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Pasta your way
Sauces are most important here
Pesto with diced tomatoes and broccoli. You can choose two or three vegetables to add to each dish.
I wouldn’t imagine a little pasta restaurant in Miramar could be the start to a chain of restaurants, but it could happen. Pastalini is offering franchise opportunities.
The shop has been around eight years, and in that time a Linda Vista location has come and gone. But the theme is not a bad idea. Built on the fast-casual, assembly-line model pioneered by Chipotle burritos and replicated by countless others serving anything from liquid nitro ice cream to sushi burritos. Pastalini puts that focus on simpler fare: pasta.
Pastalini: the start of something big?
So, behind the glass sneeze guard of a cafeteria-like ordering line you’ll notice a grip of pastas ready to serve, long noodles from angel hair to spinach fettucini. There’s also gluten-free pasta, rigatoni, tortellini, and a couple of organic, whole-wheat corkscrew shapes.
Angel hair spaghetti bolognese with spinach and green olives. Be sure to ask for samples of the sauce, as there are a lot of choices.
Of course, the sauces are most important here, and there are enough decent ones that I’d encourage asking for samples. I enjoyed tastes of a creamy vodka sauce, a sweet bell peppery Romesco, and a slightly tangy pomegranate marinara. Any might have suited my appetite, but as they ran about six or seven bucks apiece I decided on two: beef bolognese and basil pesto.
You can choose two or three vegetables to add to the dish. Fresh tomato was a natural fit with the pesto, and while diced squash might have worked better I felt like broccoli would give me something healthy to chew on.
Bolognese shouldn’t need toppings, so I considered eating it as is. But green olives caught my attention, and again, for health, I added spinach. The woman who took the order offered to leave it fresh, but I opted to let it sauté in the small pan she used to heat up and merge the pastas and sauces. I didn’t add any additional meat to either dish, but I could have gone with sausage, meatballs, chicken, salmon, calamari, etc. for an extra two or three dollars.
While the spinach didn’t add much, I liked the green olives in the angel hair bolognese — it put a slight puttanesca spin on the dish. I couldn’t call it anything special or exceptional, but I enjoyed it, especially for just under seven bucks.
The basil was milder than I would have liked, and since I got it with the organic wheat fusilli, the texture of the pesto was a little grainier than ideal. Of course, these were my decisions — I think opting for tortellini and sun-dried tomato would improve this sauce, and a creamy sauce would go better with the organic pasta. The rolls could handle less garlic, and a couple of the ingredients could be better, but most are a good step or three above fast food.
I don’t know whether Pastalini will become the franchise its owner envisions, but I can see why it’s looking good in Miramar. It’s decent, affordable pasta that sneaks in a few veggies if you let it.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Pasta your way
Sauces are most important here
Pasta your way
Sauces are most important here
Pesto with diced tomatoes and broccoli. You can choose two or three vegetables to add to each dish.
I wouldn’t imagine a little pasta restaurant in Miramar could be the start to a chain of restaurants, but it could happen. Pastalini is offering franchise opportunities.
The shop has been around eight years, and in that time a Linda Vista location has come and gone. But the theme is not a bad idea. Built on the fast-casual, assembly-line model pioneered by Chipotle burritos and replicated by countless others serving anything from liquid nitro ice cream to sushi burritos. Pastalini puts that focus on simpler fare: pasta.
Pastalini: the start of something big?
So, behind the glass sneeze guard of a cafeteria-like ordering line you’ll notice a grip of pastas ready to serve, long noodles from angel hair to spinach fettucini. There’s also gluten-free pasta, rigatoni, tortellini, and a couple of organic, whole-wheat corkscrew shapes.
Angel hair spaghetti bolognese with spinach and green olives. Be sure to ask for samples of the sauce, as there are a lot of choices.
Of course, the sauces are most important here, and there are enough decent ones that I’d encourage asking for samples. I enjoyed tastes of a creamy vodka sauce, a sweet bell peppery Romesco, and a slightly tangy pomegranate marinara. Any might have suited my appetite, but as they ran about six or seven bucks apiece I decided on two: beef bolognese and basil pesto.
You can choose two or three vegetables to add to the dish. Fresh tomato was a natural fit with the pesto, and while diced squash might have worked better I felt like broccoli would give me something healthy to chew on.
Bolognese shouldn’t need toppings, so I considered eating it as is. But green olives caught my attention, and again, for health, I added spinach. The woman who took the order offered to leave it fresh, but I opted to let it sauté in the small pan she used to heat up and merge the pastas and sauces. I didn’t add any additional meat to either dish, but I could have gone with sausage, meatballs, chicken, salmon, calamari, etc. for an extra two or three dollars.
While the spinach didn’t add much, I liked the green olives in the angel hair bolognese — it put a slight puttanesca spin on the dish. I couldn’t call it anything special or exceptional, but I enjoyed it, especially for just under seven bucks.
The basil was milder than I would have liked, and since I got it with the organic wheat fusilli, the texture of the pesto was a little grainier than ideal. Of course, these were my decisions — I think opting for tortellini and sun-dried tomato would improve this sauce, and a creamy sauce would go better with the organic pasta. The rolls could handle less garlic, and a couple of the ingredients could be better, but most are a good step or three above fast food.
I don’t know whether Pastalini will become the franchise its owner envisions, but I can see why it’s looking good in Miramar. It’s decent, affordable pasta that sneaks in a few veggies if you let it.
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