Pasta Inc

Located where Stiff Chili used to be, but now soundproofed to keep out the karaoke from upstairs, the atmosphere here is casual. Here, I found some excellent pasta at value prices - a combination that beats many other established Italian food joints.

The menu is not extensive but gives you enough choices, with mains in addition to pastas and some pizza. The specialty here being the pasta, my choices were:

Gamberi - 6 prawns in butter and garlic - were fresh, firm and bouncy

Parma ham and melon - decent and reasonably priced for $9.80+

Linguine vongole - well executed, better than a lot of others

Nero di seppia - this was the star of the show! Several clams, one mussel and some squid, with great squid ink sauce and excellent spaghetti cooked al dente. Thumbs up!

Cuppucino - I thought they'd serve Italian coffee but they use Grinders instead

As is often said, the produce used makes a big difference. The freshness of the ingredients here helped greatly, enhancing the good cooking.

One of the owners worked in hotels in F&B for some time, and he managed to get the approval of someone to use some excellent pasta recipes, allowing this new joint a great headstart. Anyone can taste where the recipe originated?

Service was good throughout by different servers - observant, responsive and efficient. They make the effort to serve the mains together.

Overall, fresh and good food, good value and good service gets my thumbs up.

Just had a gathering with friends of 7 and requested for the inner room. This was the 3rd time which I had visited the restaurant but the 1st time going with a large group of friends. The manager which served us during the 1st and 2nd visit was not longer serving the restaurant but he still bothers and makes reservation for me at Pasta Inc when I called him! This was definitely a demonstration good personalized customer service. My kudos to Alvin!

Back Pasta Inc, the food never failed to amaze me. We ordered Lamb and the clever use of spices covered the odour completely. It was succulent, tender and delicious! The pasta was springy and the sauce was generous. We order 2 bottles of Italian wine recommended by the restaurant manager and they were fantastic.

I give my thanks to Keith, who takes our request for the inner room. I thank the restaurant staff for recommending the good wine that went so well with our food. We were not big spenders for that meal but the hospitality was much more than paid. Highly recommend for fine dining!

Can't really remember what my family had but overall experience was good.  Did the pastas the Cappacio and yes.....the Vongole clams with a tinch tomato sauce was a hit! This is not really fine dinning type restaurant but it is good enough for a good family - unpretentious.

Shall plan my second trip soon! :) Had my first last weekend and my gf and I enjoyed it!

Went there a few weeks back. I had the mussels as a starter. Was expecting a pot, but only given 6 mussels (for S$18). It is covered with a red coloured tomato paste. Had the John Dory as main. It was completely covered with the same tomato paste, with lots of oil. The fish tasted funny, and that probably explained why there was so much paste on it. Am surprise at the food they are serving. Will not return.

http://fourleggedfoodies.blogspot.com/2011/11/pasta-inc-keong-saik-road.html

What luck when we saw they were offering a coupon deal for $38 for a 4-course set meal (worth $76 or something). We snapped it up without even quite giving it a second thought!

Prosciutto con Melone - The parma ham melon was my favourite - the ham soft and salty, which complemented and also contrasted the sweetness of the rock melon. 

Cozze Alla Arrabbiata - Three sizeable mussles slathered in tasty tomato sauce makes for a good appetizer, but somehow wasn't quite unique for me. I did not detect any spiciness, and I may indeed be wrong here but the sauce reminded me of those 'premium' bottled ones available off-the-shelf.

Linguine con Gamberi E Pesto - The pesto tasted alright but felt similarly that too much oil, too little basil, and no nutty flavour at all. And the prawns ... yikes. Not fresh - powdery, mushy. Le terriblé.

Fettucini Al Granchio - I would prefer this to the pesto linguine but that isn't saying much! The focus of this dish was the cream and the sweet sweet sauce, which is sad because crab pasta done right is spectacular. While not denying the quality or amount of crab used, the sauce was simply overpowering and I could only taste sweet in this dish.

Pollo Alla Romana - I had a strange look on my face and the meat course arrived - different meats but with same generic sides (carrots were good). Chicken was dry, could not taste the parmesan or the herbs, mustard was ok. The egg batter was ... just no. Quite harsh but I would've preferred a food court style chicken chop to this.

