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Pasta Basta, a closer look
Up-Date: Pasta Basta now closed!
Aloha!
4/7/08 - Hey, just found an old friend on the internet! The name is Dan Mantineo, whom I actually met here in the islands through another friend that I fought fires with in Oregon, Bryan Oly Olsen. Both of them were stationed in Pearl Harbor as a couple of the Nation's finest, the US Navy, and the three of us would often get together for drinks at my place or spots like the now-closed Brew Moon or Ryan's. Dan served his time and went on to a successful career in IT (information technology), where he's been for quite a while now. His latest project, based in Colorado, has him opening a food site about MAN FOOD!!! Yep, Dan's the MAN, and he and a couple of buddy's have constructed a cool site about foods like turducken (a chicken inside of a duck inside of a turkey!), wild caribou, King Crab legs, buffalo steaks, and bacon-wrapped elk bundles stuffed with cheese and mushrooms! Wow! Sounds Man-ly, to me!
Here's Dan on the left:
Though the site is definitely through the eyes of a man's perspective, don't think that they don't get into a good deal of quality cooking! It's no spoof or comedy routine-only, and Dan the Man and his partners surely know how to whip-up a mighty-fine spread, by any standard! He's got video tours of home-cooked meals, breweries, special events like National BBQ cook-off's, review's on different kinds of cheeses, tequila's, sausages, and all kinds of other hook-up's in the world of cuisine.
Check his site out at www.cookmanfood.com. Be sure to leave him a comment or say hello, as Dan's a real-cool guy, and he'll definitely respond back!
That being said, I guess we'll return to the islands and continue with our visit to Pasta Basta:
Anyone on the island for any length of time must have become familiar with two giants in the Italian cuisine world, Philippe Padovani and Donato Loperfido. Both have had great restaurants in the past, although they were closed for who-know's-what reasons. The two re-surfaced, however, a little more than a year ago in their joint upscale-Italian restaurant, Elua, along with a couple of other individual ventures. I guess they can move into other things when the burden of responsibility lays upon two shoulders, instead of one, ey? Makes sense...
On the Donato-side, he's established what was designed to be an inexpensive Italian eatery without sacrificing quality, house-made ingredients, and made-from-scratch dishes. Of course, there's gotta be some give somewhere, and we'll get into some of these soon enough. Here's a shot of the entrance for now:
Restaurant Row has been a literal graveyard for many a restaurant, so you gotta give Chef Donato some credit for having the cohone's to open-up a store there. Both times I've been to Pasta Basta, the experience has been pretty much the same - keeping the whole inexpensive theme in-mind, we weren't too dissapointed with having to both order ourselves at the counter, as well as pick-up our food when it was ready. Same goes for the plates, which were all in the form of styrofoam containers, as well as the portions, which were all, well, pretty darn small.
Considering the fact that they make most of their items from scratch, including all pastas and sausages, and that all vegetables are local and organic, and that they even have a genuine, kiawe-wood fired brick oven, you gotta cut costs somewhere, and they weren't gonna sacrifice the quality of the food, thank goodness. If it's styrofoam, so let it be! One day, I definitely wanna try the brick-oven pizza, but so far I've just been too enamored by other dishes. With this kind of oven, it's gotta be worth a try!
The inside of the restaurant is surprisingly spacious, all done-up reasonably well, although nothing fancy in the least bit. There are all your bright, pastel colors of an Italian haunt, wine bottles in key places, and old-world paintings sporadically-placed - where's the climbing vines and white lattices? Oh, well...
There is a bit of a wait here - no packaged, dried pasta and canned tomato sauce, you know - but they now serve alcohol to keep you company, so who cares, right? Once strictly byob, they now serve a selection of fine wines and upscale Italian beers, all bottled. You can still bring your own, though, but at a $10 corkage fee per bottle (of wine, that is - if they charge for beer, maybe you can haggle a bit!).
Our starter dish was a Nicoise salad, full of those perky-local greens, red onions, a few types of tomato, green beans, olives, fingerling potatoes, and boiled egg, all tossed in a dijion-mustard vinaigrette and topped with their fish of the day, which happened to be ahi. Some might have preferred seared, with a good amount of red in the center, but this one came fully cooked. Even so, it was cooked perfectly, the insides still moist and tender, albeit without any red, just a wee-bit of light pink. What else can I say? Bright, crisp, local veggies and fresh ahi? Works for me!
Wifey always favors simpler, cleaner dishes, and her choice of a crudaiola could have just as easily passed as a salad. There were small buttons of orechiette pasta, arugula, garlic, basil, and vine-ripened tomatoes, all tossed in extra virgin olive oil and parmesan cheese. Yes, pretty straight-foward, it was, finishing-up with a slice of herb-crusted focaccia bread.
Last time I came I ordered risotto; this time around it was gnocchi. There were two varieties, one with a Tuscan meat sauce and truffle essence, and the other with sauteed mushrooms and a gorgonzola cheese cream sauce. I chose the latter. Either one must take quite a while to build, as every small square of potato-filled, pasta-wrapped bites were hand-made. The taste of the gnocchi themselves were, again, very simple (contrary to the cooking process), with a soft texture of mashed potatoes and taste that, for the most part, came from the cream sauce, itself smooth and relatively lightly-flavored.
Although there's no denying the home-made taste, quality, and authenticity here at Pasta Basta, I can't help but feeling like I've fallen just a little shy on satisfaction levels, both times I've come. I know Chef Donato is one of the premier Chefs in the State, but still, it just seems like, I dunno, nothing really jumped out at us? Who knows... My level of knowledge in Italian cuisine is not the greatest to begin with (although I do luuuv Italian, for sure!), so maybe I just have no clue what I'm talking about. Like I said, the issue of quality or authenticity never comes in to question, but I would think that the relatively small portions do kinda call for cream sauces a bit richer, meats a bit larger, and over-all, flavors with just a little more oomph to satisfy my meal-time hunger. And those inexpensive prices? Compared to an upscale Italian venue like Elua, Sergio's, or Sarento's, yes, but they're not exactly L&L, Locomoco, or even Kakaako Kitchen, either.
I'm absolutely sure, though, that the pizza choices are top-knotch, as well as other, perhaps more flashy items like their boscaiola, coming with spinach fettuccine w/prosciutto, chicken, mushrooms, pine nuts, olive oil, white wine, and parmesan cheese; or the rigatoni con salsiccia, with large-tube pasta, home-made sausage, and marinara sauce.
There's even a special-course $35, $45, or $55 menu, with items varying depending on price. Appetizer and dessert choices remain the same, but entrees vary, with $35 choices including main dishes like pan-roasted salmon and stuffed chicken breast, $45 choices including crispy-skin moi and linguine pescatore w/lobster, and $55 choices including items like osso bucco in saffron risotto and a 16 oz. rib-eye steak w/caramelized onions, pancetta bits, and mushrooms in a red wine sauce. Sounds scrumptious!
Who knows, maybe I just gotta have Dan the Man Mantineo take a look at this place when he has some time to visit us here in the islands! He definitely knows his Italian, for sure!
But for now, we're all livin' and learnin'...
Take care and Aloha till next time!
Aku
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