all 3 of us decided we wouldnt be going back there again - at least not anytime in the near AND far future.
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