Pesce Del Giorno - The Dory fillet was.. okay. I like my pan fried fish to have a nice dry exterior with a bit of crispiness, but this was just soggy. I suppose with the balsamic drizzle this can't be helped, but even then the 'breaded' part was soft and limp.

Tiramisu - Dessert was the last chance of redemption that night. And thank goodness it turned out alright! Tiramisu was a small serving, but it was done well. I loved the bitterness of the espresso-soaked sponge fingers and the sweet mushiness of the mascarpone.  Went nicely with our separate orders of latte. 

I'd sum up Pasta Incs as: hits and misses, mostly misses! If the promotional set meal was any indication of food quality and value, I'm not terribly enticed to come back to try the other ala carte items.

Chanced upon tis.... and realised that this was the place where i made reservations for lunch, last Xmas eve (but had to change plans). 

(1) Food

I requested for the set menu and eventually decided against it cos (i) I am very particular about fresh mussels and the second appetiser simply didn't appeal to me and (ii) was worried that it might be too filling. But when I chanced upon Princess J's review (only after ordering), I regretted... 'cos she mentioned that the NZ mussels were unlike the local mussels (i.e. not fishy) and the portions seemed manageable. 

Zuppe - Bf had tomato-based soup with seafood. Not quite to my liking but he liked it and noted the generous serving of seafood~ I, of course, had mushroom soup. It was superb! The texture (or wat my science teacher would have referred to as 'viscosity') was perfect and I could taste the amount of mushroom that went into tat bowl of soup! But wat that was lacking, in my view, was mushroom chunks. But tat is simply a personal preference and it might potentially increase the cost of the zuppe~

Pasta - Bf had fettucine with seafood in Pasta Inc's special sauce and I had fettucine with crabmeat and pink sauce. I had abit of the seafood pasta. Scallop was fresh and chunky! :D but I'm not a seafood fan so I din quite appreciate the seafood pasta tho i noted that they were very generous with the servings of seafood. Anyway, my crabmeat pasta was perfetto~ Such pastas, if not prepared well, could potentially be a dish which one could get quite 'sick' of after a few spoonfuls. I recently had crabmeat pasta in another restaurant and tot ut was  great but this was way BETTER!! I can never appreciate al-dente as it always feels under-cooked but the texture of this pasta was perfetto~, neither under-cooked nor over-cooked. And it went very well with the crabmeat and pink sauce!

(2) Service

The service was decent, staff was friendly and helpful. But felt tat they were under-staffed at times... e.g. when we requested for the bill, it took sometime for them to get back to us. and when we gave them the card, they took some time to come back again. That aside, service was generally good.

(3) Ambience

Tot that the ambience was so-so only. The place was neat and cosy but it felt more like a cosy dining room in someone's hse rather than a cosy restaurant. 

(4) Value

Currently, they have 10% discount for Amex cardholders. Given the generous serving of ingredients and high quality of food, I would award them full marks for 'value'! 

We will be back! Wanna try the portobello mushrooms w cheese and desserts next time :D

Bought some vouchers for this restaurant and hubby and I ordered the following to share share: 

1) Grilled Portobello with cheese - if you like mushrooms, you'll love this one. They melt the cheese over the mushroom and that combination is heavenly. 

2) NZ Mussles with spicy tomato sauce - these mussels are not the local ones which tends to taste slightly fishy. When these mussels are cooked with the slightly tangy tomato sauce, it's actually very very nice. 

3) Linguine with Prawns in Pesto Sauce - I actually love pesto sauce but not all places get it right. But Pasta Inc does. Together with the fresh prawns, it's was all eaten - too fast! 

4) Fettucine with Crabmeat in Pink Sauce - hub didn't like this as much but I LOVE it! I love pink sauce as it combines both my likes. I aspire to make this dish myself. 

5) Grilled Beef rocket leaves - pity the slices were rather thin tho the taste is there. 

6) Pan-fried Chicken Fillet - the chicken fillet is breaded and pan fried. Quite a bit of effort to make this dish but the result was very nice. 

7) Tiramisu - nothing very spectacular. Normal nice. 

Maybe it's a 4 course meal, the portions of each course were rather small. I just wished there was more of each to enjoy. I will definitely return to check out their full portions! :)

For photos, please visit Rubbish Eat Rubbish Grow.

