Primo Pasto del Italiano?

Prologue: The first meal of the year in style is going Italiano!

Went to Pasta Bar located in Southside Street, Barbican. Never been here before as this was my first time stepping foot on this restaurant. It wasn’t Ivy’s as she has been to this premise once before.

This restaurant wasn’t actually in our plan. Our initial plan was to dine in another Italian restaurant near Tin Lane, around 200m away from here facing the waterfront of Sutton Harbour. To our surprise, that outlet was closed due to the New Year. As to find other alternatives, we hiked for another 5 minutes up the road from our car park through the drizzle in search for a place to seek refuge and to fill our empty stomachs.

Damnit, I have starved my tum for the whole day just to eat-as-much for this evening!

The ambience of Pasta Bar. Left is Dave & right is Gina.

Therefore, we ended up walking till the end of Southside street nearby the Barbican Glassworks. As Dave wasn’t a seafood fan, we made our way back and at the end, Pasta Bar caught our eye with its red sign board on top. Simple sign board but crowded restaurant as we seen from the outside. That indicates the food and ambience is probably top notch.

As a matter of interest, I have always liked crowded restaurants because I enjoy being ‘ignored’ by the busy waitresses. I always take my time dining out so that is why I like crowded places where I can enjoy chatting up with my mates and enjoy the bustling crowd while waiting patiently for my food to arrive.

To our luck, we got a seater located upstairs despite the crowdedness of the place. The seater for us was actually one of the two seaters left as others was already occupied. It was really crowded and the floor was controlled by two staffs acting as waitress and one working behind the bar.

Our table and the candle-lite.

After we were shown to our table and have our menus distributed, we scoured the page for our ideal meal. I cursed myself for not bringing my camera along as the ambience and atmosphere there was simply awesome. The air was filled with R&B music! It is rather strange to have Italian playing mainstream R&B music in their premises cos as far as I know Italians are very prideful about their culture and heritage.

I end up using my crap quality cellphone to snap pics for this posting. Shit.

Fifteen minutes after that, we were attended by a gorgeous waitress. Unsure about its origin, I guess she looks either Greek or Italian. She has got nice features with beautiful roundie eyes, brunette hair, petite figure with extra pounds yet subtle with graceful feminine movements. Looks very well mannered person and sweet looking.

After she took our orders we continue chatting up and fifteen minutes later our starters was served. I had Chicken Goujon which was marinated deep fried chicken strips. Nicely coated titbit with mild spiciness on its battered coating. It comes with a BBQ dip and some fresh salad dressing. Impressive. It doesn’t take long as small portions like these disintegrate quickly in my already hungry mount-watering mouth.

Chicken Goujon anybody?

Main course arrived nearly fifteen minutes after that clearing. I had chicken Picante, with an extra jacket potato nicely filled with melted butter. My set consists of some pitta bread, salad, a dip and a bowl of the chicken. The chicken looks like a Chinese stir-fry to me. My perception changed when I taste it. My taste buds tells me that this ain’t an imitate as the taste was uniquely blended eventhough it wasn’t genuine Italian taste but the fusion justifies everything.

The green peppers and coarse ground black papers with buttery taste dominates the flavor and aroma. The combo looks appropriate with pitta bread and tomato puree accompanied with fresh salad and my extra jacket potato makes everything seems so right!

My hungry tum says leave no casualties behind. So I finished off with a squeaky clean plate ready for the next round of dessert!

Two of us had ice cream with me having rum & raisin; one of my favorite and Dave having strawberry. With the price of nearly £4 bowl (3 large scoops), the experience was well worth it as this ice-cream was a special produce from the Cornish countryside. Can’t describe the taste but it does contain very strong yet fragrant dairy product essence in it.

The result – filling tum tums and I managed to burn £30 for myself for this meal.

Alimento eccellente by the way!

We hurried and settled the bills and rush back to the car park and shoot straight to the cinema for Danzel’s Deja Vu!