By actual count, there are 21 pasta dishes to choose from atPasta Lovers Trattoria, a nine-week-old "casual Italian restaurant"located at 680 N. Lake Shore (the restaurant actually fronts on ErieStreet). There are, of course, other Italian dishes - veal, chicken,a steak, a shrimp dish - but those are perfunctory at best in thescheme of things. That may be the good news, as those eaten weren'tvery good. Vino, vidi, vici
"Good evening, my name is Vino (not his real name)," the waitersaid as he wrote his name in crayon on the butcher's paper coveringthe Formica on the table. Vino gets my 1991 Most Attentive ServicePerson Award. I know the year is only half over, but I can'timagine anybody outdoing this guy. I got Vino twice in threevisits, and short of actually joining us, he couldn't have been morein touch with our table - to the point of distraction and far beyond.
"Would you like a bottle of wine?" Vino asked us even before hehad finished writing the last letter in his name.
Give me a break. I had yet to look at the menu, I didn't evenknow what I want to eat, I didn't know what wines were offered and atwhat prices, and I didn't particularly like that kind of unabashedselling.
"Give us a few moments to warm up the chairs and think thingsover," I said.
Don't get me wrong. The service people were pleasant and nice,and our food came smartly on cue. It was obvious, though, that theservice staff had received their marching orders from higher up onhow to handle suggestion selling.
We decided on a simple house wine by the glass (carafes andbottles of respectable Italian wines at decent but not necessarilybargain prices are available) to sip while we studied the menu andchewed on some soft, warm and thick breadsticks that had been brushedwith a mild garlic butter before being heated. Antipasti
There is nothing extraordinary about the appetizer choices, andthere was nothing special about those eaten. Calamari fritti waspedestrian at best. Though the squid itself was quite tender, it gotall sogged up with a flavorless, fritterlike batter that did nothingmore than fall off the squid rings at the tine of a fork (the squidrings were too wet before being coated).
Then there was the pizza primavera, a cracker-thin crust versionthat got a mixed vote: My wife liked it and I didn't. Actually whatshe said was, "It eats better than it looks." She was right; it wasa sorry-looking piece of work. The taste wasn't much better. Thecombination of broccoli, zucchini, mushrooms and sliced olives (nocheese) piled atop a thin, almost burned-out red sauce was notwonderful eating. My wife did like the crust, however.
Though it's listed under the salads, the best appetizer eatenwas the mozzarella fresca, but even this dish had problems. Sixthick slices of fresh mozzarella with strips of fresh basil wereserved on one side of the plate, with five slices of fresh tomato onthe other. In between, the onions and the tomatoes were rings ofred onions. Scattered around were slices of black olives. All ofthis was on top of leaf lettuce. What's wrong with this picture?The tomatoes were slathered with some kind of tasteless creamydressing, which didn't make any sense at all. This dish was cryingout for a good drizzle of olive oil to bring out the flavor of thecheese and the tomatoes. In fact, this Italian restaurant could usea good lesson in olive oil usage.
A case in point was the Caesar salad. The romaine lettuce wascrisp and fresh and the croutons very good. It was topped with agood sprinkling of Parmesan cheese . . . but there was hardly anyolive oil at all. To make matters worse, there wasn't even awhisper of garlic or anchovies. This Caesar deserved no salutes.
Entrees come with a house salad (it's better than the Caesar) ora cup of soup, so we ended up sampling three soups: minestrone,lentil and shrimp bisque. I have two words to say about those threesoups: no flavor. Did someone forget to order herbs and spices andflavor-up stuff for the kitchen? I think the kitchen is working withmaster recipes from the home office, and no on-site creativity isallowed. Well, somebody should talk to the home office. Pasta
"The pasta is not made on the premises, but it is made for usfresh every day," the manager told us. That's fine with me, as witheach of the three pasta dishes eaten the pasta itself wasgood-tasting and cooked al dente. The sauces on two of those pastadishes, however, were not so good-tasting.
Either linguini alla vongole is misnamed on the menu or somebodyin the kitchen missed something. The pasta, served in a deep bowl,was linguini - no doubt about that - and there was a nice amount ofit. I took two forks, dug deep into the bowl and tossed the pasta inthe milky-looking sauce. "Where are the clams?" I said to my wifeas I stirred some more. "They must be in there somewhere; keeplooking," she said. "There are no clams," I said. "There's one,"she said.
Actually there were two little pieces of clams in the wholething. And to make matters worse, the garlic flavor was too strong(it tasted like the garlic had been burned). And once again a dishwas crying out for flavor; thyme and chopped fresh parsley would havebeen the answer.
Spaghetti and meatballs didn't fare much better. Pasta? Noproblem. Sauce? Too thick, too acidic, too heavy. Meatballs?There were three very big meatballs, and they were actually too good,too high-toned, which is to say that they were nothing more thanhigh-quality rolled beef. And that's not what a meatball is allabout. It's fine to use quality meat, but what about mixing in somebread crumbs, parsley, Parmesan cheese, pepper. . . . Liven thosebabies up.
The one pasta dish enjoyed from top to bottom was the paglia efieno. Perfectly cooked green and yellow fettuccine (paglia e fienotranslates to straw and hay) were glossed lightly with a very tastycream sauce and flavor - perked by chopped prosciutto, peas andmushrooms. The serving, which was enough to feed two of us, did soquite nicely and enjoyably. Entrees
Though I visited Pasta Lovers Trattorias three times (twice withmy wife; once alone), only two of the eight entrees were sampled.Two might have been enough, as they both missed the mark. Rollatinidi melanzane - rolled eggplant - was terrible. Slices of friedeggplant rolled around ricotta cheese were dabbed with a tomatosauce. The ricotta cheese tasted like it came right out of thecarton - nothing added. I was dying for some added flavors. Whatcould they have been thinking? The fettuccine on the plate with theeggplant was nice.
Vitello Valdostano is breaded scallopini of veal stuffed withmozzarella and prosciutto. It wasn't worth the $12.95. Theprosciutto was salty-tasting; the exterior of the veal was soggy, andthe sauce, some kind of Marsala or wine sauce the color of browngravy and justas thick, was so ill-conceived it belonged in the sick ward forsauces. Desserts
The cannoli had a crispy shell, which means it wasn't filledahead, but the filling was bland. The were lots of choppedpistachios on the cannoli, though.
The tiramisu was OK. A little heavy on the rum or whatever wasused to spike up the flavor, but it was a nice portion and passable.
I didn't go nuts over something called an Italian walnut cake.Not only did it not taste good, but the size of the slice, which wasa cake wedge in miniature, was, at $2.95, a ripoff.
I was hoping that Pasta Lovers Trattoria would be a good (Iwasn't looking for great) Italian restaurant, as the neighborhoodreally needs a low-priced Italian restaurant (two people can eatnicely for about $30). And it's a pretty and pleasant restaurant tobe in. It's quite plush for a casual restaurant, actually.
However, somebody had better take a hard look at the recipes,formulas or whatever it is that the kitchen is working with.
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