We started this blog because we want to document our memories. Good food evokes memories. Even though this was a horrible memory, I will still rate the restaurant well. I rock as a reviewer. So impartial.

I remember going to the one at Little India; it wasn’t so expensive and it wasn’t so classy and the standard was so-so. BUT now that it’s moved to Keong Saik Rd, the decor is rather posh, the price has increased and the food is fantastic.

The voucher set-menu ($38) includes: Parma ham wrapped in melon, Fettucine with crabmeat in pink sauce, Tenderloin with Blue Cheese Sauce and Tiramisu. 









When ordering, the ah-beng waiter said, “Har? You only have one voucher, two people how to eat?” Let me tell you my experience with vouchers. Those online deal discount websites can be quite unscrupulous. Skinny Pizza, for example: You only need to spend about $20 for a pizza, but in the end, you spend $45 on the voucher because the voucher includes useless things such as pizza, drink, dessert, etc. So seeing it’s a 4-course meal for Pasta Inc, I, learnt from my bad experience, naturally bought only one. 4-course meal is enough for two. Come on, a steak and a pasta. I replied to the ah-beng waiter that if it is not enough, we would order more. But the ah-beng waiter insisted and insisted the voucher isn’t enough. My friend likes face very much, so the ah-beng waiter by insisting made it look as if we have no money to eat. And naturally, my friend was pissed off with me.

I’m not complaining about the service. Actually, I like ah-bengs, look at my undying devotion for 14K. This ah-beng waiter was actually very helpful and nice. When we ordered wine–i always drink when I’m angry–he brought the wine but took the glass back and came back with a new glass. He said, “Sorry, I find some cork in your wine so I changed a new one.” HAHAHA. “Cork,” get it? But this ah-beng waiter needs to take a step back. He’s pushy and he needs to observe what the customers are thinking and feeling. Be sensitive but not overly sensitive: Put yourself in the position of others–that’s how you’ll be a good person.

The food came and my friend refused to eat it. I lost my appetite too. So I had to beg and beg her before she finally relented and ordered: Fettucine with fresh salmon in pink sauce ($25)

The food: WOW. AWESOME. Parma ham wrapped in melon wasn’t too smelly, and the melon wasn’t too juicy or overly sweet, so the saltiness and sweet melted into each other like lock and key. Fettucine with crabmeat in pink sauce and Fettucine with fresh salmon in pink sauce were equally fantastic. The pasta was done just right, al dente, soft enough but still bouncy. The sauce was so creamy and rich and mouthwatering that I didn’t care for the calories. Just whack first. Have to eat full to have strength to diet for tomorrow. The Tenderloin with Blue Cheese Sauce was simply quite amazing. The medium-rare beef had the right amount of springiness. Although the blue cheese had a slight stench–some say it’s an acquired taste like smelly tofu–it went so wonderfully well with the beef. The tiramisu was ok.

Each of us ordered a wine, red for me, white for her, $14 each. 

Overall, the food was fantastic, the ambience was great, good for dates, and the service was helpful if a bit pushy.

Given the many positive reviews online, I was somehow disappointed to have experienced something dissimilar. Waiter was not present most of the time and not very attentive given that this was quite a small place. I had to gesture for more water all the time.

The Zuppa di Pesce and Zuppa e Funghi Con Crema Zuppa di Pesce tasted very nice! Solid flavourful soup. Clearly a good start!

However, nothing else were as good as expected. The Spaghetti Al Frutti Di Mare E Nero Di Seppia tasted kind of tasteless, cluttered and somewhat rigid whereas the Fettuccine Al Molluschi E Zafferano tasted slightly better but pasta was the same. Ingredients tasted fresh though.

Tiramisu was a tad too soft and moist but the alcohol was evident throughout the entire slice.

Went with the other half 2 weeks ago, after hearing alot about it at their previous location near lavender.. must say, this area is definitely alot better ambience-wise for a nice dinner.

Ordered the squid-ink and mixed-seafood with saffron cream pastas for mains; the former definitely not a first-date order! squid-ink was a little salty, but loved the garlic bits- the seafood pasta was divine with the right touch of saffron infusion. Portions could have been a little larger though.

Also tried the mushroom soup- very rich in flavour and the bowl is deceptively bigger than it looks!

Service was attentive- only negative was that they kept hovering, not ideal with a mouthful of black squid-ink!