basta pasta - review

[kaffy]

A group of us went to Basta Pasta on Friday night -- we thought we'd give the Japanese/Italian fusion a whirl. Upside: you have to walk through the kitchen and prep area to get to the dining area, which is neat and very, very clean. The service was great -- I really, really wanted to like this restaurant but the food was just ok, nothing to write home about. We started off with three appetizers: grilled calamari w/ white beans, red snapper carpacio and pumpkin gnocchi w/ sage cream sauce. The squid was overcooked and chewy and the beans were undercooked - a bit hard in the middle. The gnocchi had a very light texture but no flavor of pumpkin or sage in the sauce. I ordered the homemade tagietelle w/ daikon and ox tail ragu for my main entree. The sauce lacked "something" -- the beef was chewy and the pasta was hard in places where the noodles were stuck together. My boyfriend's pasta - eggplant w/ olives - was pretty unspectular.

All in all, the service is great but the food is so-so. With all the excellent Italian restaurants in the city, I won't be coming here again.

[complainer]

the portions are small. i got the 4 clam linguini one time. The clams were a bit too chewy. I probably could've done better with ronzoni and a can of clams.

yes the service is excellent. all my friends left feeling hungry too.